Magnificent Photo-Extravaganzas of L. Frank Baum

[Joe Thompson]

Here is an ad from the 04-July-1914 Moving Picture World touting the Oz Film Manufacturing Company's first three productions, The Patchwork Girl of Oz, The Magic Cloak of Oz, and His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz.

The same issue carried a brief article about L Frank Baum and his company.

[s.w.a.c.]

I always wondered where his studio was. There's some sort of one-story office there now. According to Google, actor Sam Waterson has a production company based there.

From what I understand, the movie business practically bankrupted Baum, ensuring that he had to write an Oz book every year until his death, just to say financially secure. I wonder what became of The Last Egyptian?

[Christopher Jacobs]

From what I understand, the movie business practically bankrupted Baum, ensuring that he had to write an Oz book every year until his death, just to say financially secure. I wonder what became of The Last Egyptian?

I'd love for that film to be discovered and restored, although judging from the budgets and style of the other Baum films I don't have high hopes for it being anywhere near as interesting as the novel.

[syd]

The trailer for Oz, The Great and Powerful.

100 years hence, L. Frank Baum is still relevant
(even if distorted).

[missdupont]

The studio is near the entrance to Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

[JFK]

An earlier Oz film effort http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fairyl ... adio-Plays
by Baum and Francis Boggs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Boggs
and Otis Turner http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otis_Turner

The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays was an early attempt to bring L. Frank Baum's Oz books to the motion picture screen. It was a mixture of live actors, hand-tinted magic lantern slides, and film. Baum himself would appear as if he were giving a lecture, while he interacted with the characters (both on stage and on screen). Due to financial problems—the show cost more to make than sold-out houses could bring in—the show folded after two months of performances. It opened in Grand Rapids, Michigan on September 24, 1908. It later moved to New York City, where it reportedly closed December 16, 1908. It was scheduled to run through December 31, and ads for it continued to run in The New York Times until then.....
The production also included a full original score consisting of 27 cues by Nathaniel D. Mann http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_D._Mann who had previously set a couple of Baum's songs in The Wizard of Oz musical. It debuted four months before Camille Saint-Saëns's score for The Assassination of the Duke of Guise, and is therefore the earliest original film score to be documented.

Baum's slides from this show were offered via catalogue sale a few decades ago.

[odinthor]

[...]
From what I understand, the movie business practically bankrupted Baum, ensuring that he had to write an Oz book every year until his death, just to say financially secure. I wonder what became of The Last Egyptian?

You can see a good bit of it in Decasia.

[Joe Thompson]

I always wondered where his studio was.

"The new Plant of the Oz Film Company, conceded to be the most completely equipped and best appointed in California if not in America." The ad is from the 11-July-1914 edition of Moving Picture World. It includes an image of their studio, on "Santa Monica Boulevard from Gower to Lodi streets."

That Couderc is creepy-looking.

[Christopher Jacobs]

That Couderc is creepy-looking.

Perhaps more so now than then, thanks to CORALINE.

[Joe Thompson]

"We are just completing our first feature..."

This ad is from the 18-July-1914 edition of Moving Picture World. It states that their first feature, The Patchwork Girl of Oz, is just being completed and it invites feature exhibitors to "secure it at an early date." The handwriting is an interesting touch.

My New Year's resolution is to do more movie items on my blog. In addition to the monthly Oz Films ads, I'm adding things like this Tom Mix caricature from a 1926 Motion Picture Classic:
http://cablecarguy.blogspot.com/2013/01 ... -2013.html