The Wizard of Oz (1925)

A full-length silent version that must have been a big production in its time, although taste and expectation have moved on a lot in three-quarters of a century. Oliver Hardy and Larry Semon are the film's actors best known nowadays.

The storyline is more faithful to Baum's original book than the more recent version of the film. However, the book was originally conceived as a sentimental and unstructured story to be told to a small child in more unsophisticated times, and this makes it less attractive for adults nowadays.

In a 1976 restored version, Jacqueline Lovell reads out the dialogue titles in a stilted voice with no feeling at all, and there is an awful music track to it, but there is at least one better dvd version.

Frederick Ko Vert [obviously an invented name] appears as a female dancer, the Phantom of the Basket, made up attractively.

HF June 2003

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