By the mid-1980s, top brass at Disney was faced with a dilemma. Do they continue to make just family movies or do they branch out and do what all the other movie studios have done and embraced the change that has been happening since the late 1960s? It didn’t help matters that many of their top animators left with Don Bluth who went on to make cartoons with a different tone. And Ralph Bakshi was showing everyone animated features weren’t just for kids.
When New Hollywood made bolder movies during the 1970s, their biggest gamble was the atrociously silly The Black Hole, which received the first PG rating for a live-action movie for the studio. Just a few years earlier, they had done a movie about a donkey kicking a football. And no matter how hard they tried, Kurt Russell’s Dexter Riley couldn’t stay in college forever.
The company had branched out getting Bette Davis for the thriller The Watcher in the Woods and a young unknown Michael J. Fox for Midnight Madness. However, there were still faults. Midnight Madness, involving college students, was still more akin to The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes rather than National Lampoon’s Animal House.
So, they created Touchstone Films, later rebranded as Touchstone Pictures to produce more adult content. But the adaptation of Something Wicked This Way Comes had set on the shelf for an entire year before it was released, most apparent by a reshoot scene where the kid characters have aged considerably.
Both Watcher and Wicked had bombed. The House of Mouse had put on its big boy pants, but it was going to take baby steps. And even going at it with a popular and beloved property like L. Frank Baum’s Oz books was going to prove the studio wrong once again.
With the second Wicked opening this weekend, 40 years ago, audiences were treated to another updated version. The 1939 version wasn’t the first to adapt Baum’s novel, but it set the gold standard that has made it hard to beat in the decades since. Disney had purchased the rights to Baum’s The Wonderful Land of Oz and Ozma of Oz in the 1950s in hopes of making their own movie, but that never happened.
But as time pressed on and the movie rights were set to expire, Walter Murch, who had worked with both George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola, approached them of the idea of doing an Oz adaptation.
The result is Return to Oz a mismatched attempt to continue the stories Baum wrote. While some people will argue that the movie is too dark, people don’t realize that Baum didn’t sugercoat his novels. His 1902 novel The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus dealt with whether or not the jolly old elf should live as an immortal or die. Dorothy Gale (Fairuza Baulk) is having problems sleeping six months after the events of The Wizard of Oz.
Uncle Henry (Matt Clark) and Auntie Em (Piper Laurie) are trying to rebuild the house that was destroyed. Em takes Dorothy to a sanatorium in a nearby town where Dr. J.B. Worley (Nicol Williamson) will help her insomnia along with Nurse Wilson (Jean Marsh) by administering electrotherapy. But another girl patient (Emma Ridley) helps Dorothy escape and Dorothy takes off from the building during the middle of a thunderstorm at night. She finds part of a chicken coop that she floats down stream.
Waking up, she finds herself in the Land of Oz. But things have changed. The Yellow Brick Road is barely visible from the vegetation growing up from underneath. The Emerald City is in ruins and terrorized by the Wheelers, a group of humanoids who have wheels at the end of all their limbs and they move hunched over. The Wheelers are the servants of the evil Princess Mombi who has various heads she uses. One of these is similar to Marsh’s Wilson.
Most of the other characters from the 1939 version are absent or rarely in the movie. The Tin Man has been turned to stone as well as the Cowardly Lion. There’s a metal man, Tik-Tok (voiced by Deep Roy) who fills in. Then there’s Jack Pumpkinhead, (voiced by Brian Henson who also operates the head). Dorothy also finds that one of their chickens, Billina (voiced by Denise Bryer), has made it to Oz with her. However, chickens are forbidden in Oz under the rule of The Nome King (also Williamson).
There’s a lot of great visuals and the use of stop-motion animation is impressive for the time. I also like the idea of The Deadly Desert, which turns anyone who comes in contact with it into sand. And you know if someone mentions it that it will be seen later on taking a victim or two.
Yet, this was probably very disturbing for a lot of people who went in expecting the Lollipop Guild and lots of singing and dancing. Yes, Margaret Hamilton was scary as the Wicked Witch of the West and her appearance on Sesame Street led to the episode being banned for decades. Hamilton was actually a very nice and lovely woman who became like a second mother to Judy Garland which was a good testament to her abilities as an actress.
The Wheelers are far more terrifying than the Flying Monkeys. And even though Disney’s aesthetic makes them more colorful with spiked red hair and goofy faces, they’re actually creepier. But when you take away all the terrifying images, this is actually a boring story. It lacks the fun and excitement of the 1939 original. Most of the scenes are set mostly inside rooms and caves that drag the pacing down.
Jack Pumpkinhead is kind of a TEMU substitute for Scarecrow. It’s also unsettling how he begins to call Dorothy “Mom.” Scarecrow does appear but it’s obviously a stunt man wearing a goofy mask where the expressionless face barely moves much.
Return to Oz had a budget of $28 million which is about three times that much in today’s dollars. Yet, it feels cheap and looks cheap at times.
I’m almost certain there was some issues involving rights as MGM had produced and distributed the 1939 version. Disney had to pay for the permission to use the ruby slippers. But all the life the actors who played Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion are gone with puppetry.
It also feels like this was a set-up for a sequel that never materialized when the movie made only about $11 million worldwide and divided critics. Baulk does a good role as Dorothy but it would forever have her typecast in these roles. Marsh and Williamson bring some class and style to their roles.
As of this posting, this is the only feature film Murch ever directed. He has mostly worked behind the scenes as an editor or in sound design and editing most of his career.
Yet the movie has gained a cult status over the years from those who appreciate it as keep the tone and style of Baum as well as showing that not all family movies have to be childish.
In years since this, there have been The Witches, James and the Giant Peach and Coraline, all which had darker elements. Maybe if the story was better, Return to Oz would’ve been better.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 