His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz

This was, of course, one of the early movies, and special effects were not an issue, for which we may be thankful in this day and age when many movies look more like video arcade games.

The plot is bizarre, to say the least. It borders between dream state and LSD trip. It would be interesting to know what early twentieth century audiences thought when they viewed this.

There a motley group of characters, and really, no one takes center stage all the time. People traipse aimlessly, meeting strange characters, and unique situations. Indeed, the wall of water would be a fresh idea as of the day of this critique.

There is a strange sexuality to this one. Super sexy witches dance around very sensually, and would be the envy of the scantily clad girls in today's movies. They are quite beautiful and striking. Again, audiences in this day must have been affected some way. It is too bad that the sexuality seems to be equated with witches, though. Sort of false advertising.

The music is probably too lame for today, and you may want to play your own while watching. Viewable mostly from an artistic perspective or in a social situation, and not as a sit down and watch movie.

AKA: His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz

In this dip into the Oz universe, is Princess Gloria, stuck in one of those classic situations, where the King wants her to marry the rich old guy, but she is in love with someone else. Meanwhile, another girl, named Dorothy, is captured and made a prisoner in the castle. Also, a scarecrow is put up in one of the local fields. To thwart the Princess' love for Pon, the King has the wicked witches (in really bad costumes), freeze her heart. The scarecrow comes to life and falls in love with Gloria. Since her heart is frozen, Gloria now wanders around like a unemotional zombie not caring at all. The evil witch Mombi beats all the hay out of the Scarecrow and he needs to be rescued by Dorothy and Pon.

The actor portraying the Scarecrow looks like he is a clown performer, in fact, the Scarecrow looks more like a clown than a scarecrow. Probably another reason why early audiences didn't like these films, bad costumes and make-up. After Gloria wanders off, the rest of the crew runs into the tin woodsman, who is in a much better costume then anyone else, even though parts of him look like they are about to fall off. Then he cuts off Mombi's head. Next up is the Cowardly Lion. Who actually looks kind of cool, but still a guy in a lion costume. They do attempt some effects in this film, such as the Scarecrow underwater. Not bad attempts for 1914.

As the film rolls along in its totally unorganized fashion, we also see another reason why audiences didn't react well to this film. They shot these films in the forests, streams and lakes that can be found just about anywhere. All they were giving the audience was people in bad costumes running around in someone's back yard, not visiting an enchanted world. This dizzying story, fraught with strange little dancing skits, doesn't give the audience of the day what they were looking for. This film was re-released after its initial run a second time as the New Wizard of Oz and it actually did better just because of a title change, because the Scarecrow is not a very exciting character in this film and that part gets lost by the time you get to the end. No wonder it did better. This kind of storytelling needed some more time for the artform of filmmaking to grow some more. It needed to wait until 1939.

4.4 (E- MyGrade) = 5 IMDB.

Baum's inept adaptation of a couple of his Oz books is a sad sight indeed. Shots are poorly framed, often excluding some of the actor's faces from view. The plot is moronic and the acting stale. The cast is much too large and he seems to throw in characters just to throw them in. The special effects are cheesy, especially when the Tin Woodsman chops off the Witch's head.

However, this silent film does feature an excellent performance by the man playing the Wizard and the young woman playing the Princess Ozma. There's a good, melodramatic concept, this young woman walking around with everyone left and right falling in love with her, and she being incapable of loving them back-- it makes for a good visual. But the rest of the film is just so incompetent that's it obscures its good points.

There are times when the rather unrefined nature of this Oz fantasy feature stands out, but any rough edges are smoothed out by the enjoyable and creative nature of the story and the characters. It's one of an unfortunately small number of Oz features made by L. Frank Baum's own production company, and it is easy to see his influence, in the way that the story and characters are brought to life with such energy and imagination.

The story of "His Majesty, The Scarecrow of Oz" includes several of the characters who are familiar from the much better known "The Wizard of Oz", plus some added characters, but it is a much different story, and pretty interesting in its own right. The cast all do a solid job with the characters, and the cast includes several performers who were regulars in the short-lived series. Fred Woodward also performs several of his costume animal characters.

The old-fashioned style would probably keep this and the other movies in the series from enjoying a wide popularity now, but it's of good quality for its era. The special effects are sometimes rough, but imaginative, and several of them come off pretty well. There are times when the editing seems pretty odd, but that could well be a result of physical defects that have occurred over time. The movie has its occasional flaws, but it was obviously made with care, good humor, and enthusiasm, and it is certainly worth seeing for silent movie fans.

His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz (1914) was a first time watch for me and while there is a lot to admire here, there's a lot that was very wonky.

Positives for His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz (1914): There is an interesting direction to go on with the Scarecrow as he was one of the main characters of the original group. It was fun seeing him interact with the Tin Man and the Lion again. And finally, the journey in this movie was a lot of fun.

Negatives for His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz (1914): While it was an interesting angle to take the story, the Scarecrow isn't really one of those characters who can carry movie as a main character. For me, he works better as a supporting main character. I also was a little bored by the story and it's not even that long.

Overall, I did have some fun with His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz (1914), there is a lot to be desired with the movie.