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.

"His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz" is the best of L. Frank Baum's Oz movies! The plot is easily understandable without being boring and the characters are wonderfully acted, given their limitations. The special effects are marvelous, and some of the better ones rival even the technical marvels of the 1939 Movie, particularly the hilarious undersea bit with the Scarecrow and a swordfish and a mermaid! Violet MacMillan is an absolute delight as Dorothy. Despite her charming looks and thoroughly enchanting demeanor, the girlish actress was generally confined to roles as frank boys in Baum's films. She brings a great sparkle to the role as Dorothy, however. Another standout - or group of standouts, rather - is Mombi's whole cohort of witches. Funny and spooky at the same time, it seems as if they may have been the greatest inspiration for the way in which MGM chose to portray the Witch of the West in their take on Baum's first history of Oz. Either way, this movie is a can't miss, which I give a solid 9, a rating I am more than glad to give!

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.

When you think of the land of Oz, you probably think of Toto, a tornado, ruby slippers, a yellow brick road and flying monkeys. But if you look back before the 1939 movie, you find something more eye-popping. There was a movie made in 1925 starring Oliver Hardy as the Tin Man; it was the sort of movie that makes you think "What in the name of anything holy were they smoking when they came up with this?". In fact, it contained no Munchkins or yellow brick road.

Go back even further and you find "His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz". This is an equally bizarre one. Although we have the Munchkins, Dorothy is a supporting character. The emphasis is on Princess Gloria of the Emerald City, whose autocratic father wants to marry her off to a buffoon while she has her eye on someone else. The wizard, scarecrow, tin man and lion have their roles in the story, while there are multiple witches. Yeah, this is some weird stuff. The movie will probably be of interest more as a historical reference, but it's impressive what they were able to pull off. Worth seeing.

One interesting piece of trivia is that Button-Bright is played by Mildred Harris, who later married Charlie Chaplin; Milla Jovovich played her in Richard Attenborough's "Chaplin".

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.