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 (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.

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.

When his daughter Princess Gloria refuses to marry the courtier Googly-Goo he selected for her because she's in love with the Gardener's Boy Pon, wicked King Krewl takes the Princess to the evil witch Mombi in hopes the witch can cast a spell and destroy his daughter's love for Pon, a boy he considers beneath her station. Well, the Wicked Witch does eventually succeed in freezing the Princess's heart to all potential suitors. In the meantime, the Gardener's Boy Pon having followed the King's trail to Mombi's hut meets and befriends Dorothy (Violet MacMillan), a little Kansas girl taken prisoner by Mombi, helping her escape. Eventually the two, in their continued effort to escape and elude the Wicked Witch, meet up with the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsman and eventually the Wizard of Oz. Together they try and devise a plan to deal with the Wicked Witch and remove King Krewl from power.

While it's truly fun to see so many of the most familiar Oz characters participating in a new story, this one feels all over the place it's so lacking in terms of good direction. In fact, this often feels as though they were deciding what was going to happen next as they were doing it. It's way too hard to keep track of all the different characters and there's way too many unnecessary sub-plots. The best and funniest scenes in this one tend to revolve around Old Mombi the Witch (as played by Mai Wells) and her continual pursuit of our heroes. How's she dealt with time and time again proves more and more creative each time around.