Critics panned The Wiz upon its October 1978 release. Many reviewers directed their criticism at Diana Ross, whom they believed was too old to play Dorothy. Most agreed that what had worked so successfully on stage simply did not translate well to the screen.
The film was not well-received by critics. Many critics found the film to be too different from the original Wizard of Oz, and criticized the casting of Diana Ross as Dorothy. The film was expensive to make. The Wiz had a budget of $24 million, which was a lot of money for a film at the time.
Prior to its debut and certainly much after, The Wiz was criticized for having an all black cast. It was deemed racists by majority of the white audience.
Many white folks didn't understand the cultural nuances, the Black language, or the stylistic choices, and many didn't try. Mainstream critics—most of them white men—were eager to dismiss The Wiz as an inferior movie product, a bad Hollywood investment, and an intrusion on the original film.
And the movie was rated G. Evillene, the Wicked Witch of the West, is depicted in this film as The Grotesque, with Uncanny Valley Makeup that makes her look like some sort of hideous human-sized porcelain doll. Another creepy factor comes in the moment when she tries to take Dorothy's slippers.
The Tin Woodman states unequivocally that he has neither heart nor brain, but cares nothing for the loss of his brain. Near the end of the novel, Glinda the Good Witch praises his brain as not quite that of the Scarecrow's.
The Wiz's metaphors exist beyond an examination of character traits. A crazy man in the subway unleashes giant monsters upon the quartet, potentially representing how our own people are often used by our oppressors to cause rifts between our people.
Critics panned The Wiz upon its October 1978 release. Many reviewers directed their criticism at Diana Ross, whom they believed was too old to play Dorothy. Most agreed that what had worked so successfully on stage simply did not translate well to the screen.
Original director John Badham stepped down when he objected to 33-year-old Diana Ross being cast as a teenage Dorothy. The character was changed to a 24-year-old kindergarten teacher, but by then Sidney Lumet had already replaced Badham.
She embarks on a quest to find The Wiz to help her get home to New York City. Along the way she befriends the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion who join her in her quest.
Both the film and stage productions of The Wiz have one common theme – they highlight the perseverance of Black people in adversity and they're a rallying call for racial liberation. Aside from the contextual underpinnings of the plot, The Wiz stands out for its take and celebration of African dressing and hairstyles.
The Wiz debuted on Broadway in 1975 and was as much a part of the “Black is beautiful” social movement as it was a part of the Afrofuturism art movement. According to Womack, The Wiz presents many Afrofuturist themes: Mysticism. Liberation.
The Cowardly Lion is a major character in The Wiz. The late Ted Ross portrayed him in both the play and movie. He was banished from the jungle for being a coward and joins Dorothy and her friends to get courage from The Wiz.
Margaret Hamilton — who played the Wicked Witch of the West- experienced two serious harmful incidents during her time on set. During her iconic first scene, which shows her having a fiery exit from Munchkinland, Hamilton suffered a second-degree burn on her face and a third-degree burn on her hand.
Theodore Ross Roberts (June 30, 1934 – September 3, 2002) was an American actor best known for his role as the Lion in The Wiz, an all-African American reinterpretation of The Wizard of Oz.
When Judy Garland was cast in the role of Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz, she was not their first choice. Producers Arthur Freed and Mervyn LeRoy indeed wanted her cast from the beginning, but the studio chief wanted Shirley Temple from 20th Century Fox.
However, she has been married twice, first to music executive and businessman Robert Ellis Silberstein, the father of her daughters Tracee and Chudney, and second to billionaire shipping magnate Arne Naess Jr., the father of her two sons Ross and Evan.
In the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy was played by Judy Garland, who received an Academy Juvenile Award for her performance. Since she was sixteen years old at the time of filming, Garland's maturing figure was bound into a figure-hiding corset.
Instead The Wiz became a legendary box-office bomb. With a then-extraordinary budget of $24 million — a LIFE magazine headline called it the “Most Expensive Musical Ever” — it grossed $21 million at theatres in the U.S. and Canada.
“She evokes pity and sorrow like no other superstar.” Her best known role was that of Dorothy, at 17, in the 1939 film “The Wizard of Oz” — in which she sang the song which became her trademark: “Over the Rainbow.”
The peddler, (who was a homeless man) was a slave for Evilene. He appeared in the film often because he was told by Evilene to follow them until they got to the subway, where he would then unleash the evil puppets, and that's all you will find anywhere about the purpose of the peddler in that movie.
The idea for The Wiz started with Ken Harper. After a stint in the Army stationed in Korea and working as a DJ for Armed Forces radio, he found similar employment at radio station WPIX in New York City after his service. He stayed there a decade, where he eventually became its Music and Public Affairs Director.
Glinda is a fictional character created by L. Frank Baum for his Oz novels. She first appears in Baum's 1900 children's classic The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and is the most powerful sorceress in the Land of Oz, ruler of the Quadling Country South of the Emerald City, and protector of Princess Ozma.
