Talk:The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1910 film)

13mis
it can't be 13 mins — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.238.222.130 (talk) 09:47, March 7, 2007 (UTC)


 * And why not?--Scottandrewhutchins (talk) 20:02, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
 * The first American feature film (other than documentaries like The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight) was The Squaw Man (Cecil B. DeMille, 1914), and this film siginificantly predates that. --Scottandrewhutchins (talk) 20:42, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Original Research
Unfortunately, the bulk of this article is WP:OR, much of it derived from discussions between me and Michael Patrick Hearn. Unfortunately, a lot of published material about this film is wrong. I've seen many sources that say that the film's plot is based on the 1902 musical. This is false in that The Wicked Witch of the West is not in the 1902 musical, but is a big part of the film. The film does draw elements from the play, but has many incidents from the novel that are not in that play. --Scottandrewhutchins (talk) 20:38, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Plot Summary
I'm confused. I just watched this movie, and the plot summary shown on this page doesn't match it.

For example, the summary mentions "Besty" (I assume it means Betsy Bobbin?) in the Kansas scenes, but I don't see any little girls other than Dorothy. Also, it says that at the end, the Wizard leaves in his balloon with Dorothy, but in the movie Dorothy doesn't get in the balloon with him and is still in Oz when the movie ends.

There are descriptions of things that don't happen, and it seems like someone was trying very hard to link this movie to the books. I see no way in which we can tell that the mule is supposed to be Hank, or that the cat is Eureka. (The cat seems to appear out of nowhere and isn't in the Kansas scene.)

Can someone explain where all this info came from? Olivix (talk) 18:36, 30 October 2013 (UTC)


 * It's more than two years later, but I can tell you. Yes, it's true that we don't know that the mule is named Hank, and the cat, Eureka. Betsy is the name of the cow from the play, and was included in the movie due to the play's popularity. E article is wrong about Dorothy leaving with the Wizard. Apparently, in this version, Dorothy chooses to stay in Oz. I will be fixing this article soon. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.108.119.217 (talk) 3:30, January 23, 2016 (UTC)

Mark Evan Swartz comments on cast
The "Cast" section includes the following passage:


 * There is no definitive proof who is in the cast, or who directed the film. Otis Turner may have directed the film, but Mark Evan Swartz points out[full citation needed] that it's highly unlikely that both Turner and Bebe Daniels worked on the film, as they were in different parts of the country at the time (Turner in Chicago, Daniels in California), and neither had a strong impetus for travel. Dorothy does resemble contemporary photos of Daniels, which would make Turner's direction improbable. Michael Patrick Hearn disputes this, and has found ample evidence that both were in California at the time. At any rate, that Baum knew of Turner is confirmed by his spoofery of an "Otis Werner" in his Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West, a fictional account inspired by his optimism as an independent filmmaker.

There is no citation for the purported Swartz statement (I placed the "[full citation needed]" marker about a month ago). Having looked at Swartz's discussion of the film in his book Oz Before the Rainbow, his statements there are inconsistent with this representation. While it's possible he changed his view over time and had something different published elsewhere, I'm going to revamp this section (edit: done here) to be consistent with the only published text I could locate.

If someone does have some published statements of Swartz to the contrary, please feel free to edit accordingly, with properly sourced citations, of course. TJRC (talk) 20:34, 6 November 2021 (UTC)