The Dreamer of Oz: The L. Frank Baum Story

The Dreamer of Oz: The L. Frank Baum Story is a 1990 American made-for-television biographical film starring John Ritter as Lyman Frank Baum, the author who wrote the 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and thirteen other Oz books. Also starring in it were Annette O'Toole as Baum's supportive wife, Maud, and Rue McClanahan as Baum's tough mother-in-law, Matilda Gage.

Plot
The film is told as a flashback from the point of view of L. Frank Baum's widow, Maud Gage Baum. On how her husband came to create The Wonderful Wizard of Oz while undergoing and eventually overcoming professional and personal failures.

It's 1939 and the classic MGM film The Wizard of Oz is about to premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. 78 year old Mrs. Baum has been invited to attend the premiere. Before she enters the theatre a young journalist recognizes her and asks if he may interview her. She politely agrees and begins to recount how she first met her husband. The story is interspersed with the famous Oz story, shown at certain points when Baum is writing down his ideas. It is shown that he was originally telling this to a group of kids, who asked him the name of this location, to which he looks at a file cabinet with the bottom drawer marked O-Z and decided "Oz". Another idea he had thought of was to say Dorothy was born in the Dakota Territory, only to scrap that sentence in favor of Kansas.

There is some literary license taken, especially in the completely-fabricated backstory regarding the creation of the character Dorothy. In truth, Dorothy Louise Gage died as a five-month-old infant, in Bloomington, Illinois. To console his wife on the loss of her beloved niece, Baum created an older girl, in the care of her Aunt Em, as the central character in the fantasy universe that became the Oz stories. "M" was the initial of Maud Baum's own first name, and there was no expansion of Em's name in the Oz books (though she was assumed to be "Emily" in the 1939 film).

However, in "Dreamer of Oz" she is portrayed as a young child (and played by 5-year-old Courtney Barilla], living in Dakota Territory. As she lay dying, Baum tells her that the central character in his stories was actually a girl named Dorothy.

Cast

 * John Ritter as L. Frank Baum
 * Annette O'Toole as Maud Gage Baum.
 * Rue McClanahan as Matilda Electa Joslyn Gage
 * Charles Haid as Al Badham / Cowardly Lion
 * David Schramm as W.W. Denslow
 * Nancy Lenehan as Harriet Alvena Baum Neal
 * Courtney Barilla as Dorothy Leslie Gage / Dorothy Gale
 * Nancy Morgan as Helen Leslie Gage
 * Jason Ritter as Harry Neal Baum
 * Pat Skipper as Charlie H. Gage
 * Ed Gale as Ned Brown / Farmer
 * Trevor Eyster as Frank Joslyn Baum (5–9 years) (as Tim Eyster)
 * Joshua Boyd as Frank Joslyn Baum (3 years)
 * Roger Steffens as Salesman (as Roger Steffans)
 * John Cameron Mitchell as Albert the Reporterher
 * Frank Hamilton as Sullivan
 * Steven Gilborn as George M. Hill
 * Jerry Maren as Mr. Munchkin
 * Elizabeth Barrington as Mrs. Munchkin
 * David Ellzey as Scarecrow
 * Derek Loughran as Tin Man (as Derek Loughram)
 * Christopher Pettiet as Teenage Frank Jr.
 * Ryan Todd as Robert Stanton Baum
 * Alexis Kirschner as Tweety Robbins
 * Paul Linke as Opie Read (uncredited)

Reception
In his TV Preview, Tom Shales of The Washington Post proclaimed the film "cheerfully satisfying", and praised the production values, but wasn't impressed with Ritter's performance. John J. O'Connor of The New York Times praised Ritter's performance and called the film "heartwarming". Howard Rosenberg of the Los Angeles Times dubbed it "long on mush and short on magic", but praised the recreations from the original stories.