L. Frank Baum, with the cast from Fairylogue.
Fairylogue and Radio-Plays was a multi-media Oz stage show created and presented by L. Frank Baum, to promote his first three Oz books plus John Dough and the Cherub.
History[]
The show staged in several locations from September 24th 1908 until December 16th, consisted of 23 filmed segments, magic-lantern slides, live actors, and a narration spoken by Baum himself. Baum dressed in a white suit when he presented the show; at the end he invited the children in the audience to meet Romola Remus, the 8-year-old actress who played Dorothy in the films. He also signed autographs and books in the lobbies of the theaters. The cast had an ensemble of around 30 members including Joseph Schrode who had played a couple roles in the 1902 stage show.
The films were produced by the Selig Polyscope Company in Chicago, then were hand-colored in Paris by Duval Freres. Baum stated that he had purchased the American rights to a film-coloring process developed by French artist Michel Radio. The "Radio" in the title refers to the man, not the broadcast medium that would follow later. Modern scholars have had trouble tracing Radio the man, and have questioned Baum's account though they cannot provide an alternative explanation for "Radio" in the show's title. The made up term "Fairylogue" was a play on the genre of Travelogues which showed viewers footage from destinations around the world. His eldest son Frank Joslyn Baum served as the projectionist during Fairylogue performances.
The first portion of the show, titled "The Land of Oz," was dominated by the silent-movie scenes from the first three Oz books; it ran through 14 scenes in an hour and ten minutes. During the intermission, slides from the then recent Oz book, Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, were projected. The second half of the program delivered an abridged version of John Dough and the Cherub with seven scenes in about forty minutes.
The show opened in Grand Rapids on 24th September 1908 to a warm reception, and proved a popular success. It toured through a dozen cities in the Midwest and New York State, including Chicago, St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Syracuse. The effects were widely praised, especially the scenes of Dorothy at sea in the chicken coop and John Dough's rocket flight. Many viewers and commentators erroneously believed that child actress Remus had been endangered while "filming" the shipwreck scene - not realizing that the scene was a trick of double exposure.
Income from ticket sales, though, never matched the expenses of production and transport. Baum was forced to close the show in New York City on 6 December 1908. Baum financed the show himself, paying for 114 slides to be made from John R. Neill drawings, and for 27 musical numbers by Nathaniel D. Mann performed by a live orchestra, among other costs. The debts that resulted would be the main cause of Baum's bankruptcy in 1911.
In lieu of payment of thousands of dollars owed them by Baum which was about $3,000 or $86,000 when adjusted for inflation, Selig acquired the rights to the films they had made for him, and released them as four separate one-reelers in 1910 which include the now lost The Land of Oz (1910) and Dorothy and the Scarecrow in Oz. These Fairylogue movies were the earliest filmed versions of Oz stories seen by the public but unfortunately no surviving prints are known to exist. The last recorded re-release of the footage was in 1925 through the company First National Pictures which later merged with Warner Brothers. The script and the slides for the show however have been preserved but are not widely available.
The known storylines are very loose with the source material as otherwise legal issues between 1913-1915 in which Selig was declared an illegal monopoly by the Supreme Court might have led Baum to create his own Oz Film Manufacturing Company in 1914 to produce more movies that could be feature length.
Francis Boggs and Otis Turner are credited as the directors of the Selig films with Boggs the Oz segments, and Turner with John Dough. Turner is also credited as providing help to Baum on the scenarios for the films, and two years later directed the 1910 Selig movie version of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
Cast[]
As listed in the order credited in the program:
- L. Frank Baum: The Wizard of Oz Man, who will present his very merry, whimsical and really wonderful Fairylogue and Radio-Plays
- Frank Burns: His Majesty the Scarecrow
- George E. Wilson: Nick Chopper, the Tin Woodman
- Wallace Illington: Tik-Tok, the Machine Man
A Colored Photo from the Film (The whole film was hand colored making it one of the earliest colored films
- Bronson Ward, Jr.: Jack Pumpkinhead, whose Brains are Seeds
- Paul de Dupont: The Nome King, a Master of Enchantments
- Will Morrison: Tip, a transformation, but a real boy
- Clarence Nearing: Prince Evring of Ev
- Sam 'Smiling' Jones: The Wizard (only a Humbug)
- Joseph Schrode: The Cowardly Lion
- Burns Wantling: The Hungry Tiger
- A yellow hen: Billina
- A dog: Toto, Dorothy's Dog
- D.W. Clapperton: Sir Rooster, Visitor at the Emerald City
- Charles W. Smith: The Khoikhoi Hottentot, Visitor at the Emerald City
- Daniel Heath: The Buccaneer, Visitor at the Emerald City
- Joe Finley: Hans Hoch, Visitor at the Emerald City
- Dudley Burton: A Courtier, Visitor at the Emerald City
- Samuel Woods: Madame Toussaud, Visitor at the Emerald City
- Romola Remus: Dorothy Gale of Kansas
- Maud Harrington: Princess Ozma of Oz
- Evelyn Judson: Glinda the Good, a Sorceress
- Josephine Brewster: Mombi the Witch
- Joseph Schrode: John Dough, the Gingerbread Man
- Geo. Weatherbee: Mons. Grogande, the Baker who made him
- Frank Burns: The Rubber Bear, a Good Natured Thing
- George E. Wilson: The White Rabbit, Diffident, but not Shy
- Tommy Dean: Obo, Mifket who likes Gingerbread
- Lillian Swartz: Hogo, Mifket who likes Gingerbread
- Minnie Brown: Joko, Mifket who likes Gingerbread
- Daniel Heath: Tertius, an Islander
- Tom Persons: Hopkins, of the Village Fireworks Committee
- Grace Elder: Chick the Cherub, an Incubator Baby
- Annabel Jephson: The Island Princess
- Mrs. Bostwick: Mme. Grogand, the Baker's Wife
Trivia[]
- Similar to the 1902 musical, the Wicked Witch of the West is omitted from the storyline.
- The speaking script for Baum's narration reused puns from the show
- A critic for the Chicago Record Herald noted that Frank Burns as Scarecrow gave "a faithful imitation of Fred Stone."
- A full film score was performed by a hired orchestra at each location with 27 cues. This had been written by Nathaniel D. Mann who wrote songs for the musical and is believed to have been the very first documented complete instrumental music accompany for a silent film.
- Near the beginning there was a special effect made to have the actors appear as if they were coming off of the book pages. Baum explained this was simply achieved by having them stand motionless beside a large replica of the book and stepped down with the camera being paused for the next one to take their place.
- Lantern slides created by E. Pollock (the chief scenic artist for Selig) remade pictures from the first book by W.W. Denslow using an art style similar to John R. Neill's.
- Romola Remus was paid $5 each day of filming.
- The earliest map of Oz created was a slide from the show.
References[]
- L. Frank Baum. The Annotated Wizard of Oz. Michael Patrick Hearn, ed. New York, W. W. Norton, 2000.
- Angelica Shirley Carpenter and Jean Shirley. L. Frank Baum: Royal Historian of Oz. Minneapolis, Lerner Publications, 1992.
- Andrew A. Erish. Col. William N. Selig, the Man Who Invented Hollywood. Austin, University of Texas Press, 2012.
- David L. Greene and Dick Martin. The Oz Scrapbook. New York, Random House, 1977.
- Katharine M. Rogers. L. Frank Baum, Creator of Oz: A Biography. New York, St. Martin's Press, 2002.