Although the obvious source for the 1939 MGM musical "The Wizard of Oz" was L. Frank Baum's children's book, the author reminds readers in this text that various stage and screen dramatizations of Baum's story preceded and influenced the 1939 film. Musical-comedy elements in the MGM film, extensive scenes with the Kansas farmhands, and even the ending in which Dorothy realizes that her visit to Oz was only a dream, all originated in stage or film versions rather than in the pages of Baum's book. This illustrated text contains rare photographs, film stills, sketches, theatre programmes and movie advertisements from the different productions. Piecing together the Chicago and Broadway stage productions (1902-3) from contemporary reviews, surviving script pages and published song lyrics, Mark Evan Swartz shows how Baum and his many collaborators worked to transform the book into a popular theatrical attraction - often requiring significant alterations to the original story. He documents how the show evolved during its tour of the US, changing songs or adding topical jokes to keep the production fresh.
Swartz makes clear that the popular stage musical influenced silent film depictions of Oz, including a multimedia show (1908), a one-reel short produced by Selig Studios (1910) and a full-length feature film (1925) that portrayed Dorothy as a flirtatious flapper and co-starred Oliver Hardy as the Tin Woodman. Comprehensive examinations of each production provide behind-the-scenes information, including: battles over the legal rights to Baum's stories and over the financial backing for each play or film; different strategies to market each production; set and costume designs; special effects (how to create a tornado on stage); box-office receipts; and reactions of audiences and newspaper critics. To offer a comparison of the different versions, Swartz also provides a full plot-synopsis of each production - including lyrics from the early musicals, some written by Baum himself. The book concludes with an examination of the famous MGM film, the first version of the story to locate Oz in a land "Somewhere over the Rainbow". Swartz argues that Baum created "the first truly American fairyland, using language and imagery that would be familiar to the ordinary American child".