The Wizard of Oz
I'm currently reading The Wizard of Oz, one of those things I never got around to reading in childhood. Of course, like everybody, I'm familiar with the 1939 movie (there were several Oz movies from the silent era which are almost forgotten today, most of them adapting later material from the Oz mythos, or even departing radically from it).
I'd always heard that L. Frank Baum's book was quite different, but actually the movie is a much more faithful adaptation than I expected. Some episodes and backstory were cut, of course, particularly after the second, climactic meeting with the Wizard, which was wisely put nearer the end of the movie. The book is a bit creepier and more violent than the movie, which is itself a bit scary for kids-- yet there's an author's note in which Baum says that his intention was to write a less gory and disturbing tale than the usual Brothers Grimm fare. (And the moviemakers took out the part about how the Wizard likes to dress in drag.)
The most interesting thing to me is the Kansas frame-story, probably the thing that was changed the most for the movie. The movie added a lot of detail, including all the characters that parallel the Oz characters (therefore emphasizing the "dream" aspect of the movie), and implied that Kansas really wasn't that bad, but Dorothy wanted to run away anyway (so that she could have some character development in Oz, and also to provide an excuse for "Over the Rainbow").
Baum, on the other hand, pulls no punches: his Kansas is simply a dreary and unpleasant place, and Dorothy has no family or friends apart from Em, Henry, and Toto. Yet Dorothy never sees it as anything but home and entertains no thoughts of escape; there's no little "running away" adventure with Professor Marvel.
The biggest surprise to me: I'd heard rumors that the famous black-and-white/color switch in the movie was in some way accidental, the result of budgetary limitations or some sort of mistake. I don't believe it for a minute, because it's actually in the book! Baum describes Kansas as completely gray: the sky, the grass, even Aunt Em and Uncle Henry are worn to a uniform, dusty gray. Only Dorothy and Toto have any other colors at all. Were the movie made today, they'd probably do that overused digital trick in which one character is in color and everything else is black and white. As it is, simply filming the Kansas segments in black and white, then switching to color for Oz, is an ingenious way of bringing Baum's slightly magical-realist gray Kansas to the screen while maintaining some illusion of it being the real world. And since color film was a really big deal in 1939, used only for super-deluxe movies, it was a trick that probably couldn't have worked better in any other era.
I'd always heard that L. Frank Baum's book was quite different, but actually the movie is a much more faithful adaptation than I expected. Some episodes and backstory were cut, of course, particularly after the second, climactic meeting with the Wizard, which was wisely put nearer the end of the movie. The book is a bit creepier and more violent than the movie, which is itself a bit scary for kids-- yet there's an author's note in which Baum says that his intention was to write a less gory and disturbing tale than the usual Brothers Grimm fare. (And the moviemakers took out the part about how the Wizard likes to dress in drag.)
The most interesting thing to me is the Kansas frame-story, probably the thing that was changed the most for the movie. The movie added a lot of detail, including all the characters that parallel the Oz characters (therefore emphasizing the "dream" aspect of the movie), and implied that Kansas really wasn't that bad, but Dorothy wanted to run away anyway (so that she could have some character development in Oz, and also to provide an excuse for "Over the Rainbow").
Baum, on the other hand, pulls no punches: his Kansas is simply a dreary and unpleasant place, and Dorothy has no family or friends apart from Em, Henry, and Toto. Yet Dorothy never sees it as anything but home and entertains no thoughts of escape; there's no little "running away" adventure with Professor Marvel.
The biggest surprise to me: I'd heard rumors that the famous black-and-white/color switch in the movie was in some way accidental, the result of budgetary limitations or some sort of mistake. I don't believe it for a minute, because it's actually in the book! Baum describes Kansas as completely gray: the sky, the grass, even Aunt Em and Uncle Henry are worn to a uniform, dusty gray. Only Dorothy and Toto have any other colors at all. Were the movie made today, they'd probably do that overused digital trick in which one character is in color and everything else is black and white. As it is, simply filming the Kansas segments in black and white, then switching to color for Oz, is an ingenious way of bringing Baum's slightly magical-realist gray Kansas to the screen while maintaining some illusion of it being the real world. And since color film was a really big deal in 1939, used only for super-deluxe movies, it was a trick that probably couldn't have worked better in any other era.