Oz the Great and the Powerful, In Theaters in 3D, This Weekend.

At first I thought movie might be one of  the  "further adventure" 13 sequel books that make up the Wizard of Oz canon. I have always wondered why  Hollywood with it's passion for  "proven" money making,tried and true sequels, hasn't taken a swing at  the Oz books. Maybe  they think titles like Tic Toc  of Oz  or Rinkitink in Oz  are  too corny for the modern era.

Oz the Great and the Powerful is intended to be a prequel  the first Oz Book, The Wizard of Oz. It tells the imagined story of how the  Wizard came to Oz. I have not seen the movie but if it is anything like what connected Oz creator L. Frank Baum with  Oz it should  be  spectacular.  Baum's passion for the flat lands  of the Midwest is interesting as are the many careers the author sampled.

 In an article entitled The Man Behind the Curtain, by Chris Schama, in the Smithsonian Magazine tells us....

"On a trip to visit his brother-in-law in South Dakota, Frank decided that real opportunity lay in the wind-swept, barren landscape of the Midwest. He moved his family to Aberdeen and started upon a new series of careers that would just barely keep the Baum family—there were several sons by this time—out of poverty. Over the next ten years, Frank would run a bazaar, start a baseball club, report for a frontier newspaper and buy dishware for a department store. At age 40, Frank finally threw himself into writing. In the spring of 1898, on scraps of ragged paper, the story of The Wizard of Oz took shape. When he was done with the manuscript, he framed the well-worn pencil stub he had used to write the story, anticipating that it had produced something great."

 You may read the complete article at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/Frank-Baum-the-Man-Behind-the-Curtain.html#ixzz2MLnWW4Gq 
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This writer is still working on  The Wonderful Wizard of Oz  at about page 14. The house has landed on the wicked witch of the of the west and Dorthy has just met the munchkins and a good witch from the North. The latter explains that good witches are North and South. Bad witches east and west. Dorthy says that  in Kansas there are no witches or for that matter wizards.  The good witch considers that for a moment before deciding Kansas must be very civilized because witches and wizards exist only in uncivilized lands like Oz.

The comes the scarecrow. Literally born yesterday. Good eyes, ears, and mouth lacking only a brain to put it all together. Go figure. That is why he too wants to see the Wizard.  A century ago some critics  saw parallels with  stomping on the Yellow Brick Road and the county's abandoning the gold standard. Go figure and  in  Oz  count a very good time at any age.