The Wiz (1978)

To me, this movie is perfection.

People are voting emotionally.

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

The world is made up of numerous cultures. Of these civilizations, their followers do things differently from every other one. Some may have similarities while others bare no resemblance. When it comes to portraying these customs to a wider audience, it is of great relevance to include key parts that help define it as what people know it for today and why it is the way it is. So the best way to get a viewer's attention would be to adapt this sequence of events in some way that follows the same lines as other critically acclaimed works. The Wizard of Oz (1939) was phenomenally groundbreaking for its time and is considered to be one of the all time classic movies to see. So why not use this as the foundation for a similar movie but this time using somebody else's culture. For that idea alone, it's ingenious but that also requires a great understanding of the subject matter. Which, this film does mostly get right but doesn't fully take advantage of it the whole way either.The backbone of the screenplay, of which Joel Schumacher (known at the time for Sparkle (1976) and Car Wash (1976)) is unchanged for the majority of the time. Dorothy (Diana Ross) is caught in a tornado (a blizzard actually) in the middle of New York and is thrown into the land of Oz where she must find the wizard (Richard Pryor) to get home. Sidney Lumet (who'd later direct Prince of the City (1981) also directed the film. This is okay for some things but not for others. What's good about it is that fans of The Wizard of Oz (1939) can pick out the parallels to how the story plays out and see how creative the production got. The problems arise when the execution starts out promising and then ends up becoming just a routine as the running time continues on. It's difficult to say whether this was intentional or not but the best scene that seems to provide the most social commentary is the introduction of the scarecrow (Michael Jackson - in his debut entry). At the start, talking crows (who sound like the crows from Dumbo (1941) oddly enough) that remind him how significant he is hanging on the post and doing nothing surrounds the scarecrow. That alone is an analogy to the unfair "Jim Crow" laws that were pro-segregation – of how African Americans were forced to do nothing but be bullied by the "crow" laws. However as for the introductions to the Tin Man (Nipsey Russell) and Lion (Ted Ross), the social subtext behind them doesn't feel visible. If it is there, it was a deeply hidden message I guess. Joel Schumacher is actually a good choice for penning the script considering Sparkle (1976) and Car Wash (1976) had predominantly African American cast members and were significant for their time. Aside from the incomplete writing, which was supposed to have an African American undercurrent, everything else was fine performance wise. Diana Ross as Dorothy is sweet, brave and caring. Michael Jackson (who is almost unrecognizable in his makeup) as the scarecrow is goofy, innocent and for a guy who's known for his footwork shows that he can look like he hasn't walked a day in his life. Nipsey Russell as the Tin Man is the soul of the group providing much of the needed energy to quite side of the bunch. Ted Ross as the Lion, who perhaps hams it up a little too much sometimes, is still funny with his cowardice personality.All the visual elements work nicely with each other. The cinematography provided by Oswald Morris (The Man With the Golden Gun (1974)), which would be his 4th to last work expertly caught shots that had grand matte paintings and other physical set pieces. Even the special/practical effects were very convincing. The dancing also was well choreographed and staged by Louis Johnson who was nominated for a Broadway's 1970 Tony Award. Plus, the dance sequences were a no 3-4 member group count. This was wide scale, 1000 of extras on board all performing the same movement together in unison. That takes skill. As for music, the film features a soundtrack and score, both composed by Charlie Smalls who would unfortunately pass away a decade later. Here, Smalls uses a lot the 1970s style instruments used in song making at the time. That means including synthesizers, electric piano and lots bongo drums. The soundtrack is a different story.The songs, which were also drawn up by Smalls, has a number of catchy themes. Cues like Dorothy's "Is This What Feeling Gets?" (which is the main theme), "Ease On Down the Road", "You Can't Win, You Can't Break Even" and "Don't Nobody Bring Me No Bad News" are only a bunch of jazz/R&B/soul songs that come to mind because a number of the tunes play will get the legs moving. For these songs, the actors sing them and 95% of the emotions feel real especially for Diana Ross; you can tell she's singing that. It's difficult not to get a little choked up. However there are a couple of exceptions. For example, Ted Ross seems to have someone covering for him because he can't seem to look authentic covering the singer's lines. The only problem to bring up was the use of unexplained characters. There's a homeless guy running around the film who apparently becomes a threat later on but for no real reason or motivation (that is given). It doesn't make much sense, but that's it.The social undercurrent in its writing works at first but then is completely dropped. That and one character in the movie has no real importance and some lip synching isn't all that convincing. Yet, the movie is mostly made up with decent effects, a lively main cast, great looking choreography, cinematography and catchy music.

What a supreme act of hubris this idea turned out to be. A modern day Black Wizard of Oz shot in the hood ( mostly warehouses and mall parking lots ) with a Dorothy ( Diana Ross) in her mid 30s and with distinguished Gotham director Sidney Lumet at the helm the concept had an edge but the follow through is a complete swing and a miss. Shy and withdrawn Harlem denizen Dorothy rushes out into a snowstorm looking for her dog and soon finds herself disoriented and no longer in The Big Apple or Kansas but a series of drab caverness warehouses and parking lots paralleling the Judy Garland scenario played out every year on television, making new friends and heading for the Emerald City in search of The Wiz. It is one bad trip. With its superstar line-up of Ross, Richard Pryor and Michael Jackson one might think it impossible a musical comedy would be totally drained of any entertainment value but The Wiz surely is. Ross puts the final nail in her movie career (the first being Mahogony) as she screeches and squeals through her performance of an adult playing an adult as a child. Pryor brings nothing special to the dithering role of The Wiz while Jackson on the verge of super stardom is only allowed brief glimpses to display it. Lumet for his part seems content to haphazardly film huge chorus scenes under bad lighting to unmemorable music while putting the flying monkeys on motorcycles to harass Dorothy and pals in empty parking garages. His attention to keeping it real simply zaps the film of its joy and replaces it with an unrelenting shrillness from end to end. The Wiz is an unmitigated disaster. Considering the talent behind it, as failed a musical as you could ask for.

There are some moments in the movie version of "The Wiz" that are truly magical, but the truth of the matter is that it was not a wise idea to make Dorothy a 30-something Harlem school-teacher who is swept away during a snowstorm (along with her dog Toto) and taken to the Land of Oz where the entire city of New York is transformed into her own nightmare as an analogy of her pathetic life. That is a betrayal of L. Frank Baum's original novel and to the musical version where Stephanie Mills' Dorothy was still a little girl and things that scared her about her city were used to make her learn to be unafraid. Ego and pretentiousness became abundantly clear in a film that lead its leading lady to a film career stand-still and helped to kill the movie musical for the second time in a decade.Fairly recent box office flops and disasters at that time like "Paint Your Wagon", "Hello, Dolly!" and "Man of LaMancha" had made producers truly afraid of making movie musicals, but they had begun to creep out as the 1970's wrapped up. "Grease" was a box-office triumph; "Hair" took on a cult following, and the cast of "The Pirates of Penzance" would turn their surprise hit into a cheery film that may have come and gone at the time, but is a faithful rendition. For each of those (and the wonderful "Little Shop of Horrors") came "The Wiz", "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas", a misguided "Annie" and a poorly directed "A Chorus Line" that would pretty much end the Broadway musical on film craze until years later when "Evita", "Chicago" and "Dreamgirls" came along to bring it to what we have today.In the case of "The Wiz", there is an amazing talent behind the scenes, and certainly seeing a subway station come to life, the lion of the New York Public Library break out of its concrete cage, and various bridges and sky-scrapers utilized for the setting of Oz. Diana Ross maybe miscast, but oh, she can sing, and her dancing is credible as well. Toss in her Motown pal Michael Jackson as the Scarecrow (just beginning to break in as an adult performer) and you see the start of his successful music video career. Nipsey Russell is the shining star of Dorothy's pals, his Tin-Man very funny as he sings "Slide Some Oil to Me". Ted Ross gets to repeat the role of the lion with proper gusto, and he spoofs the characterization of rough and tough city folk who in real life are either cowards or pussy-cats.Lena Horne is a glamorous Glinda, her "Believe in Yourself" the triumph of the film, showing her to still be beautiful and a strong performer years after barely making waves at MGM. Mabel King is an imperious Evilene, her "No Bad News" a true show-stopper. "Brand New Day" tends to go on a bit too long, however, and leads to the confrontation with the titled Wiz, played with comical poppycock by Richard Pryor who seemed to be maligned at the time but actually brings back the spirit of the book's character. Theresa Merritt as Dorothy's Aunt and Thelma Carpenter as Miss One ("Witch of the South") also add spark, with Carpenter really making me crack up about the dead Witch of the East "She put the Ug in Ugly".So while it is easy to dismiss this as a flop of its time (and there are justified reasons to do so), there's a lot to love. I used to refer to this as "Cheese Wiz", but to look back at it and see the art inside it and what is good, I can truly rate this a bit higher than I did in my mid adult years, yet not as high as I did when I first saw this in the theater as a teenager.

This is one heck of an underrated movie. It has sadly been raped by critics, anime fans, and racists. I love this movie and is not as bad as you may think. It has one of the best music scores of all time. It ending is very emotional. When You Believe is one of the most emotional songs ever. Michael Jackson's performance is one of the best. This "Diana Ross was too old to play Dorothy" is totally false. This was the way it was intended. It was intended for Dorothy to be a 24 year old teacher. This movie is just as good as the Judy Garland's Wizard of Oz and the Broadway play and It was not a commercial flop, that is just false information from your mind. This movie is not a flop and will be remembered and acclaimed in the future. I highly recomendded it