Dreams Are What Le Cinema Is For: The Wiz - 1978

THE WIZ 1978lecinemadreams.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-wiz-1978.html

Conversation between Motown head honcho Berry Gordy and Universal Studios in regard to the already eight-months-into-preproduction film adaptation of The Wiz:Gordy -“I just got awakened by a call from Diana (Ross) who wants to play Dorothy in 'The Wiz'! She had a dreamthat she played the part and the film was one of the biggest smash hits of all time!” "TheWiz Scrapbook" by Richard J. Anobile

And thus began one of the most divisively controversial casting decisions since Jack Warner threw Julie Andrewsover for Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady.

OK, whose turn is it to be the big screen's next Dorothy?

The Wiz is based on the 1975 Broadway musical that is itself a very '70s, funkified, all African-American reimaginingof Frank L. Baum's children's book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz , published in 1900. The story of the little Kansasfarmgirl who gets whisked away by a tornado and learns the value of home and family through the help of charactersshe meets in the mythical land of Oz, is a tale as well-known and beloved as Alice in Wonderland. The Wiz, whichhews closely to Baum's book (silver slippers, not ruby) was created at the height of the '70s Black Pride revolution infashion, music, film, and art. The Broadway production (then billed as The Wiz: The Super Soul Musical "TheWonderful Wizard of Oz") was an attempt on the part of Charlie Smalls (music) and William F. Brown (book) tocreate a modern children's fantasy familiar enough to encourage crossover appeal, yet reflective of contemporaryblack culture. The score is full of songs influenced by funk, soul, and gospel, and the book is peppered with comicdialog derived from '70s slang idioms. Thanks to the creative contributions of director/costume designer GeoffreyHolder and the powerhouse vocals of 17-year-old Stephanie Mills as Dorothy, The Wiz proved a great success andwent on to win seven Tony Awards that year, including Best Musical.

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Diana Ross as Dorothy

Michael Jackson as The Scarecrow

Lena Horne as Glinda

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Richard Pryor as The Wiz

Nipsey Russell as The Tin Man

Ted Ross as The Cowardly Lion

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Mabel King as Evillene

Theresa Merritt as Aunt Em

When it was learned that Motown and Universal Studios were to collaborate on a film version of The Wiz,speculative casting buzz centered around Stephanie Mills reprising her Broadway role, and Motown Golden GirlDiana Ross being cast as the glamorous Glinda the Good. Of course, all that changed with Diana's fateful dreamand the subsequent early-morning call to Berry Gordy.

Disregarding the very real possibility that Miss Ross’dream could just as well have been a nightmare, the powersthat be behind The Wiz—a film that stood the chance of being one of the most expensive musicals ever made—abandoned plans to conduct a nationwide talent hunt for an unknown Dorothy and went with what then must haveseemed a smart business move: casting an internationally famous, Oscar-nominated singer/actress with marqueevalue and mainstream appeal—wrong for the part, but willing—instead of a talented, age-appropriate unknown.Thus, swayed by variables ranging from the capricious (Diana wanted it, dammit!) to the practical (Ross'participation most assuredly contributed to the acquisition of other notables, like pal Michael Jackson and LadySings The Blues co-star, Richard Pryor), The Wiz was launched with considerable fanfare and star-power, butalso amid a flurry of boxoffice-crippling negative publicity.

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Although I find short hair and no-makeup to be one of my favorite looks for DianaRoss, empty

theaters across the country indicated fans preferred their Ross glammed out andMahogany-ized.

The mounting of a large-scale film adaptation of The Wiz was already a sizable professional gamble (not only wasthe public touchy about anyone challenging the memory of a film as beloved as The Wizard of Oz , but there had notyet been any kind of boxoffice precedent for such a big-budget film with an entirely African-American cast), agamble not entirely helped by the almost unanimously unpopular announcement that the, shall we say, “mature”Diana Ross would be playing Dorothy; a character whose age is unspecified in Baum’s books (a fact Ross wasquick to point out at every opportunity), but whom even the most imaginative of readers were unlikely to haveenvisioned as a fully-grown woman.

One wonders how things might have turned out for The Wiz and indeed, Diana Ross' feature film career (it came toan abrupt halt with The Wiz) had Ross campaigned for the role of Glinda. As it now stood, the head-scratching incongruity of her casting and all the changes it precipitated (Dorothy was now a 24-year-old Harlemschool teacher with a doozy of a social anxiety disorder, living in a brownstone with her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry)fueled the public's already strong perception of Ross as an ego-driven diva. A negative advance buzz thatovershadowing everything else about the film in its initial stages. It was virtually all anyone could talk about whenthe subject of The Wiz was brought up. The news set off a veritable tornado of outraged cries of ruinous miscastingthe likes of which we wouldn't hear again until 1990 when perennial daddy’s darling Sofia Coppola plodded throughthe waters of casting nepotism and single-handedly sunk The Godfather Part III.

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The casting of 33-year-old Diana Ross proved an insurmountable hurdle formany viewers, blinding them to The Wiz's many delightfully witty design

concepts. Here, Dorthy and pals dance atop charmingly bulbous Oz Taxicabs infront of a surreal rendering of the Cowardly Lion's home, The New York PublicLibrary. The cabs, in satiric commentary on an all-too-familiar urban reality, are

always off-duty when the black characters try to hail them. The Yellow Brick Roadtraffic signals flash "Ease" or "Don't Ease" for pedestrians.

When Diana Ross was brought into The Wiz the film's original director, John Badham (Saturday Night Fever), took apowder. Scrambling for a replacement, the studio settled on Sidney Lumet (known in the industry as Mr. Finish-it-on-time-and-under-budget) in spite of his inexperience with the musical genre. It's a perverse Hollywood traditionthat an industry famously averse to risk-taking ONLY seems to take chances when it comes placing directorsunfamiliar with a genre at the helm of multi-million-dollar productions (cue: John Huston and 1982s Annie)

Then-screenwriter Joel Schumacher (Sparkle, Car Wash), later hack-director (Batman and Robin), jettisoned theentire Kansas-to-Oz elements of the play and, at Lumet's suggestion, fashioned the film into an urban fantasy withan Oz resembling a surreal, fever-dream vision of New York. Schumacher, who, like Diana Ross, was a proponentof EST (Erhard Standard Training - the self-help teachings of Werner Erhard which were popular at the time), alsoinserted tons of Me-Generation proselytizing into the script and supplanted The Wiz's simple themes of "There's noplace like home" with a great deal of the "You'll find it within yourself" navel-gazing of the '70s Human PotentialMovement.

The Yellow Brick Road leading to the Emerald CityTony Walton's Oscar nominated production design and costume concepts are

the real stars of The Wiz

The relative haste with which The Wiz was fashioned perhaps explains why a film of this magnitude contains so

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many errors of editing, dubbing, and "We don't have time for a retake!" awkwardness. As with many films, it wasgiven a release date before even a foot of film was shot. Slated as a summer 1978 release, the date was latermoved to the fall due to issues of weather, union strikes and Ross burning her retinas staring into the white beams ofThe Wiz's eyes. Critics were quick to call attention to shots of a buckled yellow brick road, sweat stains under MissRoss' almost perpetually upraised arms, poor lip-syncing by the Cowardly Lion, and surprisingly cheesy-lookingspecial effects for a film that cost a whopping $24 million (Dorothy's mannequin-stiff entrance into Munchkin landand Glinda the Good's graceless"floating" were popular targets). However, almost unanimous praise was affordedthe brilliant production design and costumes by Tony Walton (Mary Poppins, The Boy Friend).

Dorothy Learns the Value of FriendshipIn another of the film's witty, New York design concepts, the Yellow Brick Road

leads to a subway entrance where a sign directs passengers to "Get Down"

I first saw the theatrical production of The Wiz in 1976 when the touring company of the Broadway show playedin San Francisco. Renee Harris was taking over for Stephanie Mills and I remember it being a spectacularproduction. Among the first in my experience to have that hyper-amplified sound so common in Broadway musicalstoday. My single strongest memory of the show is the fabulous staging of the tornado whisking Dorothy and herfarmhouse away to Oz: The tornado itself was embodied by a beautiful, leggy dancer sporting a scarf headdressthat billowed behind her, far beyond the wings of the stage. She danced seductively around the farmhouse,ultimately (and provocatively) straddling its roof. As the house began to rotate on a turntable, the ever-elongatingscarf wound itself around and around the entire structure until it completely enfolded the house in the fabric. It wasmind-blowing!

In the movie version of The Wiz, Glinda the Good is something of a supernaturallife-coach. Here she creates the tornado that will blow the house-bound Dorothy

out of Harlem into a vision of New York unlike anything I'd ever seen.

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By the time the film version was released in October of 1978, I was living in Los Angeles and any initial trepidation Imay have had about Diana Ross' casting had long been absorbed by all the exciting hype surrounding thefilm. Michael Jackson's film debut! Quincy Jones arranging the music! Lena Horne returning to the screen for thefirst time in almost ten years! From Richard Pryor landing the role of The Wiz, to the behind-the-scenes talents ofTony Walton and Albert Whitlock (the latter, visual effects artist for The Birds, Earthquake, Day of the Locust); itseemed as though all the top talents in Hollywood were working on this musical. Once the colorful billboards andposters began appearing around town (tagline: The Wiz! the Stars! The Music! Wow!) and the Ross/Jackson duetsingle of "Ease on Down The Road" was in heavy rotation on playing on the radio...well, I was gone. Everythingsurrounding the promotion of the film looked so fantastic that I convinced myself the final film was going to besomething so stupendous, it would make us all eat our words at ever doubting the wisdom of castingsuperstar Diana Ross.

If there was any single image that sold me on the film version of The Wiz, it wasthis. An Oz comprised of multiple Chrysler buildings with a Coney Island rollercoaster in the distance. Outrageously clever! I figured any film with this kind of

imagination couldn't be all bad.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILMAs I mentioned in a previous post, the one way to get both the best experience of a movie yet at the same time theleast reliable impression of how that film will perform at the boxoffice, is to see it on opening night. The Wiz openedat the famed Cinerama Dome theater in Hollywood. The Dome itself was bathed in yellow light, as were thedecorative fountains out front. The only thing missing was a literal Yellow Brick Road. Lines stretched around theparking lot and the sold-out opening night audience was primed for an "experience." And that's what they got. Thecrowd ate the film up. Laughter drowned out dialog, special effects and sets drew gasps of approval, and theconclusion of every number was met with rounds of applause.The audience was especially responsive to Diana Ross' vocal performance (which, no matter what one thinks of heracting, is pretty phenomenal here). Seriously, Ross was never known as a belter or even considered particularlysoulful...not in the Aretha Franklin vein, anyway...yet in The Wiz she displayed a versatility and range that hadaudience members literally screaming! By the time her soul-searing rendition of "Home" ended, some members ofthe audience were acting as though they were at a live concert. It was all very heady and a major goosebumpexperience for me, especially the dancing. Ah! Such dancing! Were The Wiz edited down exclusively to its dancesequences, that alone would be enough for me. Needless to say I was absolutely thrilled by The Wiz and waspositive that the film was going to be a big, big hit. Of course I was dead wrong.

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The cast of The Wiz reacts to early reviews

The newspaper critics savaged virtually everything about The Wiz, all uniting in agreement over Diana Ross' adultDorothy being a severe liability no amount of movie magic could surmount. The public even chimed in, complainingof the film being too dark (if cinematographer Gordon Willis ever shot a musical, it would look like The Wiz), tooscary, too preachy, or just too somber in tone. Grease (a film I absolutely abhorred, by the way) emerged the bigmusical blockbuster of 1978, and The Wiz, much like the misguided reworking of the film's title character, prettymuch slumped away in ignominious defeat.

PERFORMANCESI like Diana Ross a great deal. Indeed, I get teased a lot by my partner due to my baseless belief that she can't beas bad as her diva reputation attests, because she has such kind-looking eyes (I also think Faye Dunaway has kindeyes...so maybe my partner has a point). I find Diana Ross very likable in The Wiz but I'm the first to say that shereally needed to turn it down a notch. Her idea of conveying Dorothy's shyness is to approach the role as though shewere portraying Laura in The Glass Menagerie...with all of the attendant ponderousness. She's far too high-strungand neurotic from the start. By the time she reaches Oz you almost expect her head to fly off, she's so unwound.

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No one can say Diana Ross didn't throw herself into the roleThe rousing production number Brand New Day is one of my favorites...for any

number of reasons.

That being said, I think Ross is rather appealingly game throughout the film, throwing herself into the strenuousdancing and singing in a way I can't help but admire. She's in the finest voice she's ever been, and while I get a littleworn down by her personality towards the end (she's a tad harsh on Richard Pryor), I have to say her grown-upDorothy has never bothered me as much as it has others. A friend of mine once made the astute observation thatwhen The Wiz came out, the concept of a grown-up unable to leave home was such an anomaly, with audiencesbalking at what they considered to be the obvious contrivance of her character. Today, with what we know aboutsocial anxiety and the phenomenon of "Boomerang Kids" who stay under their parents' roof well into adulthood; TheWiz seems almost ahead of its time.

The Great and Powerful Oz

THE STUFF OF DREAMSIf my blog has any objective at all (which it doesn't, but I'm trying to make a point) it's to promote my firm contentionthat "good" movies are not always the ones we most enjoy, and that a film's boxoffice success or failure hasabsolutely no bearing on its actual quality or value as entertainment. For example: Variety's list of the 100 highest-grossing films of all time reads very much like an "avoid at all cost" inventory of my least favorite movies. Whereasthe films that bottom out in the "flop" category (Day of the Locust, 3 Women, Two for the Road) are among thosethat have meant the most to me.

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The great Quincy Jones makes a cameo as one of the fashion-conscious citizensof The Emerald City

The Wiz is in many ways a mess. There is little time devoted to character; it seems over-infatuated with scale overemotion; some script choices are seriously ill-advised (by this point, the cinematic de-fanging of irreverent comicRichard Pryor had come to border on the tragic); it doesn't seem quite fair to the legendary Lena Horne to haveDiana Ross have first crack at her only song; and finally, it's much too long.But I swear, there is something about The Wiz that has the power to lighten my heart every time I watch it. It'scertainly full of spectacle and eye-popping visuals, it has moments when it's lighthearted and fun, and there is nolack of energy and style in the thrilling musical numbers. Michael Jackson, Nipsey Russell, and Ted Ross providerefreshing contrast to Diana Ross' twitchy over-emoting (which reminds me of Joan Crawford's exhaustiveearnestness), but even that is mitigated by her peerless singing, which is the finest part of her performance. Herrendition of "Home" forgives all transgressions.

The Emerald City sequence, filmed in the Plaza of the World Trade Center Towers

I've always loved the show's score, and Quincy Jones' arrangements are very good. But in the end I always comeback to Tony Walton's designs for the look of The Wiz as being one of the most enduring pleasures of the film for me.I keep noticing new details in the costuming and sets each tme I revisit it. The Wiz's whimsical take on a grungyNew York City may not be to everyone's liking, but it is the single most cohesive thematic thread in a film that attimes feels as though it were created by a hydra. Envisioning and constructing a complete fantasy world on filmcan't be easy, but Walton's contributions (he was Oscar nominated for his efforts) meet and even exceed thepotential The Wiz had for being one of the great musicals of the 70s.

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The New York State Pavilion of the 1964 World's Fair was transformedinto Graffiti City for Dorothy's arrival in Munchkin Land

The Emerald City

In a world where three Transformers films and three Twilight films rank among the highest-grossing movies of alltime, you'll never convince me that audiences avoid films simply because they're "bad" or even "inept." Many factorsplay into why a movie flops, some of them having nothing to do with what's happening up there on the screen,others having to do with our culture. Hollywood doesn't have the most stellar record when it comes to highlightingand showcasing black talent, and America movie audiences STILL have a long way to go toward accepting filmswith African-Americans in principal roles. The Wiz isn't perfect, but there's no doubt in my mind that large segmentsof the populace never really gave it a chance from the getgo.

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Escapism PoliticizedHollywood films are predominately about the white experience. Unless politicizedor shunted to the background, the depiction of black life on the big screen is still

all too rare.

In a strange way, The Wiz is one of those movies I think many people wanted to like, but the film kept thwarting theviewer's good will. Diana Ross' Dorothy is a tough nut to crack. Ross' one-note performance never engages ourhearts. Then there is the matter of her "journey" in Oz. We're given endless spectacle in lieu of characteridentification and sometimes it's hard to find reasons to care what happens to her. The script, which relies on theimpressive makeup effects to provide most of the character distinctions for the Scarecrow, Lion, and Tin Man,doesn't always make a lot of sense...even for a fantasy. For example: I thought it a grievous mistake to haveDorothy actually "resolve" to kill Evillene as The Wiz requested. Killing the witch by mistake in an effort to acquireher broom is one thing; having her make a conscious decision (however reluctantly) to murder Evilene (even if sheIS a baddie) feels somehow wrong.

Dorothy is just a little too happy for a woman who's just committed involuntarymanslaughter

When I think of The Wiz and how much pleasure I derive from it in spite of it's flaws, I think of my friend, a big fan ofGrease, who will call my attention to how much he loves that film in spite of its cast of middle-aged teenagers,; ickymessage of "conform or be unpopular," and the score's anachronistically '70s-sounding, disco-era musical arrangements.Just like Dorothy discovers that her imperfect home is nevertheless a place that makes her happy, it's good toremember that if a movie brings you joy, it doesn't have to be perfect. It only has to have something that makes yourespond to it. That's personal, that's private, and it has nothing to do whether the movie is deemed a hit or a flop byVariety.

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There's No Place Like Home

BONUS MATERIALAlthough The Wiz is only 34 years-old as of this writing, Diana Ross is the only major cast member still living.

According to the book Footprints on Broadway by David W. Shaffer, dancer Gregg Burge (he played Richie in thefilm version of A Chorus Line, was featured on TV's The Electric Company, and co-choreographer of MichaelJackson's Bad video) appears as Michael Jackson's dance double in certain scenes in The Wiz and had to sign arelease promising not to seek credit.not to seek credit.

Diana Ross' self-produced album Diana Ross Sings Songs From The Wiz was intended for release in 1979 butshelved when the film performed so poorly. The album was finally released in 2015.

Copyright © Ken Anderson

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