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Title: Impressively Researched and Finely Focused
Review: Oz Before the Rainbow (L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz on Stage and Screen to 1939) is an amazingly well researched and thorough piece of work by archivist Mark Evan Swartz. This piercing view is directed at the 1902-3 stage version and the three subsequent incorporations of the story into the silent movies, often rather loosely incorporated in odd and often surprising ways for those familiar only with the book. All of these versions of Baum's first book have fallen out of public consciousness, pushed aside, as it were, by the memorable 1939 film verion (the version that remained the truest to the spirit and not just some of the ideas of the book). Concepts from the previous incarnations do leak into the 1939 movie and it is fascinating to watch this evolution. This is a tremondous piece of research that is a must for fans of Oz.
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