A conversation between Motown head honcho Berry Gordy and Universal
Studios regarding 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
dream that she played the part and the film was one of the biggest smash hits
of all time!” "The Wiz Scrapbook" by Richard J. Anobile
And thus began one of the most divisively controversial casting
decisions since Jack Warner threw Julie Andrews over for Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady.
The Wiz is based on the 1975 Tony Award-winning Broadway musical that is itself a very '70s, funkified, all-Black reimagining of Frank L. Baum's 1900 children's book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The story of the little Kansas farmgirl who gets whisked away by a tornado and learns the value of home and family through the help of characters she meets in the mythical land of Oz is a tale as well-known and beloved as Alice in Wonderland. The Wiz, which hews closely to Baum's book (silver slippers, not ruby), was created at the height of the '70s Black Pride revolution in fashion, music, film, and art.
Diana Ross has the answer to the question: "Whose turn is it to be the big screen's next Dorothy Gale?" |
The Wiz is based on the 1975 Tony Award-winning Broadway musical that is itself a very '70s, funkified, all-Black reimagining of Frank L. Baum's 1900 children's book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The story of the little Kansas farmgirl who gets whisked away by a tornado and learns the value of home and family through the help of characters she meets in the mythical land of Oz is a tale as well-known and beloved as Alice in Wonderland. The Wiz, which hews closely to Baum's book (silver slippers, not ruby), was created at the height of the '70s Black Pride revolution in fashion, music, film, and art.
The Broadway production (then billed as The Wiz: The Super Soul Musical "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz") was an attempt on the part of Charlie Smalls (music) and William F. Brown (book) to create a modern children's fantasy familiar enough to encourage crossover appeal, yet reflective of contemporary Black culture. The score is full of songs influenced by funk, soul, and gospel, and the book is peppered with comic dialog derived from '70s slang idioms. Thanks to the creative contributions of director/costume designer Geoffrey Holder and the powerhouse vocals of 17-year-old Stephanie Mills as Dorothy, The Wiz proved a great success and went on to win seven Tony Awards that year, including Best Musical.
Diana Ross as Dorothy |
Michael Jackson as The Scarecrow |
Lena Horne as Glinda |
Richard Pryor as The Wiz |
Nipsey Russell as The Tin Man |
Ted Ross as The Cowardly Lion |
Mabel King as Evillene |
Theresa Merritt as Aunt Em |
Disregarding the very real possibility that Miss Ross’ dream could just as well have been a nightmare, the powers that 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 a talented, age-appropriate unknown yo play Dorothy and instead went with what then must have seemed a smart business move: casting an internationally famous, Oscar-nominated singer/actress with both marquee value and mainstream appeal. 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 Lady Sings The Blues co-star Richard Pryor), The Wiz was launched with considerable fanfare and star-power, but also amid a flurry of boxoffice-crippling negative publicity.
While I really liked the look of Diana Ross in The Wiz, a vocal majority let it be known they preferred their Ross glamorized and Mahogany chic. |
One wonders how things might have turned out for The Wiz and, indeed, Diana Ross' feature film career (it came to an 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 Harlem school 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. The mainstream press tends to already look upon the ambitious artistic endeavors of Black artists with a hyper-scrutiny not applied to the work of white artists, and so in the film's initial stages of production, the negative advance buzz threatened to overshadow everything else.
The news of Ross' casting set off a veritable tornado of outraged cries of ruinous miscasting the likes of which we wouldn't hear again until 1990 when perennial daddy’s darling Sofia Coppola plodded through the waters of casting nepotism and single-handedly sunk The Godfather Part III. In hindsight, it's obvious that the preoccupation with Ross's casting also served as a convenient grievance smokescreen for those taking racist umbrage over Black artists "daring" to tackle a beloved all-white cinema classic.
When Diana Ross was brought into The Wiz, the film's original director, John Badham (Saturday Night Fever), took a powder. 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 tradition that an industry famously averse to risk-taking ONLY seems to take chances when it comes to placing directors unfamiliar 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 the entire Kansas-to-Oz elements of the play and, at Lumet's suggestion, fashioned the film into an urban fantasy with an Oz resembling a surreal, fever-dream vision of New York. Schumacher, who, like Diana Ross, was a proponent of EST (Erhard Standard Training - the self-help teachings of Werner Erhard which were popular at the time), also inserted tons of Me-Generation proselytizing into the script and supplanted The Wiz's simple themes of "There's no place like home" with a great deal of the "You'll find it within yourself" navel-gazing of the '70s Human Potential Movement.
When Diana Ross was brought into The Wiz, the film's original director, John Badham (Saturday Night Fever), took a powder. 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 tradition that an industry famously averse to risk-taking ONLY seems to take chances when it comes to placing directors unfamiliar 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 the entire Kansas-to-Oz elements of the play and, at Lumet's suggestion, fashioned the film into an urban fantasy with an Oz resembling a surreal, fever-dream vision of New York. Schumacher, who, like Diana Ross, was a proponent of EST (Erhard Standard Training - the self-help teachings of Werner Erhard which were popular at the time), also inserted tons of Me-Generation proselytizing into the script and supplanted The Wiz's simple themes of "There's no place like home" with a great deal of the "You'll find it within yourself" navel-gazing of the '70s Human Potential Movement.
The Yellow Brick Road leading to The Emerald City Tony Walton's Oscar-nominated production designs for The Wiz convey a charming storybook wit |
Dorothy Learns the Value of Friendship In another of the film's witty, New York design concepts, the Yellow Brick Road leads to a subway entrance where a sign directs pedestrians to "Get Down" |
I first saw the theatrical production of The Wiz in October of 1976 when the touring company of the Broadway show played in San Francisco. Ren Woods (Xanadu) was taking over for Stephanie Mills, and I remember it being a spectacular production. My single strongest memory of the show is the fabulous staging of the tornado whisking Dorothy and her farmhouse away to Oz: The tornado itself was embodied by a beautiful, leggy dancer sporting a scarf headdress that billowed behind her, far beyond the stage's wings. She danced seductively around the farmhouse, ultimately (and provocatively) straddling its roof. As the house began to rotate on a turntable, the ever-elongating scarf wound itself around and around the entire structure until it completely enfolded the house in the fabric. It was mind-blowing!
By the time the film version was released in October of 1978, I was living in Los Angeles, and any initial trepidation I may have had about Diana Ross' casting had long been absorbed by all the exciting hype surrounding the film. Michael Jackson's film debut! Quincy Jones arranging the music! Lena Horne returning to the screen for the first time in almost ten years! From Richard Pryor landing the role of The Wiz, to the behind-the-scenes talents of Tony Walton and Albert Whitlock (the latter, visual effects artist for The Birds, Earthquake, Day of the Locust); it seemed as though all the top talents in Hollywood were working on this musical. Once the colorful billboards and posters began appearing around town (tagline: The Wiz! the Stars! The Music! Wow!) and the Ross/Jackson duet single of "Ease on Down The Road" was in heavy rotation on the radio...well, I was gone. Everything surrounding the promotion of the film looked so fantastic that I convinced myself the final film was going to be something so stupendous, it would make us all eat our words at ever doubting the wisdom of casting superstar Diana Ross.
The audience was especially responsive to Diana Ross' vocal performance (which, no matter what one thinks of her acting, is pretty phenomenal here). Seriously, Ross was never known as a belter or even considered particularly soulful...not in the Aretha Franklin vein, anyway...yet in The Wiz she displayed a versatility and range that had audience members literally screaming! By the time her soul-searing rendition of "Home" ended, some audience members were acting as though they were at a live concert. It was all very heady and a major goosebump experience for me, especially the dancing. Ah! Such dancing! Were The Wiz edited down exclusively to its dance sequences, that alone would be enough for me. Needless to say, I was absolutely thrilled by The Wiz and was positive that the film was going to be a big, big hit. Of course I was dead wrong.
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' adult Dorothy being a severe liability no amount of movie magic could surmount. The public even chimed in, complaining of the film being too dark (if cinematographer Gordon Willis ever shot a musical, it would look like The Wiz), too scary, too preachy, or just too somber in tone. Grease (a film I absolutely abhorred, by the way) emerged the big musical blockbuster of 1978, and The Wiz, much like the misguided reworking of the film's title character, pretty much slumped away in ignominious defeat.
PERFORMANCES
I like Diana Ross a great deal. Indeed, I get teased a lot by my partner due to my baseless belief that she can't be as bad as her diva reputation attests, because she has such kind-looking eyes (I also think Faye Dunaway has kind eyes...so maybe my partner has a point). I find Diana Ross very likable in The Wiz but I'm the first to say that she really needed to turn it down a notch. Her idea of conveying Dorothy's shyness is to approach the role as though she were portraying Laura in The Glass Menagerie...with all of the attendant ponderousness. She's far too high-strung and neurotic from the start. By the time she reaches Oz you almost expect her head to fly off, she's so unwound.
No one can say Diana Ross didn't throw herself into the role The 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 strenuous dancing 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 little worn down by her personality towards the end (she's a tad harsh on Richard Pryor), I have to say her grown-up Dorothy has never bothered me as much as it has others. A friend of mine once made the astute observation that when The Wiz came out, the concept of a grown-up unable to leave home was such an anomaly, with audiences balking at what they considered to be the obvious contrivance of her character. Today, with what we know about social anxiety and the phenomenon of "Boomerang Kids" who stay under their parents' roof well into adulthood; The Wiz seems almost ahead of its time.
The Great and Powerful Oz |
THE STUFF OF DREAMS
If 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 contention that "good" movies are not always the ones we most enjoy and that a film's boxoffice success or failure has absolutely 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. Whereas the films that bottom out in the "flop" category (Day of the Locust, 3 Women, Two for the Road) are among those that have meant the most to me.
The great Quincy Jones makes a cameo as one of the fashion-conscious citizens of The Emerald City |
The Wiz is, in many ways, a mess. There is little time devoted to character; it seems over-infatuated with scale over emotion; some script choices are seriously ill-advised (by this point, the cinematic de-fanging of irreverent comic Richard Pryor had come to border on the tragic); it doesn't seem quite fair to the legendary Lena Horne to give Diana Ross have first crack at Horne's only song just minutes before she's about to sing it. Lastly, 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's certainly full of spectacle and eye-popping visuals; it has moments when it's lighthearted and fun, and there is no lack of energy and style in the thrilling musical numbers. Michael Jackson, Nipsey Russell, and Ted Ross provide a refreshing contrast to Diana Ross' twitchy over-emoting (which reminds me of Joan Crawford's exhaustive earnestness), but even that is mitigated by her peerless singing, which is the finest part of her performance. Her rendition of "Home" forgives all transgressions.
The Emerald City sequence, filmed in the Plaza of the World Trade Center Towers |
The New York State Pavilion of the 1964 World's Fair was transformed into Graffiti City for Dorothy's arrival in Munchkin Land |
The Emerald City |
In a strange way, The Wiz is one of those movies I think many people wanted to like, but the film kept thwarting the viewer's goodwill. Diana Ross' Dorothy is a tough nut to crack. Ross' one-note performance never engages our hearts. Then there is the matter of her "journey" in Oz. We're given endless spectacle in lieu of character identification, and sometimes it's hard to find reasons to care about what happens to her. The script, which relies on the impressive 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 have Dorothy actually "resolve" to kill Evillene as The Wiz requested. Killing the witch by mistake in an effort to acquire her broom is one thing; having her make a conscious decision (however reluctantly) to murder Evilene (even if she IS a baddie) feels somehow wrong.
Dorothy is just a little too happy for a woman who's just committed involuntary manslaughter |
When I think of The Wiz and how much pleasure I derive from it despite its flaws, I think of my friend, a big fan of Grease, who will call my attention to how much he loves that film in spite of its cast of middle-aged teenagers, icky message of "conform or be unpopular," and the score's anachronistical '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 to remember that if a movie brings you joy, it doesn't have to be perfect. It only has to have something that makes you respond to it. That's personal, that's private, and it has nothing to do with whether the movie is deemed a hit or a flop by Variety.
There's No Place Like Home |
BONUS MATERIAL
Although The Wiz is only 34 years old as of this writing, Diana Ross is the only major cast member still living.
Diana Ross' self-produced album Diana Ross Sings Songs From The Wiz was intended for release in 1979 but shelved when the film performed so poorly. The album was finally released in 2015.
Clip of the "Gold" Emerald City sequence