The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays

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The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays
A production still displaying the quality of the Radio-Play coloring process.
Directed by	Francis Boggs, Otis Turner
Produced by	William Selig, L. Frank Baum
Written by	L. Frank Baum
Starring	L. Frank Baum Romola Remus Frank Burns George E. Wilson Joseph Schrode Burns Wantling Grace Elder
Music by	Nathaniel D. Mann
Release date(s)	September 24, 1908
Running time	120 minutes
Country	USA
Language	English
IMDb profile

The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays was an early attempt to bring L. Frank Baum's Oz books to the screen. It was a mixture of live-actors and hand-tinted slides and film. Baum himself would appear as if he was giving a lecture, while he interacted with the characters (both on stage and on screen). Due to financial problems--the show cost more to make than sold-out houses could bring it--the show folded after two months of performances. It opened in Grand Rapids, Michigan on September 24, 1908. It later moved to New York City, where it reportedly closed December 16, 1908. It was scheduled to run through December 31, and ads for it continued to run in The New York Times until then.

The films were colored by Duval Frères of Paris, in a process known as "Radio-Play", and were noted for being the most lifelike hand-tinted imagery of the time. Baum once clamed in an interview that a "Michael Radio" was a Frenchman who colored the films, though no evidence of such a person, even with the more proper French spelling "Michel", as second-hand reports unsurprisingly revise it, has been documented. It did not refer to the contemporary concept of radio (or, for that matter, a radio play), but played on notions of the new and fantastic at the time. The "Fairylogue" part of the title was to liken it to a travelogue, which at the time was a very popular type of documentary film entertainment.

The production also included a full original score by Nathaniel D. Mann. It debuted four months before Camille Saint-Saëns's score for L'Assassinat de Duc de Guise, and is therefore the earliest original film score to be documented.

It was based on Baum's books The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Marvelous Land of Oz, Ozma of Oz and John Dough and the Cherub, with intermission slides showing previews of Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz which was not sold in stores until near the end of the run. Francis Boggs directed the Oz material and Otis Turner directed the remainder. Baum, in a white suit, would step behind the screen and into the film, pulling his actors off to appear on stage with him. Surviving production stills depict a very large cast of Oz characters. There is no record of who played, for example, the Nome King, Jack Pumpkinhead, Tik-Tok, or Prince Evring. Romola Remus was the silver screen's first Dorothy. Will Morrison is often credited with the role of Tip, but a William Gillespie was interviewed in The Baum Bugle about the role. Similarly, a discrepancy exists as to whether Ozma was played by Maude Harrington or Delilah Leitzell. Other known cast members include Frank Burns as the Scarecrow and Para Bruin (the Rubber Bear in John Dough and the Cherub), George E. Wilson as the Tin Woodman, Joseph Schrode as the Cowardly Lion and John Dough, Burns Wantling as the Hungry Tiger, Grace Elder as Chick the Cherub, and Gladys Walton.

The New York Times included a write-up of the show in a full-page article in a late 1909 issue, over a year after the show had come and gone, probably because they finally had space for it after it was no longer necessary but still of interest. When the production appeared in New York, the Times' listing for it appeared along with the plays, not with the films, drawing attention to the fact that Baum, not to mention the rest of the cast, would be appearing live on stage with the films as a major, though far from the only, component.

The Selig Polyscope Company was involved in the production of the films. This led to erroneous conclusions that The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1910 film) and its sequels were derived from the materials of this film, which was disproven with the discovery of that film, which bears little resemblance to the surviving materials of Fairylogue. Otis Turner is believed to be the director of both film versions of John Dough and the Cherub, both lost. It may be possible that they were one and the same film, but highly unlikely, as Fairylogue was most likely the singular print eventually discarded by the Baum family after its decomposition.