The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1910 film) The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1910 film) The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a 1910 American silent fantasy film and the earliest surviving film version of L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz", made by the Selig Polyscope Company without Baum's direct input. It was created to fulfill a contractual obligation associated with Baum's personal bankruptcy caused by "The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays", from which it was once thought to have been derived. It was partly based on the 1902 stage musical "The Wizard of Oz", though much of the film deals with the Wicked Witch of the
Queer Visitors from the Marvelous Land of Oz Woggle-Bug Book" (1905). The project was designed to promote "The Marvelous Land of Oz". Coincidentally, it ran at the same time as a comic strip featuring Oz characters that was written and drawn by W. W. Denslow. Denslow has drawn the illustrations for "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" and shared in its copyright. After Baum and Denslow had a falling out, Denslow exercised his copyright through his strip, called "Denslow's Scarecrow and Tin-Man", which ran in relatively few newspapers from December 1904 to March 1905—an artistic and commercial failure. "The Visitors from Oz", published by Reilly and Lee in 1960,