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
The Wizard of Oz (1902 musical) by the popular play. The Wizard was presented as various ethnic stock character stereotypes, depending upon who played him. He was assisted by Sir Wiley Gyle and General Riskitt. David L. Greene and Dick Martin erroneously captioned a picture of General Riskitt as "Sir Wiley Gyle" in "The Oz Scrapbook", and Donald Abbott carried this mistake over into his illustrations for "How the Wizard Saved Oz". The animals in the play, including the Cowardly Lion, did not speak, based on pantomime tradition. Although the lion costume was realistic, far more so than Bert Lahr's in the MGM film, his main