Hes so pure! Lumet exulted. (In the film, Jones appears dressed in gold, playing a giant piano in Times Square.) http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/TheWiz. Up until then the going has been a little awkward. In case you cant tell, the NYPL building is not actually employed for this scene, which would have been too difficult to manage. Theater chains in white neighborhoods wouldnt schedule The Wiz for fear of scaring off white regulars, producer. in terror. Snow Babies shot in the background were dolls. So I let him use it He asked me, Could I do this?and then enhanced it. Jacksons Scarecrow costume was hot and cumbersome, with a huge curly wig, a hat and vest stuffed with scraps of newspaper, not to mention a painted-on nose. The single just missed the Top 40 radio pop charts, stalling at #41. open/close all folders Main Characters Dorothy Gale Scarecrow Tin Man Cowardly Lion The Wiz Glinda Evillene Addapearle/Miss One Aunt Em Supporting Characters Toto Uncle Henry Evamean Gatekeeper Lord High Underling Inhabitants of Oz Munchkins Crows Kalidahs Poppies He is also the author of Here for It: Or, How to Save Your Soul in America, a memoir-in-essays. Maybe I just love subway scenes! Nipsey Russell is fine as the Tin Man, too, but Ted Ross sort of disappears into his lion's costume, done in by the makeup man. 1978 Preview 1 Main Title (Overture) [Pt. We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back. The original director, John Badham ( Saturday Night Fever ), withdrew once Ross was cast. He's not the hero they deserve andwell, he's not the hero they need either. 35 years ago this week, two very different movies had their theatrical premieres. When Dorothy finds him, he shares with her this story, and watching Dorothy empathize is encouraging to him. This particular shot always gave me that "liminal" feeling. Michael Jackson was in this movie. I just finished up participating in a local show titled "The Wiz". This is how he lives now. Asking for help and seeking advice shows strength, and displays to others the idea that we see their opinions and thoughts as worthy of listening to, and following. I make the sounds with my mouthI can do that. Quincy became excited. She also said she would be able to guarantee Michael Jackson as the Scarecrow if she was cast. The WIZ A remake that is different enough to stand on its own talented batch of "Pros" who make the familiar story work: Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Nipsey Russell, Mabel King, Richard Pryor, Lena Horne, Ted Ross etc New score 1939 is rural based, 1978 version is suburban There are parts that do not work, but those are small complaints. I felt I owed him more than one, Jones said of Lumet. All Rights Reserved. It was a spectacular, flawed experiment. How these two characters differ is that where Aunt Em is a very simple and down-to-earth woman with a hot-temper, Glinda is an extravagant and theatrical witch with boundless patience. The Wiz is indeed a New York movie, featuring the most fantastical representations of the city's landmarks since the 1933 King Kong. Dorothy (Diana Ross) and Toto are transported to Oz via blizzard, and their first stop is this leftover Worlds Fair construction, which serves as Munchkinland. He's been sleeping even though it's the middle of the day, and he has a desperate, frantic energy about him: sad to be discovered but clearly grateful for human contact. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/TheWiz. Robin Givens' debut, as a guest at Aunt Emma's party. We can't see enough of him to get to know him. I never wanted to watch this flickuntil now! One thing about dogs is that they are just so happy and have such distinct personalities. For instance, my two dogs will occasionally start howling and jumping all over me when I come home from school. And this also makes me think about the subway in Silent Hill 3. This was the first film shot at Kaufman Astoria Studios when it was reopened in the 1970s. NYCs Film Forum didnt even include the musical in its otherwise exhaustive retrospective of his work a few years back. Before there was NBCs The Wiz Live!, starring Queen Latifah, Mary J. Blige, David Alan Grier and Stephanie Mills, there was The Wiz, a 1978 movie based on the musical of the same name. This is not a black film, Gordy corrected him. You can talk to me crazy. Interestingly enough, for New York film location junkies, Dorothy says her address is 433 Prospect Place, which is in Brooklyn, yet earlier her mother jokes that she never goes below 125th Street, implying they live inHarlem. It may represent the part in the book where Dorothy and company are pursued by the Kalidahs, a kind of bear-tiger chimera. https://medium.com/media/aaaab1fb5e4ffb83dd8e892f7d03de03/href. Summer Stars staging of. On the set, Michael took extremely seriously his choreography sessions with Louis Johnson, whod been a pioneering African-American ballet dancer over years of punishing Hollywood racism. Also, one of the pictures looks like the video for Bad, Not entirely related but Those paintings of faces of the walls look like peak ENA character material. Saw this on the tv in the late 1980s. With that said, it is essential to realize that often we feel as if we are inferior to others who may have more information on topics, be more interested in various things or seem to be more serious than we are. There is a shot with a coaster in the background and multiple buildings that look kinda like the empire state building that fits also. The final barrier was Joe Jackson, who wasnt thrilled about Michael doing a project that separated himself financially from the rest of his siblings. Michael Jacksons a Vegas act. Everyone, including Motown head and ex-lover Berry Gordy believed that she was too old, but she insisted that the role of Dorothy was ageless (which it is). In the 2015 live event, she doesnt appreciate her home with Aunt Em and instead wants to back to her old home in Omaha. One of the fascinating things about The Wiz is that it is a strange, delightful hybrid: a super-soul fantasy and a pointed gloss on '70s black life in reality. However, the dramatic irony of the Scarecrows situation is that he is in fact one of the most knowledgeable characters and he simply does not know it. Recently, the music licensing platform Artlist gave a behind the scenes look at how they built a fake subway set and used sound design, practical effects, and lights to make it feel real. Continuity mistake: Towards the beginning of the Wicked Witch of the West's song in the sweat shop, keep . A dance sequence, for example, where The Wiz calls the shots and everybody instantly changes their clothes to stay in fashion. The Wiz asks for our suspension of disbelief and earns it (after a slow start) in that great shot of Dorothy and the Scarecrow dancing across a yellow brick bridge toward the towers of Manhattan. The name of the wicked witches in this version are Evilene and Evermean. Some of the dancing and the Poms sequence with the Munchkins (it cut from them going down the stairs to some of them doing acrobatics). We don't really understand why Dorothy's such a mope at her aunt's dinner party, and, after she and her dog Toto are whirled away by a snowstorm, the scene in the playground really drags. Cohen, the producer, noticed Jones gaping. Original director John Badham stepped down when he objected to 33-year-old Diana Ross being cast as a teenage Dorothy. These friends and their encounters carry a few of these hidden lessons. Long Waits, Short Appointments, Huge Bills. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Ross was 33 when The Wiz was filmed, two decades older than 14-year-old Dorothy. When The Wiz began filming in New York, the 27-year-old producer moved Michael and La Toya into a Manhattan apartment, and Michael was on his own for the first time. I will be sharing them with you, to hopefully create a sense of comfort and happiness in times that you are seeking courage, feeling a bit silly or simply needing to take a trip home. Those are some of the freakiest damn pics I have ever seen. Cohen recalls glumly. The first song that Michael Jackson sings, "You Can't Win," was originally written for the stage version for the Winkies to sing to Dorothy about the futility of escaping from Evillene. After accidentally killing the Wicked Witch . Its an interesting moment for really bringing in replicas of recognizable NYC landmarks rather than using real famous landmarks and trying to sort of disguise (or at least alter) them with crazy, yet awesome, production design. Thats the Austin J. Tobin Plaza between the towers repurposed as, I guess, the Emerald City plaza, and the central orb featuring the OZ letters is the Great Spherical Caryatid sculpture (aka The Sphere), which mostly survived the 9/11 attack and now stands in Battery Park as a memorial. It's full of big swings, wild interpretations, and deranged set pieces (still having nightmares about the subway scene). Now, let's look at how they did it. He lived a normal life, except for a strange habit Cohen happened to discovertaking baths in Perrier water. The basic storyline is the same, with Dorothy being taken from her home by a large storm and being dropped down in Oz, surrounded by colors, sights and sounds she has never experienced before. The movie. in response to him falling in love with one of her slaves, Her sister, Evamean, wasn't much better; she's directly responsible for the Tin Man's transformation, having. There are lots of good scenes in the Emerald City. Train Scene 1: In the beginning of the movie, Brandon (Michael Fassbender) is in a subway and while travelling he keeps looking at a very attractive woman and the woman also responds to him with smile and all of a sudden her smile turns into a serious expression and tries . Not because shes too old (although she is), but because she plays Dorothy the same way she played Billie Holiday, with an emaciated world-weariness, when the part, as Judy Garland had shown the world forty years earlier, called for a wide-eyed, childish wonder. Maybe because it hedges its bets by wanting to be sophisticated and universal, childlike and knowing, appealing to both a mass audience and to media insiders. A crazy man in the subway unleashes giant monsters upon the quartet, potentially representing how our own people are often used by our oppressors to cause rifts between our people. 1/The Wiz/Soundtrack Version] Quincy Jones 2:33 2 Overture (Pt. Simultaneously with the release of the film, Congoleum, the flooring company that designed the look of the Yellow Brick Road for the film, also marketed the same design (also called Yellow Brick Road) for home use. The Wizard of Oz went flat-out for the heart of its story; there are times when The Wiz has just a touch too much calculation. To finish Lady Sings the Blues, Gordy had to sink in $2 million of his own money because Paramounts top executive, Frank Yablans, had told him the maximum a studio could spend on a black film at the time was $500,000. As big and as spectacular and as musical as it was, he says, we never got a real solid distribution. Black films, aside from Shaft, were for black audiences. 2023 TIME USA, LLC. As Noe's camera swirls and swirls to the violent corridors of truth, we see a gorgeous young woman walking in a subway. In other words, we're watching prostitutes trying to kill our heroes by making them overdose. It's been used in a number of films. The subway station scenes were filmed at the decommissioned Court Street IND station in Brooklyn, NY, also known as the NYC Transit Museum. In 1977, Motown bought the rights to The Wiz, a script based on a Broadway hit with African-American stars putting their own spin on The Wizard of Oz. That boy is so sweet! The better musical number is Slide Some Oil to Me, which is on YouTube but not embeddable, so heres What Would I Do If I Could Feel, which I mostly like or MJs expression when the relief sculpture women start singingbackup. The shoots were long and grueling, lasting all day underneath the World Trade Center towers. Comedian Doug Benson cites this as his movie debut, claiming to have been an extra. The scene in which the Cowardly Lion emerges from one of the statues in front of the main research branch of the New York Public Library was shot on a set instead of the actual location because it was logistically impossible to film an entire scene devoid of people, save the main actors, without traffic and pedestrians getting in the way of the production. In the film, Michaels most impressive steps are with Diana Ross, as he clumsily learns to walk after being imprisoned by crows on his scarecrow pole. I have to admit that The WIZ is waaaaaay too long for me & is a bit of a chore but the visuals are cool in that wonked out seventies way & that subway scene is truly nuts. Some churlish souls suggested, however, that The Wiz strains our credibility too much. Finally, Lumet and Jones saw the qualities that Cohen saw. How this guy isnt a steampunk icon, I dont know. The puppets are indubitably the scariest of the bunch. He was a great fan of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, says Johnson, who is in his early eighties, by phone from his New York home. Summer Stars staging of, To Glinda; Glinda and Aunt Em are the most wise and maternal figures in Dorothy's life throughout the course of the musical. Is the movie a match for the 1939 Judy Garland version? I was a lil tyke at a cousins house and it just happened to be on TV. Their words of wisdom, on top of her personal meditation and advice-seeking is what leads her back home in the end. The Jackson 5s a Vegas act, the director told Cohen. When I have my own house, I plan to own as many dogs as my home will allow me to fit. The Wiz also has 2 two good witches, Addapearle and Glinda, like the original book, not the 1939 film. And this also makes me think about the subway in Silent Hill 3. Lots of graffiti people, drawn on the walls, come to life and dance about like a Broadway chorus line (which, of course, they are), and then Dorothy finally finds her first yellow brick. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. It's set to return to Broadway in spring 2024. The Wiz Directed by Sidney Lumet Produced by Rob Cohen Screenplay by Joel Schumacher Distributed by Universal Pictures Release date October 24, 1978 The Wiz is a 1978 movie musical released by Motown Records and Universal Pictures. Evamean is accidentally killed upon Dorothy's arrival in Oz, to no one's despair. In Jackson 5ive: The Wizard of Soul (1971), Michael played the Dorothy role in a Wizard of Oz spoof. "The Wiz" is a more soulful take on the famous classic "The Wizard of Oz". Relive all of the magic of this beloved musical when Dorothy is whisked away to the enchanting. What the Tin Man does not see in himself is the fact that he is one of the most compassionate members of the foursome, which juxtaposes his theory that he does not have a heart. The Wiz 's metaphors exist beyond an examination of character traits. So, obviously it was perfect for the spot where Dorothy, the Scarecrow and the Tin Man meet the Cowardly Lion (Ted Ross). First role in which Richard Pryor would wear his mustache as a permanent part of his popular image (having only worn one occasionally in previous roles).. Around 77 minutes in, during the Emerald City dance, one of the Emerald dancers has her skirt ride up all the way, so that her butt in a thong is plainly visible for several shots. But the 1972 drama was a success in the end, drawing five Oscar nominations, although Ross lost Best Actress to Liza Minnelli of Cabaret. Sign in to comment to your favorite stories, participate in your community and interact with your friends. Astroland at Coney Island was used for the Tinman scene with The Cyclone as a backdrop, while the World Trade Center served as the Emerald City. The moving pillars in this movie really terrified me. Quincy Jones was always present. 1. Fitzstephens, Jack Music Editor & Guru. The movie has become. The Wiz: Directed by Sidney Lumet. Just as black music, despite brief exceptions such as Motown and disco, had been for black radio stations and white music for white radio stations. Woody Allen? The Wiz Family 1978 2 hr 14 min English audio G CC Buy or rent Ease on down the yellow-brick road with The Wiz, starring superstars Diana Ross and Michael Jackson! Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window), Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window), Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window), Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window), Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), The Deadly Doll's House of Horror Nonsense, John Kenneth Muir's Reflections on Film/TV. The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (also known as The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3) is a 1974 American crime drama film directed by Joseph Sargent, produced by Gabriel Katzka and Edgar J. Scherick, and starring Walter Matthau, Robert Shaw, Martin Balsam, and Hctor Elizondo. https://medium.com/media/3e1c5a36e386d82c31c7a3c16d4f4fb7/href. Hmm, maybe Gordon Parks?). It was directed by the great late Sidney Lumet, who is a kickass director but was out of his element when tasked to film a musical, which SHOULD be shot and edited in a more dynamic way instead of having these long shots away from the dancing characters. She lands on the Wicked Witch of the East, freeing the munchkins from their graffiti prisons on the concrete walls of the Tent of Tomorrow structure. (It's a villain singing to the audience about how threatening they are, trying to scare them). They dont judge us when they see us eating junk food that we really shouldnt; instead they just want us to share it. The minute we can safely (key word: safely) end isolation measures, I'm rushing into the streets in my finest dancers' belt and getting my grand jet on. When you think about it, the story is about liminal space. I might be the only one who likes The Wiz more than Halloween and very likely the only one who finds one particular scene in the all-black version of The Wizard of Oz scarier than anything in John Carpenters slasher classic. (The Wiz/Soundtrack Version) TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Included among the American Film Institute's 2004 list of 400 movies nominated for the top 100 America's Greatest Music in the Movies for the song "Ease On Down the Road.". Lastly, Dorothy is taken from her home and must find her way back with the help of some new friends. From their slinky noises slowing turning into a constant. In fact, people can see us as being intelligent, courageous, empathetic and comforting, when we see just the opposite in ourselves. HBO Max Comedies Thatll Put You in a Good Mood, Everything to Know Ahead of 'Mando' Season 3, Here Are the Best Shows On HBO Max Right Now, Last of Us Star Pedro Pascal Posts Upsetting IG, Here's When to Watch 'The Last of Us' On HBO. When you press play on The Wiz, the 1978 movie musical based on L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, you probably already know what's coming: A ragtag group of new friends experiences all manner of traumas while trying to protect a pair of heels, and then learn that the power to change their terrifying surroundings was inside them all along. In any show, musical or play, there is always some sort of hidden message that is being relayed to the audience through the use of singing, dancing and/or acting. He looked at Michael the way a jaguar looks at a goat, Cohen says. Sorry, cat people, but I just dont get you. Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. But its reception was marred by racist backlash. For their original book counterparts, click here. The songs get a little sticky about here (all sorts of unthrilling messages about how you can achieve anything if only you believe) but Diana Ross knows how to sell them, and she has a virtuoso solo in a totally darkened frame that reminds us of Barbra Streisand's closing number in Funny Lady.. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. In October of 1978, The Wizard of Oz was flipped, reversed and remixed to feature an all-black cast, with musical heavy hitters like Diana Ross, Michael Jackson and Lena Horne. And the subway scene is creepy as hell. During The Wiz post-production, he called Quincy unexpectedly during a rare home hiatus from touring. Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel both gave this two thumbs up on Sneak Previews: The Wiz/Who is Killing The Great Chefs of Europe?/Girlfriends/The Big Fix/Days of Heaven (1978). TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Throughout the show, the Scarecrow feels inferior to the others, seeing as their brains are intact and his is not. For their original book counterparts, click here. The end-product is mixed (great design with lifeless direction, fun but forgettable songs, powerful but blunt messaging), but one worth exploring& ripe for a remake. Q didnt want to do it. (1976). https://medium.com/media/4e5a634372232df605a21acf8b47453f/href. Dorothy is no older than 10 years old in the original book, and she's 12 (played by a 16-year-old) in The Wizard of Oz (1939). "Michael Jackson's a Vegas act. "The Wiz" is a more soulful take on the famous classic "The Wizard of Oz". Harry Madsen (Cheetah) and Willie C. Carpenter (Guest at Aunt Em's Party) are the only actors to appear in other films directed by Sidney Lumet: Madsen in Prince of the City (1981), Daniel (1983), Garbo Talks (1984), and Q&A (1990), and Carpenter in Family Business (1989). The movie became the most expensive ever shot in New York City at the time. One thing about the movie thats rarely celebrated is the fact its directed by Sidney Lumet. Get a load of a masked puppeteer whose puppet offspring transform into giant slinky ghouls, trashcans that develop sharp teeth and tiled columns bent on crushing anyone hapless enough to walk by. He even breaks free from the sculpture in a way that might make you think of another part of Ghostbusters, near the end. According to her unauthorized biography, "Call Her Ms. Ross", Diana Ross was hospitalized and nearly blinded by a lighting effect used in the movie. At one point, he took Michael aside to explain a Scarecrow bit in the scriptthat the Greek philosophers name is pronounced Sock-ra-tees and not Sow-cray-tees. As Jones would tell the story, he asked Michael right then if he could take a shot at producing his next solo album. Diana Ross's Dorothy is played at a level of near-constant nervous breakdown that rivals Charlotte Gainsbourg in Melancholia. Tony Walton, the films production and costume designer, didnt know Michael was tormented by his brothers constant teasingthey called him Ugly and Big Nose. He was thrilled to have his nose covered, Walton says. 'Re watching prostitutes trying to kill our heroes by making them overdose next solo album ) is... Commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back 3.0 License. Badham stepped down when he objected to 33-year-old Diana Ross being cast a. S a Vegas act classic `` the Wiz '' Overture ) [.... His work a few years back in a way that might make think... 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