The Dreamer of Oz: The L. Frank Baum Story is a 1990 American made-for-television biographical film starring John Ritter as Lyman Frank Baum, the author who wrote the 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and thirteen other Oz books.[2][3] Also starring in it were Annette O'Toole as Baum's supportive wife, Maud, and Rue McClanahan as Baum's tough mother-in-law, Matilda Gage.
The Dreamer of Oz: The L. Frank Baum Story | |
---|---|
Genre | Biography Drama Family |
Written by | Richard Matheson[1] |
Story by | David Kirschner Richard Matheson |
Directed by | Jack Bender |
Starring | John Ritter Annette O'Toole Rue McClanahan |
Music by | Lee Holdridge |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language | English |
Production | |
Executive producers | David Kirschner Robert M. Myman |
Producers | Ervin Zavada Laura Moskowitz Clare Witt (associate producer) |
Cinematography | Thomas Burstyn |
Editor | Jerrold L. Ludwig |
Running time | 100 minutes |
Production companies | Bedrock Productions Adam Productions Spelling Entertainment |
Original release | |
Network | NBC |
Release | December 10, 1990 |
The film is told as a flashback from the point of view of L. Frank Baum's widow, Maud Gage Baum. On how her husband came to create The Wonderful Wizard of Oz while undergoing and eventually overcoming professional and personal failures.
It's 1939 and the classic MGM film The Wizard of Oz is about to premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. 78 year old Mrs. Baum has been invited to attend the premiere. Before she enters the theatre a young journalist recognizes her and asks if he may interview her. She politely agrees and begins to recount how she first met her husband. The story is interspersed with the famous Oz story, shown at certain points when Baum is writing down his ideas. It is shown that he was originally telling this to a group of kids, who asked him the name of this location, to which he looks at a file cabinet with the bottom drawer marked O-Z and decided "Oz". Another idea he had thought of was to say Dorothy was born in the Dakota Territory, only to scrap that sentence in favor of Kansas.
In his TV Preview, Tom Shales of The Washington Post proclaimed the film "cheerfully satisfying", and praised the production values, but wasn't impressed with Ritter's performance.[4] John J. O'Connor of The New York Times praised Ritter's performance and called the film "heartwarming".[5] Howard Rosenberg of the Los Angeles Times dubbed it "long on mush and short on magic", but praised the recreations from the original stories.[6]