I hit the mute button to avoid the oddball "music" and the narration. Everyone is comparing this to the 1939 version but recently I got a 2 disk set of the music of the 1903 stage version and actually (from reading the plot, what there was of it, in the notes that came with the CDs) this movie hearkens back to it, with the dungeon and dictator and other anarchist elements. A 1910 film version is sort of the stage version in digest form. The play was performed by various amateur and professional groups from 1904 through the 1930s. So it's probable that Larry Semon developed his version less from the book(s) than from the play.
Though they are disguises and not characters, Semon and Hardy made a pretty good Scarecrow and Tin Woodman.
Semon didn't seem to know when to stop wringing a joke. Jerry Lewis was just as guilty in a few of his first post-Dean Martin films, too.
Charlie Murray was marvelous as the humbug wizard with that wonderful rubber face of his. I wish he's gotten more screen time.
The lines on the title cards aren't any worse than others of the period. It was the heyday of the wisecrack and very few of the comedies of the day overlooked an opportunity to use them. I'm including Laurel & Hardy, Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd.
Though they are disguises and not characters, Semon and Hardy made a pretty good Scarecrow and Tin Woodman.
Semon didn't seem to know when to stop wringing a joke. Jerry Lewis was just as guilty in a few of his first post-Dean Martin films, too.
Charlie Murray was marvelous as the humbug wizard with that wonderful rubber face of his. I wish he's gotten more screen time.
The lines on the title cards aren't any worse than others of the period. It was the heyday of the wisecrack and very few of the comedies of the day overlooked an opportunity to use them. I'm including Laurel & Hardy, Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd.