Speaking of childrens' fantasy movies starring Oliver Hardy: Bob Elisberg reminds me that Turner Classic Movies is running The Wizard of Oz tomorrow evening…but not the one with Judy Garland and Ray Bolger. This is the 1925 silent version which starred Dorothy Dwan as Dorothy, Larry Semon as the Scarecrow and Oliver N. Hardy (that's how he was being billed then) as the Tin Woodsman. This was a year or so before Mr. Hardy teamed up with Mr. Laurel. Mr. Hardy was still playing roles — usually, villains — in Larry Semon comedies.
Larry Semon is largely forgotten today but there was a brief time when he was one of the most popular comedians in this country. He started as a cartoonist, segued into writing gags for silent comedies and then directing. Finally, he moved into performing and he did a run of successful two-reelers that fit what most people think silent comedies were like. They were all fast-paced and loaded with slapstick. Every thirty seconds, someone crashes through a wall, gets covered with food, gets knocked on his or her butt, gets hit with a sack of flour, falls into a mud bath or otherwise is messed-up or battered. Mud baths were a particular fetish of Semon's and another apparent obsession was the absence of dull moments.
It is said he was terrified of an audience being bored for even ten seconds so he crammed every film full of action. He would spend any amount to achieve his goals and as a result, he usually went wildly overbudget. His films grossed a lot of cash but cost so much that they went into the red. Rather than cut back on expensive gags, he moved into the (theoretically) more lucrative world of features and The Wizard of Oz was one attempt. It doesn't bear a vast amount of similarity to the book, perhaps because L. Frank Baum forgot to have his characters plunge into mud baths every few pages.
The movie was not successful. It was released by a small, fringe distributor that went bankrupt in the process. Semon tried a dramatic role in Josef von Sternberg's Underworld (1927), then went scurrying back to short comedies. He took ill and died about an hour before talkies arrived on the scene.
Still, his Wizard of Oz is a fascinating film. Yeah, he changed the story around a lot but so did the famous version. If you're a fan of the novel, this is an important piece of history. Should you yearn to see a more "typical" Larry Semon comedy, I've embedded one below. It's his 1922 two-reeler, The Sawmill. Mr. Semon and his oft-utilized stuntman play a clumsy employee and Mr. Hardy plays the bossy foreman. You may have to sit through a silly commercial to get to it…
