How the Film The Wizard of Oz Differed from the Book

Warning: if by any chance you haven't seen the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz or read the 1900 book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, this post and the linked article contains spoilers.

When the producers of The Wizard of Oz adapted the story for the big screen, they changed a lot of details and plot points to make them manageable for the production crew, or make them look better in color. The complex and sometimes overly scary story had to be simplified to fit into a feature film format and allow time for the songs. The one big change that was totally unnecessary and confounds today's filmmakers was the decision to make it all a dream. They supposedly did this to make the fantasy more believable to audiences. But that also cut off the possibility of the more modern practice of making sequel after sequel, which would have been easy considering L. Frank Baum had written a slew of books about Oz.

There were many changes made between the book and the film, ten of which you can read about at Mental Floss.

(Image credit: MGM)


The article gets at least one fact wrong- it was a different good witch that kisses Dorothy at the start of the novel, not Glinda. Which also points out a plot-hole that the movie introduced by having Glinda send Dorothy off on her quest, instead of just telling her straight off about the shoes. In the original, the first less-powerful witch doesn't know about the shoes, and sends Dorothy to the Wizard after she does some divination-magic. Glinda only appears at the very end, after Dorothy and Co. travel to her distant home.
And they did make a sequel, Return to Oz, which is actually pretty good, if maybe too scary for really young children.
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Glinda was the Good Witch of the South. Four compess points but only three witches in the movie. The real Good Witch of the North is Locasta Tattypoo. With a name like that she has to be good.
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