Quick & Dirty: Guess Who Ruined The Wiz?

By Odienator

Work is beckoning, so this is going to be quick and dirty.

The Wiz is the first Broadway musical I ever saw. Opening in 1975, the musical made a star out of Stephanie Mills and won seven Tonys, including Best Musical. The Wiz told the story of The Wizard of Oz from a Black perspective, adhering closely to its source material but taking some ghetto fabulous detours along the way. I remember being terrified of Mabel King's witch, Evillene, and fascinated when she seemed to melt into the stage. The Wiz also featured Clarice Taylor, Cliff's Mom on The Cosby Show, as Addaperle, the numbers-running witch who tells Dorothy about Oz.

In 1977, Berry Gordy bought the rights to the musical so he could film it. An all-Black musical is an obvious choice for members of Hitsville, U.S.A., and I'm sure Marvin Gaye would have made one hell of a Wiz. Unfortunately, Marvin didn't ask to be cast. Marvin's duet partner on "My Mistake," however, did express a casting desire. In a smart move, Berry Gordy told Miss Ross that, at 33, she was too old to play a 12 year old girl. According to Wikipedia, Diana Ross went behind Berry's back and suggested to Universal Pictures that she play Dorothy. Suddenly, big assed dollar signs started orbiting the Universal logo (after all, Mahogany did make money), and Universal offered to pony up the money. Gordy said yes to his woman, and Sidney Lumet signed on to direct. Pay attention to this paragraph, because both of the thngs that sank the movie version of The Wiz are mentioned here.

Let's look at the casting of the main characters:

Michael Jackson was cast as the Scarecrow, a perfect choice because Michael is limber and can handle the physical comedy. His innocence factor also made him a great casting choice. When he sings "you can't win, you can't break even, and you can't get out of the game," you feel badly for him, but you can also identify. Today, he would have to play a flying monkey with vitilego, but back then, Mike was perfect as the Scarecrow. He gives the film's best performance, too.

Nipsey Russell was cast as The Tin Man, also perfect casting. Russell's wisecracking comic persona and smooth talking complemented a character who sang a song about getting some oil slid to him. When we first meet him in the movie, he's been crushed by a scary looking Mammy statue. Nasty ol' Nipsey milks it for all its worth, and strains the G-rating in the process. The makeup artists also do a fine job welding his face to the Tin Man's metal chin and jaw. There's a special place in my, um, heart, for this role. I once played it onstage. Like I said before, I'm all singing, all dancing, all cullud.

Tony winning Ted Ross, no relation to Miss, recreates his role as the Cowardly Lion. More than anyone else except maybe Mabel King (recreating her role as well), Ross looks like he's having the time of his life in this movie. His explosion from the lion statue in front of the NY Public Library made me jump in the theater--talk about an entrance--and he clearly relishes singing about how mean he thinks he is. The late Ted Ross also gets the best, Blackest line in the film. When the Wiz asks him what he wants, he replies "to get the Hell out of here!"

Lena Horne is Glinda the Good Witch, triumphantly returning to the screen. It's wonderful to see her onscreen, even if her outfit raises some serious questions about what the costume designer was smoking. Nothing can hold Ms. Horne down, though, and her (at the time) son-in-law directs her scenes with the respect she deserves.

Richard Pryor is cast as the Wiz, and unfortunately, he isn't given anything to do. Plus, our pal Joel Schumacher scripts a scene where Pryor is revealed as a fake to us before it's revealed to the characters. Watching the Wiz again last week, I couldn't stop looking at the gigantic, fire breathing metal head that they used to depict the Wiz. Modeled after Pryor's own head, I kept imagining it starring in an all-Black remake of John Boorman's Zardoz. It could fly through the air and call everyone a muthafucka.

As aforementioned, Diana Ross plays Dorothy, and if someone cast an albino as Miles Davis, it would still be a better choice than this one. Schumacher's script remakes Dorothy into a shy 24-year old Harlem schoolteacher who has "never been south of 125th Street." That piece of dialogue is relevant--the land of Oz is portrayed by downtown Manhattan--but little else about about this character rewrite is. Dorothy's sense of wonder, at her age, is ridiculous. And for God's sake, THIS IS DIANA ROSS. It's safe to say she's been around the block a few times.

In some scenes, Ross portrays Dorothy as if she's mentally handicapped, staring into the screen the way old Hollywood used to portray the smiling darky stereotype. And in an early scene that calls for her to speak-sing, she means to be hesitant and quavering; she actually sounds like a cat being electrocuted. "What am I afraid of, don't know what I'm made of," sings the frying cat.

Miss Ross fares much better when she's interacting with the other characters. In the original, Dorothy tells the scarecrow that she'll miss him most of all. Ross' interaction with Michael Jackson highlights that. They have spark and chemistry together, and whenever the two are onscreen, The Wiz earns respite from the heavy hand of its director. Ross also shines when she's called upon to belt out numbers. Her rendition of Home is fine, until you remember how good Stephanie Mills sang it.

Quincy Jones adapted the Broadway score, for which he received one of his 8 Oscar nominations. The score holds up, especially Evillene's number, No Bad News. Charlie Smalls, the score's writer, was clever enough to give the most evil character in the musical the gospel number, and King brings the house down with it. As a side note, the song after Evillene's demise, "Everybody Rejoice," was not written by Smalls but by some unknown-in-1975 guy named Luther Vandross.

Score aside, the real star of the Wiz is its art direction. Using Astoria Studios and the streets of Manhattan, Oscar nominated art directors Tony Walton and Philip Rosenberg turn Oz into a mecca of Big City glamour and grit. The Munchkins are graffiti in the walls and the Yellow Brick road goes over the Brooklyn Bridge and down into the subway. It's here the entire concept of the Emerald City takes a better hold than it did in the 1939 version. This isn't to say that version's Em City was bad--I've been to Kansas and have no idea why the Hell Judy Garland wanted to go back--it's to say that the familiarity of The Wiz's Em City, especially to someone who grew up in the shadow of its real-life counterpart, resonated more with me. If you can make it there, you'll make it anywhere, right?

If ever there was a movie that screamed out for Michael Schultz, it's this one. Instead, Sidney Lumet has the helm and while he's one of the quintessential New York directors, he's no Stanley Donen. The Wiz is poorly paced, too slow in its beginning and too rushed in its midsection. When the Ease on Down the Road crew gets to the Wiz's domain, there's a horrific musical number featuring a traffic light that stops the movie dead. The number must be 7 minutes long and, according to Sidney Lumet's book, Making Movies (a must-read, by the way), it would have gone longer if Oswald Morris' Oscar nominated cin-tog hadn't had a lighting glitch in one section of the scene. Other scenes sink under the weight of a director who admits he doesn't really have a light touch.

At the end of The Wiz, the movie wants us to take Dorothy's adventure at face value, which to me makes no sense. How long was Dorothy gone? Does Oz actually exist? We see Dorothy run into her house and the credits roll. I wanted to see Theresa Merritt's Aunt Em standing there in the doorway with a belt. "Where the hell have you been, girl?!" she asks, popping the belt. I know Dorothy is supposed to be 24, but as my Mom is known for saying, "you're never too old for an ass whipping."

I expect my dis of The Wiz will cause me to get my ass whipped. It's a movie we love, and I love everything about it except the clunky script, the heavy handed direction and Miss Ross. Even as a kid, I had problems with her casting, and as mean as it sounds, I'm glad her backroom dealings with Universal caused the demise of her movie career. I mean, Mahogany should have done that anyway, but it was a hit. This, however was a dismal failure, sentenced to endless runs on TV, which is probably where most of you saw it. I saw it on a double feature with Which Way Is Up? Putting a G-rated movie with a hard R-rated comedy is just one of the great things about double features. God I miss them.

Your homework assignment:

Save your fire, fans of Miss Ross (this includes you too, Ma!) because tomorrow's Mahogany day.

UPDATE!! Netflix screwed me over again, sending me the wrong goddamn DVD! So, Mahogany will have to wait a few days. Damn you! But don't worry...I'll get to it.