The Wizard of Oz (1982 film)

The Wizard of Oz
オズの魔法使い (Oz no Mahōtsukai)
Genre	Adventure, Fantasy
Original video animation
Directed by	Fumihiko Takayama
Written by	Yoshimitsu Banno Akira Miyazaki
Music by	Joe Hisaishi Yuichiro Oda
Studio	Toho
Released	1982
Runtime	78 minutes
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The Wizard of Oz (オズの魔法使い, Ozu no Mahōtsukai^?) is a 1982 Japanese anime feature film directed by Fumihiko Takayama, from a screenplay by Yoshimitsu Banno and Akira Miyazaki, which is based on the 1900 children's novel by L. Frank Baum, produced by Yoshimitsu Banno and Katsumi Ueno for Toho Co., Ltd.

American version

A version edited by Johann Lowenberg and produced & directed by John Danylkiw appeared on television in the United States in 1982. Alan L. Gleitsman was the executive producer for his own Alan Enterprises which did the English dub for the North American release. It was distributed in English-speaking countries and territories by Paramount Pictures which includes the United States and Canada.

Cast

Japanese cast

• Sumi Shimamoto - Dorothy Gale
• Tadashi Yashuhara - Scarecrow
• Ichirô Nagai - Cowardly Lion
• Takumi Kamiyama - Tinman

North American cast

• Aileen Quinn - Dorothy Gale
• Lorne Greene - Wizard of Oz
• Billy Van - Scarecrow
• John Stocker - Tinman
• Thick Wilson - Cowardly Lion
• Elizabeth Hanna - The Good Witch of the North, Jellia Jamb, The Wicked Witch of the West
• Wendy Thatcher - Glinda, the Good Witch of the South

Relation to others

The film is known for staying particularly close to the novel, its primary elimination being the journey to Glinda, which is only now slightly less of a deus ex machina than in the MGM version. Also borrowed from that version are the red "magic shoes" rather than the silver shoes of Baum's text (although the movie when first released included the silver shoes and was changed later for people who were used to the MGM film). Some familiarity with the later books is clear, as the houses are the same two-chimneyed domes found in the artwork of John R. Neill, who never illustrated the first Oz book. It is one of the rare films to depict the various forms the Wizard appears to each of the travelers, such as the Beautiful-Winged Lady (shown to be a puppet rather than the Wizard in a costume, as in the book), the Terrible Beast (looking like an ordinary rhinoceros) and the Ball of Fire.

Some^{[weasel words]} feel that it is obvious that the English dialogue for this movie was recorded first and released in North America in 1982, and the movie was not dubbed into Japanese for release in Japan until 4 years later, in 1986. Although this movie is in no way related to the 1986 anime TV series produced by Panmedia outside of having the same source material, the fact that the movie was released in Japan in the same year that the TV series was first broadcast (and that both this film and the TV series were released in English in the U.S. and Canada) sometimes leads to the two works being confused.

Music

The music is written by Jō Hisaishi and Yuichiro Oda. The N.A. version featured new different lyrics by Sammy Cahn and Allen Byrns.

1. Strictly Up to You
2. I Dream of Home
3. A Wizard for a Day

Trivia

• In the 1980s, a re-edited version of the film was released in Czechoslovakia (now Czech republic and Slovak republic). The film was dubbed into the Slovak language except for the songs, which were performed by Japanese singers (original Japanese music version).

See also

• The Wizard of Oz (adaptations) — other adaptations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

External links

• The Wizard of Oz at the Internet Movie Database
• Review at Anime News Network, June 17 2003