Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. This
Speaker 1: is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And this
Speaker 1: week we've got a fun family picture for everybody. It
Speaker 1: is an OZ film, but you don't have to endure
Speaker 1: any songs. Uh. It's also that special variety of nine
Speaker 1: eighties big budget fantasy film that leans more than a
Speaker 1: little into what some of you might describe as dark fantasy.
Speaker 1: We are going to be talking about Return to Oz.
Speaker 1: People have been telling me for years that I needed
Speaker 1: to watch this movie. Yeah, they'd figure out what like
Speaker 1: my weird taste was, and they were like, have you
Speaker 1: ever seen Return to Oz? That movie messed me up
Speaker 1: when I was a kid. You should watch it. And
Speaker 1: I never did until last night, and I am absolutely
Speaker 1: blown away. I am I in fact, I'm a little
Speaker 1: bit sad, truly, and like not just joking around. I
Speaker 1: am a little bit sad that I did not actually
Speaker 1: see this as a child, because I know this is
Speaker 1: this is precisely the kind of movie that if I'd
Speaker 1: seen it when I was seven or whatever, I would
Speaker 1: have been thinking about it for months like it has
Speaker 1: just the right mix of of uh, you know, bizarre
Speaker 1: original imagery and character types that are not just like
Speaker 1: you know, the characters you'd find in any other fantasy
Speaker 1: thing is you know, it's truly original, but strange combinations
Speaker 1: of ideas that still nevertheless tap into something very deep
Speaker 1: and archetypal. I think this is a wonderful, scary children's movie.
Speaker 1: I think it's great. I never watched it growing up either,
Speaker 1: and I think part of it was just because the
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty nine adaptation of the Wizard of Oz is
Speaker 1: just such a monolith, and it's such an you know,
Speaker 1: such an influential film, but also one that so many
Speaker 1: people held close to their hearts that when this film
Speaker 1: came out, there were plenty of people are like, oh,
Speaker 1: we don't we don't want that new ODZ. We've we've
Speaker 1: got that old ODZ. It comes on television all the time,
Speaker 1: and or we have it on VHS. Why do we
Speaker 1: need to dip into this thing that that that that
Speaker 1: some are even saying is is a little frightening. But
Speaker 1: but here's the thing. Yes, we've been hearing from people say,
Speaker 1: oh this is you know, this is a weird film.
Speaker 1: You need to watch this is this is a scary one,
Speaker 1: or this messed me up as a child. I really
Speaker 1: don't think this one is any darker or scarier than
Speaker 1: than any of the other big eighties fantasy films like
Speaker 1: Labyrinth or the never ending story stuff of that caliber.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I agree. In fact, I don't think it's
Speaker 1: actually even scarier than the thirty nine Wizard of Oz, which,
Speaker 1: if you go back and watch the original Wizard of Oz,
Speaker 1: this movie gave me a new appreciation for how weird
Speaker 1: and how scary the original is. I'm serious, Like, if you, uh,
Speaker 1: you kind of accept it because it's part of the
Speaker 1: air were the Wizard of Oz is. You know, you
Speaker 1: grow up with that. It's just part of American culture,
Speaker 1: so it doesn't seem that strange. But yeah, it also
Speaker 1: has very unusual characters and imagery and uh and there
Speaker 1: is real tense, frightening, magical peril in it. Do you
Speaker 1: remember how heart stopping that scene is when you're a
Speaker 1: kid in the witch turns the hourglass over and says
Speaker 1: Dorothy's gonna die, and the uh and the you know,
Speaker 1: the monkey soldiers are everywhere, and the tin Man's with
Speaker 1: the axe trying to chop down the door like it
Speaker 1: the original one is scary. Yeah, I always thought that
Speaker 1: the forest was pretty terrifying. So there's plenty of plenty
Speaker 1: of weird and scary stuff, and that that thirty nine
Speaker 1: adaptation as well. And it's funny. We we were conversing
Speaker 1: before we went in here. You you've noted that I
Speaker 1: had a couple of sort of jabs at the thirty
Speaker 1: nine Wizard of Oz. And so you asked me if
Speaker 1: I if I hated the the original Wizard of Oz film,
Speaker 1: and uh, and I said no, no, And and truly
Speaker 1: I think it's it's kind of impossible to hate the
Speaker 1: thirty nine film. I mean, it's such, like I said,
Speaker 1: it's a sin matic monolith. It's it's so influential, Like
Speaker 1: even if you're not crazy about it, it probably influenced
Speaker 1: some creators or some works that that that came in
Speaker 1: its wake, you know, like and more directly, if you
Speaker 1: didn't have the Wizard of Oz from you wouldn't have
Speaker 1: The Whiz, and of course you wouldn't have this film either.
Speaker 1: But it's it's it's tentacles run far and long through
Speaker 1: through fiction and dream weaving that it came to follow
Speaker 1: but more to your point about h I guess how
Speaker 1: you might have heard about this movie when you were
Speaker 1: a kid. If people are saying, oh, you know, it
Speaker 1: does it doesn't live up to the original, it's not
Speaker 1: worth seeing or something. I mean, in a way, I
Speaker 1: think it's kind of silly to try to compare them,
Speaker 1: because it's I think it's called an unofficial sequel. It
Speaker 1: is clearly a sequel to The Wizard of Oz, like
Speaker 1: the events followed directly from the first one, but it's
Speaker 1: also not not like an official, sanctioned one. And it
Speaker 1: came decades later. The original was what thirty nine and
Speaker 1: this is eight five, so what like forty six years
Speaker 1: in between. It was a long time. And and that
Speaker 1: makes a big difference in terms of tone and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the textures that are expected in a movie
Speaker 1: like this, Like the the original one has a kind
Speaker 1: of a kind of gilded grandeur of of old Hollywood
Speaker 1: about it, whereas this one feels much more. I mean,
Speaker 1: it feels like an eighties movie, but a lovely, scrappy,
Speaker 1: imaginative one. Yeah. Yeah, And it's a it is it
Speaker 1: is a world in which the Emerald City is literally
Speaker 1: in ruins, so there's probably a lot to say. They're about,
Speaker 1: like the state of of of of the the eighties
Speaker 1: mindset compared to the late thirties mindset. I don't know,
Speaker 1: at least in terms of like cinematic portrayals, but um yeah.
Speaker 1: It is impossible though, to go into this and not
Speaker 1: think of the thirty nine film sometimes unfairly. So's why
Speaker 1: I actually watched this with my my whole family. We
Speaker 1: sat down and watched it, and my son he really
Speaker 1: enjoyed this one. He he enjoyed the old one, but
Speaker 1: he was bringing up some things. He's like, well, why
Speaker 1: is Dorothy younger now? And all? So, why didn't Toto
Speaker 1: talk in the last film? This film clearly established that
Speaker 1: animals that come to Oz can talk. Ww come Toto
Speaker 1: never talked? Uh. That's some bs brilliant observation by your son.
Speaker 1: I did not notice this myself, but yees. So the
Speaker 1: premise of this movie is that all the animals in
Speaker 1: Oz talk uh. And this includes animals that are brought
Speaker 1: to Oz, such as one of the main characters in
Speaker 1: this movie, which is a chicken that's like a cool
Speaker 1: gnarly grandma, and the chicken talks. It didn't talk when
Speaker 1: it was in Kansas, but it comes to Oz with
Speaker 1: Dorothy talks now, so yes, you are your son is
Speaker 1: absolutely correct. Toto should have talked in the original. This
Speaker 1: is a major oversight. Now, speaking of the chicken whose
Speaker 1: name is Billina, I have to mention the other. The
Speaker 1: other reason I really love Returned to Oz is I
Speaker 1: think it has better companions because, yes, we encounter in
Speaker 1: this film we do see tin Man again, Scarecrow, cowardly Lion,
Speaker 1: but Dorothy has basically all new companions that she goes
Speaker 1: on the advent true with here and it's and I'm
Speaker 1: going to list them here for it for us so
Speaker 1: we can get a taste of what's to come. We
Speaker 1: have Billina, the talking chicken, and this is wonderfully accomplished
Speaker 1: via live action chicken actors and an incredible chicken puppet
Speaker 1: that is just lie years ahead of what we saw
Speaker 1: in Thrilling Bloody Sword last week. Though I do love
Speaker 1: both chickens, they are both great robotic chickens, but this
Speaker 1: one is much more convincing as a chicken. Yes, then
Speaker 1: we have TikTok, who is a rotund, wind up, mustachioed
Speaker 1: soldier made out of like bronze or brass. I was
Speaker 1: thinking copper, but yeah, it's one of those. He's he's
Speaker 1: a metal wind up war machine. Yeah, he's a he's
Speaker 1: a steampunk soldier and he's fighting on behalf of the
Speaker 1: Emerald City and Dorothy. Oh, and then the next one
Speaker 1: we have we have the Gump, and the Gump is
Speaker 1: basically a junk gollum. It's like junk is put together
Speaker 1: a moose's head on a couch with some ferns and
Speaker 1: and whatever else they could scare. They are able to
Speaker 1: to assemble together, and then it's given life. Uh. And
Speaker 1: you gotta love the Gump. They like shake some borax
Speaker 1: powder on it and that makes it come to life. Yeah. Oh,
Speaker 1: and then we have Jack Pumpkinhead, who is kind of
Speaker 1: a superior Halloween theme scarecrow sort of guy. Would you
Speaker 1: say that's fair? Yeah. Jack Pumpkinhead is interesting because he
Speaker 1: has the scariest form of all of Dorothy's companions, but
Speaker 1: his nature is to be incredibly innocent and sweet. So
Speaker 1: that's the crew. That's the adventuring party for this film.
Speaker 1: But one has to wonder, Okay, wait a minute, what
Speaker 1: more adventures are there to have in oz because the
Speaker 1: last time Dorothy was an Osuh, didn't they defeat the
Speaker 1: Wicked Witch and then uh and then everything was cool
Speaker 1: and Emerald City like they had a big ceremony. Was
Speaker 1: basically to celebrate the fact that now everything's good, nothing bad.
Speaker 1: Every is going to happen again. I was trying to
Speaker 1: think back to exactly how The Wizard of Oz ended.
Speaker 1: Did it end with the Scarecrow becoming king of the
Speaker 1: Emerald City? I don't remember if it did or not.
Speaker 1: So that's the premise of this movie, is that at
Speaker 1: the end of the last one, Scarecrow was king. That's
Speaker 1: a detail that I could see being in the original
Speaker 1: that I forgot about, but I didn't check to make sure.
Speaker 1: But either way, things are good in Oz. When when
Speaker 1: Dorothy leaves, remember she's gonna leave on the balloon. But
Speaker 1: then the professor or another professor, I think it's the guy,
Speaker 1: the guy from like the Carnival Barker, Charlatan guy uh,
Speaker 1: and he's like, oh, he floats away on the balloon.
Speaker 1: He doesn't know how to bring it back. And then
Speaker 1: she thinks she's stranded in Oz. But then she clicks
Speaker 1: her heels together with the ruby slippers and says there's
Speaker 1: no place like home, and then she wakes up back
Speaker 1: in her bed and you were there, and you were
Speaker 1: there and it was great. But basically the pitch here
Speaker 1: is that in the previous movie, the Previous Adventure anyway,
Speaker 1: Dorothy greatly destabilized Oz. She ends up installing her own ruler,
Speaker 1: the Scarecrow, and I get the impression the Scarecrow's rule
Speaker 1: of Oz last like maybe an afternoon before. He has
Speaker 1: then conquered by an entity known as the Nome King,
Speaker 1: and now it's time for Dorothy to come back to
Speaker 1: Oz and fix everything once more. The villains in this
Speaker 1: movie are Sue perb just excellent, some of my new
Speaker 1: favorite movie villains of all time, Jean marsh as Mombi
Speaker 1: and Nicole Williamson as the Nome King. That they should
Speaker 1: go in the Hall of Fame of of children's movie
Speaker 1: fantasy movie villains. Yeah, they absolutely should, and it's and
Speaker 1: it makes sense because we often forget again just because
Speaker 1: how well known the thirty nine Wizard of Oz film
Speaker 1: it was. But Margaret Hamilton's is a terrific villain in
Speaker 1: that film, playing uh miss Gulch and uh and of
Speaker 1: course the Wicked Witch of of the East. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just a great cackling performance that you don't even
Speaker 1: think of as a performance after a while, like that's
Speaker 1: that is just the wicked witch on the screen there. Wait?
Speaker 1: Is she the East or the West? I thought she
Speaker 1: was the West? Is she the West? Who we have
Speaker 1: a good No? Wait, the East is the Eastern? Which
Speaker 1: is the one who had the house dropped on her?
Speaker 1: Is that correct? I think that is right? Yes, I
Speaker 1: was correct, Mark Hamilton's is the West. We never see
Speaker 1: the East. You just see your socks. Both of those
Speaker 1: witches though out of the picture. Though. At one point Momby,
Speaker 1: who will get into here in a bit, is described
Speaker 1: as a witch. So I guess she's keeping the witching
Speaker 1: tradition going. Yeah. I like how she's first described I
Speaker 1: think as a princess and then later as a witch.
Speaker 1: But I guess we'll get into more detail later. Momby
Speaker 1: is just wonderful. Um well, I guess you already sort
Speaker 1: of gave the elevator pitch, right. It's like, so Dorothy
Speaker 1: came in. She did she did a foreign intervention. She
Speaker 1: installed a puppet ruler in the form of the Scarecrow.
Speaker 1: Scarecrow has been deposed. Now Dorothy is back to Oz
Speaker 1: and it's up against the Nome King. That's right, let's
Speaker 1: go ahead and hear some trailer audio for Return to
Speaker 1: Oz this summer won't Disney Pictures presents a motion picture
Speaker 1: fantasy adventure beyond your parished imagination. You'll be transported miraculously
Speaker 1: back to the enchanted land of Ours, that magical kingdom
Speaker 1: beloved by young and old for generations. It's just a
Speaker 1: yellow back, no, Willina, you don't understand. This was the
Speaker 1: yellow Wick world you share with Dorothy Gale, the shock
Speaker 1: of finding everything mysteriously changed to everybody, and you'll delight
Speaker 1: with her discovery of four wonderful new friends who bend
Speaker 1: together against a wicked queen and the dreaded Nome King.
Speaker 1: This is the Ours you haven't seen before, and this
Speaker 1: is the Ours you want to visit again again. From
Speaker 1: Walt Disney Pictures becomes a whole new world of entertainment.
Speaker 1: I don't just fly back to Kansas returned, all right? Now,
Speaker 1: Before we go any any further here, I do want
Speaker 1: to mention where you can watch this, Where you can
Speaker 1: watch it just about anywhere. It was a this is
Speaker 1: a big release. It may not have performed especially well
Speaker 1: at the box office, I understand, but yeah, you can
Speaker 1: find it in multiple different forms these days. If you
Speaker 1: subscribe to Disney Plus, at least in the United States,
Speaker 1: you can watch it there. That's where we watched it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I watched on Disney Plus two. All right, Well, let's
Speaker 1: get into some of the people behind this. I'm let's
Speaker 1: start at the top, and that is with director who
Speaker 1: also has a screenplay credit on this. It is Walter
Speaker 1: merch born three, highly influential Hollywood sound and film editor
Speaker 1: who worked on such pictures as th h X eight,
Speaker 1: American Graffiti, The Godfather Part two, Apocalypse Now, The English Patient,
Speaker 1: and I think, uh, I think those are some of
Speaker 1: the ones where he did sound. But he also was
Speaker 1: a film editor on such films as Apocalypse Now, Ghost,
Speaker 1: Romeo Is Bleeding, The Godfather Part three, and much more.
Speaker 1: The Lucas connection is also interesting because when you look
Speaker 1: at Walter Merchants directorial credits, there are only two titles there.
Speaker 1: There's Returned Oz, which of course is what we're discussing
Speaker 1: here today. This is only film directing credit, and and
Speaker 1: then he doesn't direct anything else, but he does pop
Speaker 1: up as a director on a two thousand and eleven
Speaker 1: episode of Star Wars the Clone Wars uh, the animated series,
Speaker 1: and I was I was immediately curious, okay, which which
Speaker 1: episode was this, because I've seen them all with my son,
Speaker 1: And it is an episode titled The General and it's
Speaker 1: a pretty great episode. It's one of the episodes in
Speaker 1: a multi episode story arc concerning the Republic's campaign on
Speaker 1: a planet called Umbara. So it's this shadowy kind of world.
Speaker 1: They're not fighting the droids of the Separatists, they're fighting
Speaker 1: another separatist faction, and the Clones are under the ruthless
Speaker 1: leadership of one General Palm Krell, who is this forearmed
Speaker 1: basil esk Uh creature. But he's like a really just
Speaker 1: ruthless general who is ready to just sacrifice as mini
Speaker 1: Clone lives as necessary to win the day. So it
Speaker 1: was it's ultimately, I think one of the one of
Speaker 1: the best story arcs you see in that series. And
Speaker 1: so they brought in Walter Merch to direct this one episode,
Speaker 1: so I thought that was pretty cool. Well for a
Speaker 1: mostly one and done director's filmography, this is a strong entry. Uh.
Speaker 1: I much respect to Walter Merch. I wish he had
Speaker 1: directed more movies. Yeah. Now the screenplay credit. The main
Speaker 1: screenplay credit on this goes to Gil Dennis, who lived
Speaker 1: through writer and actor, best known for his work on
Speaker 1: the screenplays for This Without Evidence and two thousand Fives
Speaker 1: Walk the Line, the Johnny Cash biopic. As an actor,
Speaker 1: he played Man with Cigar in nineteen seventy seven's a
Speaker 1: Racer Head. Oh yeah, I think I read somewhere that
Speaker 1: he may have been a classmate of uh David Lynch,
Speaker 1: which would make sense that if he showed up in
Speaker 1: a razor head. All right, But of course the screenplay
Speaker 1: is based on the work of L. Frank Baum, whose
Speaker 1: novels I think in particular, this screenplays based on two novels,
Speaker 1: Ozma of Oz and The Land of Oz. Bomb lived
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty six through nineteen nineteen. Bomb was an American
Speaker 1: author best known for his novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,
Speaker 1: published in nineteen hundred, as well as its many sequels.
Speaker 1: And this is This was fascinating for me because I
Speaker 1: really didn't know much about the cinematic history of the
Speaker 1: Wizard of Oz pre nineteen thirty nine, but even ahead
Speaker 1: of the nineteen thirty nine film adaptation. This was already
Speaker 1: a highly successful property. It was a Broadway musical in
Speaker 1: nineteen o two. The thirty nine film, though momentous, wasn't
Speaker 1: even the first adaptation. The first attempt was apparently in
Speaker 1: nineteen o eight with the Fairy log and radio plays,
Speaker 1: followed by at least a good half dozen silent film
Speaker 1: adapting the World of Oz. Oh Man, I've got to
Speaker 1: see the silent films and what they do with with
Speaker 1: TikTok and stuff. Yeah, they look that. I didn't get
Speaker 1: a chance to really watching them, but they look interesting.
Speaker 1: We might have to come back to some of those
Speaker 1: in the future now. Of course, following the nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: nine classic, there's still plenty of other dips into the
Speaker 1: world of Oz. Uh. There was an ultra low budget
Speaker 1: adaptation titled The Wonderful Land of Oz in nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 1: There were a few different animated adaptations, including a ninety
Speaker 1: two to Hope produced Japanese adaptation. Uh. There's there's really
Speaker 1: quite a lot of Oz related media out there, including
Speaker 1: such works as the nineteen seventy five musical and subsequent
Speaker 1: film that film adaptation, The whiz U the book in
Speaker 1: Broadway musical Wicked, and then there are all sorts of
Speaker 1: literary treatments, spinoff solusions and more. Like I had to
Speaker 1: think back on it because again, thirty nine Wizard of
Speaker 1: Oz especially such a monolith, you don't even think about
Speaker 1: the references to it. But like even Stephen King includes
Speaker 1: more than a little OZ sprinkled throughout his Dark Tower series,
Speaker 1: and yeah, they're they're. Honestly, just seems no end in
Speaker 1: sight to our fascination with Oz. Bomb wrote seventeen OZ
Speaker 1: books during his lifetime, numerous other children's and adventures books
Speaker 1: as well, But we keep making OZ related media, and
Speaker 1: it seems like it's just gonna keep going. I've never
Speaker 1: actually read any of the OZ books, but I'm kind
Speaker 1: of tempted to check them out, because, at least with
Speaker 1: the two movies, there's so much unexpected original texture to
Speaker 1: the fantasy world created here when compared to most fantasy.
Speaker 1: Because you know, after after you've consumed a decent amount
Speaker 1: of fantasy, you see a lot of recycled elements. There's
Speaker 1: sort of, you know, the standard tropes of high fantasy
Speaker 1: that show up again and again. But but the ODZ
Speaker 1: world is full of bizarre, unfamiliar things and beings. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that I've always hit with
Speaker 1: when I when I have looked at you know, often
Speaker 1: just cover art and illustrations from these books, is that
Speaker 1: I feel like there's this there's certainly this familiar sense
Speaker 1: to it, all due to the cultural impact of the
Speaker 1: Wizard of Oz, but also this weird sense that you
Speaker 1: get from popular fiction that is very much, uh centered
Speaker 1: in a particular past. You know, like I'm I'm not
Speaker 1: the intended recipient of these tales, and they're not even
Speaker 1: though they're in English and in there, you know, they're
Speaker 1: American stories. I don't feel like I am uh like,
Speaker 1: like I have all of the the gear lined up
Speaker 1: in which to receive the message that is being sent
Speaker 1: to me through it. Like your operating system no longer
Speaker 1: supports this software. Yeah, Like I've never lived on a
Speaker 1: farm in the middle of a prairie. How am I
Speaker 1: supposed to to take some of this stuff? You know,
Speaker 1: I's see what you're saying. Yeah, all right, well, let's
Speaker 1: get into the cast here. Let's let's talk about Dorothy. Uh.
Speaker 1: This film's Doro The was played by Usa Bach, who
Speaker 1: was born in nineteen seventy four. Still active American actor
Speaker 1: who might might be better known to some of you
Speaker 1: for her roles as an adult, but she started out
Speaker 1: very young and this was her first motion picture. Subsequent
Speaker 1: films included Valmont in nine Things to Do in Denver
Speaker 1: when You're Dead in that's an allusion to Warren Zevon
Speaker 1: song by the way, And of course the big one
Speaker 1: is The Craft in nine oh Man. Several years back,
Speaker 1: Rachel and I around Halloween decided to watch The Craft.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if i'd say it's a good movie,
Speaker 1: but that was a fun time. I don't think i've
Speaker 1: ever seen it, but you know, of course I'm familiar
Speaker 1: with I remember the trailers and all. But but this
Speaker 1: is a big film. And after this she was in
Speaker 1: a string of big films, including uh, the Cursed nine
Speaker 1: adaptation of the Island of Dr Moreau always that Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: this is the one. If you're asking, is that the
Speaker 1: Island of Dr Moreau in which yes, it is that. Okay,
Speaker 1: it is the Marlon Brando one, yes, yes, the one
Speaker 1: where he allegedly had to be fed his lines through
Speaker 1: an earpiece because he wouldn't learn them. Yeah, just a mean.
Speaker 1: Their documentaries about about this just a ridiculous production. That
Speaker 1: still is it has things going for it. I mean
Speaker 1: it's it's it's oddly hypnotizing if you catch it on
Speaker 1: TV and all. I don't think I've ever given it
Speaker 1: a dedicated viewing. I just it was on a lot
Speaker 1: for a certain amount of time, I guess back in
Speaker 1: the late nineties, and so you would catch bits of
Speaker 1: it and it's it's thoroughly weird and just thoroughly a mess. Okay,
Speaker 1: sorry to interrupt. American history Acts is another big one,
Speaker 1: almost famous in two thousand and She was also in
Speaker 1: Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant Port of Call, New Orleans in
Speaker 1: two thousand nine, which also featured Nick cage Val Kilmer. Again,
Speaker 1: he was in the Dr Maroe movie Jennifer Coolidge, Brad Dorroff,
Speaker 1: and Michael Shannon. I've not seen Port of Call New
Speaker 1: Orleans since it came out, but but I've been meaning
Speaker 1: to revisit it because that one I remember being a
Speaker 1: a jaw dropping experience. Another interesting fact for rusa box
Speaker 1: father Solomon felt Faus was one of the founding members
Speaker 1: of the psychedelic band Kaleidoscope, and Ball herself is also
Speaker 1: a musician you know, I feel like we tend to
Speaker 1: if a if a child performance in a movie is bad,
Speaker 1: we tend not to dwell on it as much as
Speaker 1: we might on a notably bad adult performance, because I
Speaker 1: don't know, you don't want to be mean about a
Speaker 1: child actor. But I would say not just being nice.
Speaker 1: She's genuinely great in this great, great performance as Dorothy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she has this great, big eyed engagement. She's seen always
Speaker 1: seems very much a part of the action going on.
Speaker 1: Sometimes with kid actors this kind of you can kind
Speaker 1: of just at times just see a child standing on
Speaker 1: a set. You know, there's this less of a sense
Speaker 1: that they're connected to their surroundings and the scene and
Speaker 1: the characters. But she's totally in there. She helps make
Speaker 1: these scenes which often feature no other human characters. It's
Speaker 1: all puppets and seats and so forth. I mean, they're
Speaker 1: humans inside the suits obviously, but but no other visible
Speaker 1: human in the scene. And she's able to be that
Speaker 1: human center for everything. And also I would say that
Speaker 1: she has a confidence, like she's a confident character. It's
Speaker 1: a confident performance then maybe makes some of the otherwise
Speaker 1: scary elements a little less scary. You know what I'm saying. Yes,
Speaker 1: I so I agree with that, And at the same time,
Speaker 1: she also ROUSI ball also has the natural energy of
Speaker 1: kind of a government created scanner child who might make
Speaker 1: people's heads explode if she doesn't get her string cheese.
Speaker 1: You know, which is I think the appropriate energy for
Speaker 1: a child who is able to uh to journey through
Speaker 1: the myths to another dimension ruled by scary individuals scary entities,
Speaker 1: and then moved back again. Yes, so really notably good
Speaker 1: kid performance. But we've got to talk about Nicole Williamson.
Speaker 1: He left me floored in this movie. Yeah, Nicole Williamson
Speaker 1: plays to do it's a double role. He plays Dr Worley,
Speaker 1: the electricity obsessed physician, and uh it's he's a psychologist
Speaker 1: or what order his credentials exactly? Well, it takes place
Speaker 1: in nineteen hundreds. I don't know if they add all
Speaker 1: the same categories here. I guess he's a psychiatrist, a
Speaker 1: you know, a physical psychiatrist. This this movie, I will say,
Speaker 1: um takes a firm stance against mental health. We can explain.
Speaker 1: You can explain more about that when we get into
Speaker 1: the plot. But yes, he plays a kind of uh,
Speaker 1: his psychiatrist character I think is supposed to be taken
Speaker 1: in a very negative way, though it is not as
Speaker 1: explicitly evil as the Nome King. But he's great in
Speaker 1: both roles, right, Yeah, because he had the the alter
Speaker 1: ego in the Land of Oz is the Nome King.
Speaker 1: That's spelled n O n E no G. But yeah.
Speaker 1: Williamson lived nineteen thirty six or two thousand and eleven,
Speaker 1: and he's I think he's always a treat, at least
Speaker 1: for the viewer. As discussed in our episode on the
Speaker 1: snake movie Venom, Williamson had a reputation apparently for being
Speaker 1: difficult to work with, which again, sometimes you don't know
Speaker 1: exactly what to make of these supposed reputations. Um making
Speaker 1: movies is obviously complicated and there are a lot of
Speaker 1: personalities involved, So I imagine there's some cases out there
Speaker 1: where repute these reputations are well deserved. Other times there
Speaker 1: maybe it's a little more complicated than this person was difficult.
Speaker 1: But at any rate, however difficult he was or wasn't
Speaker 1: to work with, definitely a great actor. He played Merlin
Speaker 1: in movie ex Caliber, which is a really shiny, very
Speaker 1: just glistening king Arthur movie. He also was in the
Speaker 1: Spawn movie. Who was in The Exorcist three and he
Speaker 1: played Sherlock Holmes in these seven percent solution. This is
Speaker 1: the one that was made by Nicholas Meyer, who did
Speaker 1: Time after Time. Yeah. Yeah, and and although he was
Speaker 1: in tons of other stuff as well, but yeah, in
Speaker 1: in this movie. And the thing about the Nome King is,
Speaker 1: I guess the Nome King is is largely a v
Speaker 1: O care Arcter except for the very end of the film.
Speaker 1: And even then he's under a lot of makeup, and
Speaker 1: I think there's still some voice distortion going on. But
Speaker 1: it's still a great role. Oh yeah, yeah, I think
Speaker 1: he is hypnotizing. I just wish there were more movies
Speaker 1: where he plays a magical big bad of some kind.
Speaker 1: What what just occurred to me? When you were talking
Speaker 1: about like great but difficult actors. I was thinking, wouldn't
Speaker 1: it have been great if you could get a Blade
Speaker 1: sequel that was Wesley Snipes versus Nicole Williamson. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: he would have been good. Um have you seen ex
Speaker 1: caliber now as she plays Merlin? Oh, it's a great
Speaker 1: performance he gives. He gives a great Merlin all right,
Speaker 1: But that's just our our main villain, but we also
Speaker 1: have a secondary villain and that and there is also
Speaker 1: a dual role we have. It's Mombi, the Witch the princess,
Speaker 1: but also her earthly counterpart is Nurse Wilson. This these
Speaker 1: characters are played by Gene Marsh. Geane Marsh is also
Speaker 1: just off the charts on this so good yeah born
Speaker 1: awesome British actor who appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's excellent nine
Speaker 1: thriller Frenzy, and many viewers I think will probably best
Speaker 1: remember her for her portrayal of the evil witch queen
Speaker 1: about Morda in Willow. Joe, Have you seen Willow? It's
Speaker 1: been I haven't seen it since I was a kid, basically,
Speaker 1: so I don't really remember it except for little images
Speaker 1: here and there I remember. Does that Val Kilmer like
Speaker 1: hanging in a cage? Yes? Yeah, Val Kilmer is all
Speaker 1: over the place in this one as well. But yeah,
Speaker 1: Jeane Marsh plays this evil witch queen and it's just
Speaker 1: just a wonderful, snarling and cold role. This movie has
Speaker 1: I think that the greatest witch versus which battle ever
Speaker 1: ever committed on film. Right at the right at the
Speaker 1: end of the picture, It's just a real like eye gouging,
Speaker 1: spell slinging kind of encounter. Highly recommended. Anyway, Marsh Diddle
Speaker 1: a lot of TV during her career, and I I
Speaker 1: believe she's retired now, but those TV credits include on
Speaker 1: an award winning role on the British drama series Upstairs Downstairs.
Speaker 1: She was also on Doctor Who, an episode of Tales
Speaker 1: from the Dark Side the Saint, and even a nine
Speaker 1: episode of the original Twilight Zone one called The Lonely Uh.
Speaker 1: This is one I've I've seen before. This is the
Speaker 1: one where a convict living alone on an asteroid which
Speaker 1: just looks like the desert, like the California desert or something. Um,
Speaker 1: he receives a female robot from his captors to help
Speaker 1: keep him company on the asteroid for some reason. And anyway,
Speaker 1: Marsh plays the robot woman opposite Jack Warden and Ted
Speaker 1: Knight is in that episode two in an uncredited kind
Speaker 1: of background role. So something that's interesting about marsh and
Speaker 1: Nicole Williamson in this movie is that they both get
Speaker 1: to play these dual roles in which in the mundane
Speaker 1: world in the world of Kansas, they are are presented
Speaker 1: as villains, but in a very subtle way, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of blending in with society and doing something that
Speaker 1: from Dorothy's perspective in the movie we see as wicked.
Speaker 1: But but you know, they're not chewing the scenery, they're
Speaker 1: not overt. In fact, they they they're their outward appearances
Speaker 1: is sort of friendly, or at least Nicol Williamson says
Speaker 1: Gene marsh is kind of cold as the lady in
Speaker 1: the clinic. Um. But then you get to flip the
Speaker 1: script and go to Oz, where the characters reappear once again,
Speaker 1: but as just like frothing monstrous versions of their mundane
Speaker 1: world characters. Yes, yes, characters that just demand over the
Speaker 1: top performances. Uh just you use every muscle in your face.
Speaker 1: Go ahead and crank your eye intensity up to uh
Speaker 1: to to eleven or twelve. That's that's the sort of
Speaker 1: villains that populate the world of Oz, all right. Now.
Speaker 1: A few more performers of note in this um Anti
Speaker 1: m anti um in this is played by Piper Laurie bo.
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, Joe, but I thought this
Speaker 1: was this is rather hilarious given that she plays Carrie's mom,
Speaker 1: Margaret White in seventies six is Carrie, both movies about
Speaker 1: special girls with special powers, uh and and This is
Speaker 1: the And And Piper Laurie plays the moms, sort of
Speaker 1: trying to understand these these these young women. No, I
Speaker 1: would say Antam is A is A is a good caregiver,
Speaker 1: like she's you know, she she's trying to be loving
Speaker 1: and and she does end up taking uh Dorothy to
Speaker 1: a bad place, but she doesn't mean bad. She's trying
Speaker 1: to help um and her her benevolence in this movie
Speaker 1: is yes, I almost hilariously contrasted with the other main
Speaker 1: roles I can think of her in Yeah She's Aside
Speaker 1: from Carrie, she was also in nineteen sixes The Hustler,
Speaker 1: She was in Twin Peaks and Children of a Lesser God.
Speaker 1: Another funny thing Rachel and I always talk about whenever
Speaker 1: Piper Laurie comes up is the the just the absurdity
Speaker 1: of the machinations about the mill in Twin Peaks. Remember
Speaker 1: that's like one of her main motivations is fighting about
Speaker 1: the mill. Oh no, no, I don't remember the Alright,
Speaker 1: So those are some of the really those are the
Speaker 1: main human characters. A lot of the other characters are
Speaker 1: gonna a lot of the other actors and individuals involved here.
Speaker 1: They're kind of a mix of actual like physical performers
Speaker 1: or or puppeteers or special effects manipulators. Uh so, And
Speaker 1: I'm not going to list all of them here, but
Speaker 1: some of them stand out because of other work that
Speaker 1: they did. I like that in the credits at the
Speaker 1: end of this movie, when the when the non human
Speaker 1: characters appear, they will be given multiple credits for multiple
Speaker 1: people playing the role, like they put the often the
Speaker 1: puppeteer in the voice actors side by side. I think
Speaker 1: that's cool. Yeah, yeah, So one name that does stand
Speaker 1: out is the voice of Jack Pumpkinhead. It's Brian Henson
Speaker 1: for three. This is, of course the son of the
Speaker 1: late Jim Henson, producer, director, actor writer. He's of course
Speaker 1: been involved in tons of Henson projects over the decades,
Speaker 1: but I think his most treasured place in my cinematic
Speaker 1: memories is as the voice of Hoggle in six Labyrinth.
Speaker 1: He was also the voice of the dog on Jim
Speaker 1: Henson's Storyteller. Oh okay, and I could be wrong, but
Speaker 1: I think he also did some some manipulation on Jack
Speaker 1: Pumpkinhead's head in this film as well. I couldn't tell
Speaker 1: was Jack pumpkinhead a puppet or was there like a
Speaker 1: really skinny actor inside a costume. Oh that's a tough call, right,
Speaker 1: without really diving back into the credits, because he is
Speaker 1: supposed to look like a thing that is essentially a
Speaker 1: magical puppet made out of parts. But there may well
Speaker 1: have been a human actor in there at least for
Speaker 1: some of the scenes, along with some sort of puppetry
Speaker 1: manipulation of the head. And also sometimes the chicken uh
Speaker 1: billina is inside the Jack O'Lantern head. So there's a
Speaker 1: lot going on here. Oh now this one was and
Speaker 1: I wasn't prepared for this, but I mentioned we have
Speaker 1: the Gump here, which is this junk gollum that has
Speaker 1: a like a stuffed moose's head. And uh, the individual
Speaker 1: that's accredited for effects and manipulation on the Gump's head
Speaker 1: is Stephen Norrington born four the man who would go
Speaker 1: on to direct Blade and did monster effects. Split second. Wow,
Speaker 1: So yeah, we've he keeps coming up in the show,
Speaker 1: and he's gonna keep coming up. The connections never stop. Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: Now this next one is more of a physical performance,
Speaker 1: and that is the lead wheeler. The Wheelers are kind
Speaker 1: of the flying monkeys of this film, only instead of
Speaker 1: flying monkeys, instead of some sort of a simian creature
Speaker 1: with with feathered wings. They are um like half human
Speaker 1: half old timey bicycle people. Or they are a like
Speaker 1: a tribe of post apocalyptic maniacs who have taken up um,
Speaker 1: you know, vehicular locomotion instead of walking. Uh, They're they're
Speaker 1: really odd. They're they're difficult to describe. Anyway. There's a
Speaker 1: whole group of these Wheelers and the lead wheeler is
Speaker 1: played by this actor by the name of Ponds Mar.
Speaker 1: And I'm glad we finally get to mention ponds Mar
Speaker 1: because he's a He's a Florida born artist, effects artist, puppeteer,
Speaker 1: and a monster suit guy. He's one of He's just
Speaker 1: one of the creepy Wheelers in this movie. But he
Speaker 1: is also memorable for playing the reptile man sor Odd
Speaker 1: in seven Masters of the Universe and the character Fu
Speaker 1: in nine six is the Golden Child. He also did
Speaker 1: some dino suit work, both on TVs Dinosaurs the Hinson
Speaker 1: Affected sitcom, but also the movie Theodore Rex, in which
Speaker 1: he plays a cool talking t Rex opposite Whoopie Goldberg.
Speaker 1: To clarify, Theodore Rex is a buddy cop move and
Speaker 1: the buddy cops are Whoopie Goldberg and a dinosaur. Wo
Speaker 1: have you seen it? No, I haven't seen it. I
Speaker 1: just know the premise and and apparently he's like a
Speaker 1: rad dinosaur. He looks frat he looks pretty rad at
Speaker 1: any rate. Oh Man Ponds mars the lead Wheeler his
Speaker 1: performance and this is just cranked up to about a thousand.
Speaker 1: I was thinking, it's kind of like, what have you
Speaker 1: took one of Bill Irwin's mind performances like he would
Speaker 1: do on Sesame Street and so forth? What if you
Speaker 1: had that level of intensity? But it was also definitely
Speaker 1: loud at the same time. Yes, yes, he he is
Speaker 1: manic oh and Rob I noticed something. I put this
Speaker 1: together about the Wheelers only after I watched the movie,
Speaker 1: not while I was watching it. Okay, So throughout the
Speaker 1: movie you've got these characters who appear in OZ, but
Speaker 1: then there's some sort of counterpart in the in the
Speaker 1: mundane world back in Kansas. So of course Mombi is
Speaker 1: the is the nurse at the clinic um the nome
Speaker 1: King is the doctor at the clinic. But I think
Speaker 1: the Wheelers are the sallow, uh moist looking orderlies at
Speaker 1: the clinic who are like wheeling the gurneys around and
Speaker 1: they look up, haven't slept in a month? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: believe you're right on that, because I think looking back
Speaker 1: on it now, I'm not positive about this, but I
Speaker 1: think Pondsmr. Is also one of those orderlies. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think he is. He has a very distinctive look that
Speaker 1: that shines through even when he's not made up like
Speaker 1: some sort of reptile man. Now, speaking of monster suits, Oh,
Speaker 1: I have to mention this guy, even though the Cowardly
Speaker 1: Lion is not much of a character in this The
Speaker 1: Cowardly Lion is basically turned to stone and only becomes
Speaker 1: un unfrozen at the very end of the film. But
Speaker 1: when he does move again, it's it's this cool monster
Speaker 1: suit and the monsters. The man in the monster suit
Speaker 1: is John Alexander, who is a guerrilla guy. Gotta love
Speaker 1: a good guerrilla guy. Oh, he does gorillas quite often. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. Alexander was a former circus performer, cabaret actor,
Speaker 1: and the interactor who first climbed into a guerrilla costume
Speaker 1: on screen for N four's Gray Stoke The Legend of
Speaker 1: tarzan Um. This was the one that starred Christopher Lambert.
Speaker 1: Of course this was his uh. This was his follow
Speaker 1: up performance in Return to Oz. But he also played
Speaker 1: a gorilla on the TV show Jeeves and Wooster. Uh.
Speaker 1: He was in who played a gorilla on Baby's Day Out,
Speaker 1: Fierce Creatures, Mighty Joe Young two thousand and elevens Planet
Speaker 1: of the Apes, and he, along with a few others
Speaker 1: I found this kind of interesting, are credited as quote
Speaker 1: unquote mime artists in n Guerrillas in the Midst um.
Speaker 1: And the thing about Gorillas in the Midst is Gorillas
Speaker 1: in the midst definitely has guerrilla costumes. It has great
Speaker 1: gorilla costumes designed by the great Rick Baker. But the
Speaker 1: credits don't say don't list humans as guerrillas or or
Speaker 1: say guerrilla suit. They say these are mime artists, which
Speaker 1: I thought was interesting. Oh, Gorillas in the missed is
Speaker 1: the one that has Sigourney Weaver playing Diane Fosse. Yeah,
Speaker 1: good movie, I guess it. Thought it was a little
Speaker 1: over like it was above guerrilla suits for some reason.
Speaker 1: But at any rate, John would be above guerrilla suits.
Speaker 1: I don't know they like maybe they just they were like,
Speaker 1: it's it would be we shouldn't list people as guerrillas,
Speaker 1: or maybe they thought they would. They wanted to keep
Speaker 1: this suspension of disbelief alive that he's a real guerrillas.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but John Alexander also did Monster Suit,
Speaker 1: Creature Suit Work, and Men in Black, One, Into the
Speaker 1: Country Bears, Asa Thora and hell Boy too. Now, as
Speaker 1: we mentioned, the the original companions from the First Wizard
Speaker 1: of Oz are only sort of in this movie. Well,
Speaker 1: Scarecrow is in it more. But I felt bad for
Speaker 1: the tin Man at the end of this movie because
Speaker 1: Dorothy when she's like, you know, saying goodbye to of
Speaker 1: course she has she has a pretty extended scene with
Speaker 1: the Scarecrow. She has a real good hug on the
Speaker 1: cowardly Lion. It's like, hey, world, budd easy as good
Speaker 1: to see you again. But then she just this is
Speaker 1: the tin Man. Basically, I don't think she everyone says
Speaker 1: anything to him. Yeah, he's barely in this as well.
Speaker 1: But it isn't noteworthy that the ten Man is played
Speaker 1: by Deep Roy born nineteen fifty seven, the Kenyan British
Speaker 1: actor who at four ft four has been a go
Speaker 1: to actor for creature performances and diminutive character performances for decades.
Speaker 1: So uh Roy has popped up in Star Wars, The Dark,
Speaker 1: Crystal Flash, Gordon Gray Stroke, The Never Ending Story, The
Speaker 1: X Files, Planet of the Apes, in which he plays
Speaker 1: Guerrilla Kid. That is what is he's credited as, He's
Speaker 1: in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He's been in I
Speaker 1: think various Star Trek shows and much more. All right,
Speaker 1: and so just a few behind the scenes credits to
Speaker 1: go through real quick. Norman Reynolds was the production designer
Speaker 1: on this born British production designer who worked on the
Speaker 1: original Star Wars trilogy, Raiders of the Lost Arc, The
Speaker 1: Exorcist three, Alien three, and more. The sets in this
Speaker 1: movie are tremendous. They are amazing. Yeah, so I just
Speaker 1: had to call that out. Also, this film has some
Speaker 1: great claymation, some stop motion animation. He's in clay in it.
Speaker 1: That that really if you're a fan of of that
Speaker 1: genre of effects like this is definitely an eighties film
Speaker 1: to check out. Like when the Rocks are delivering reports
Speaker 1: to the Nome King before you ever see him, you
Speaker 1: just see the face and the stone, uh, sort of
Speaker 1: scrunching up and getting worried about giving the Nome King
Speaker 1: bad news. Yeah, yeah, tremendous. So I'm not even gonna
Speaker 1: list all the like the Claymation team members that worked
Speaker 1: on this, but the team included such artists as Will
Speaker 1: Vinton who lived forty seven through two thousand and eighteen,
Speaker 1: Joanne Radmilovich, who you can find images of. I included
Speaker 1: an image for you here, Joe, where you can see
Speaker 1: the artist working on some of the The Nome King's minions. Here,
Speaker 1: Bruce McKean, who lived nineteen fifty one. Three. Oh, and
Speaker 1: this is an interesting one. Mark Gustafsson, who is co
Speaker 1: director on the upcoming Gamma del Toro Pinocchio movie. And
Speaker 1: then there's also Craig Bartlett born nifty six who worked
Speaker 1: on Dinosaur Train, which was was is. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if it's still going, but at any rate, Is was
Speaker 1: a long running Jim Hinson animated series that I believe
Speaker 1: also used poppetry to create the movements for the animated dinosaurs.
Speaker 1: And finally, the music. The music credit here goes to
Speaker 1: David Shire born ninety seven, American composer who scored a
Speaker 1: ton of films over the years, including All the President's Men,
Speaker 1: Oh God, You Devil, Short Circuit, Monkey Shines, and David
Speaker 1: Fincher's Zodiac. Trying to remember the music in Zodiac, But
Speaker 1: I can't recall the orchestration. All I recall is the
Speaker 1: hurdy gurdy man. Yeah, excellent use of the hurdy gurdy man.
Speaker 1: But I too don't remember the score offhand. Likewise, I
Speaker 1: don't really remember the score from this movie, even though
Speaker 1: I watched the other day. It's it's one of those
Speaker 1: scores that does its job, does its job well, but
Speaker 1: you don't necessarily think back on it. It's just not
Speaker 1: that type of score. Yeah. I mean, a movie like
Speaker 1: this depends on the music being good, so it must
Speaker 1: have been good, but it didn't stand. I don't recall
Speaker 1: what it was. Yeah. It's also not a musical, so uh,
Speaker 1: there's not a scene where Dorothy says something and then
Speaker 1: the TikTok is like, well that sounds good, Dorothy, But
Speaker 1: could you sing a song about it so I can
Speaker 1: remember it. No, it doesn't doesn't work like that. Oh,
Speaker 1: we are the Wheelers, we will everywhere. Oh man, what
Speaker 1: I I can't I don't even like to think what
Speaker 1: sort of musical genre the Wheelers would use. It would
Speaker 1: just have to be some sort of like screaming punk
Speaker 1: song or something. Yeah, some sort of screeching avant garde
Speaker 1: industrial punk. That would be my guess what would Mom
Speaker 1: be saying? It would be I want all your heads. Oh,
Speaker 1: maybe it would be a different genre. It would certainly
Speaker 1: be a different voice depending on which head she chooses. Right, Oh,
Speaker 1: that's a good point. And when it comes to the
Speaker 1: Nome King, it would just it would be hard rock
Speaker 1: because that's what he's made of. That's that's good. Okay.
Speaker 1: I guess we've already teased the plot a good bit.
Speaker 1: But I think this is one of those ones where
Speaker 1: we're not going to try to go scene by scene
Speaker 1: and describe the whole movie. Because this is this one.
Speaker 1: It's good to to let some surprises remain. But maybe
Speaker 1: we should talk about some broad broad sections of the
Speaker 1: plot and some of our favorite details. Um So, do
Speaker 1: you want to start with life in Kansas? Let's do it. So.
Speaker 1: The film seems to take place a little while after
Speaker 1: the events of the original Wizard of Oz. Dorothy Gale
Speaker 1: is back on the farm with Aunt em and Uncle Henry.
Speaker 1: They are rebuilding the house because of course it was
Speaker 1: it was you know, carried away by the Kansas cyclone
Speaker 1: in the previous movie. But Dorothy is, you know, she's
Speaker 1: not just totally back to normal. She is obsessed with
Speaker 1: her memories of adventurious in the Land of Oz, to
Speaker 1: the point where she can't sleep at night. Like you
Speaker 1: see Piper Laurie come into the room and it's like, Dorothy,
Speaker 1: you know, you gotta go to sleep. But she's, you know,
Speaker 1: she's looking at the stars because she's thinking about monsters
Speaker 1: and thinking about trees that trees that attack. That's what
Speaker 1: they get for living on the middle of nowhere. The
Speaker 1: stars are so bright out there, they basically keep you
Speaker 1: up at night. It's true. I can report from brief experiences.
Speaker 1: If you go to a place with truly dark skies,
Speaker 1: uh and and you look up at the stars at night,
Speaker 1: it is a borderline hallucinatory experience. Yeah, But okay. Ant
Speaker 1: Em and Uncle Henry are troubled by what's happened to Dorothy.
Speaker 1: They think she is suffering from persistent delusions because of
Speaker 1: her belief that Oz is real. So and m gets
Speaker 1: the idea that they've got to send her to a
Speaker 1: doctor in town who has a machine that can cure
Speaker 1: her brain with electricity. Uh So, there are a few
Speaker 1: things that are established in this early section on the farm.
Speaker 1: We we see you know that that an M and
Speaker 1: Uncle Henry are are are loving parents. You know that
Speaker 1: they care about Dorothy and they're trying to do good,
Speaker 1: but also that they're they're disturbed by her seeming to
Speaker 1: believe that Oz is a real ace and she actually
Speaker 1: went there, and you see them trying to discourage these
Speaker 1: apparent delusions. And meanwhile, Dorothy is just thinking about Oz
Speaker 1: all the time. Like she finds a key on the
Speaker 1: farm and she's like, see this key is from OZ
Speaker 1: because it's got like the handle on it is around
Speaker 1: like an O, and then it's got to slash through
Speaker 1: the middle of it that sort of makes like the
Speaker 1: crossbar in a Z. So, yeah, this is obviously an
Speaker 1: artifact from OZ. And then I think it literally is.
Speaker 1: Later um, but we also we meet a chicken who
Speaker 1: can't talk. But this chicken who cannot talk is Dorothy's friend,
Speaker 1: and the chicken is threatened by Aunt M because n
Speaker 1: M's like, hey, if you don't lay an egg soon,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna turn you into soup. Yeah, yeah, this is Balina.
Speaker 1: Blina is going to be a major character that Helena
Speaker 1: is not just there for comic relief. Now, shortly into
Speaker 1: the movie, Dorothy is taken by Aunt m to town
Speaker 1: and Toto tries to follow them. They have a very
Speaker 1: cute dog to play, Toto, but Toto is not does
Speaker 1: not accompany Dorothy on her adventures in this movie. Photo
Speaker 1: stays behind and so she's taken to the to the
Speaker 1: to town to go to the offices of Dr. J. B.
Speaker 1: Warley played by Nicole Williamson. And again this is going
Speaker 1: to be for the electrical cure. Now, as I said earlier,
Speaker 1: Nicole will Williamson and Jean marsh are both fabulous in
Speaker 1: their roles because, like in the original Wizard of Oz,
Speaker 1: they play these characters on both sides of of the
Speaker 1: fantasy divide, right, they have real, mundane characters and fantasy
Speaker 1: counterparts in Oz. Nicole Williamson's Earth character Dr. Warley is
Speaker 1: I think wonderfully realized as as the kind of man
Speaker 1: who presents a soft, friendly, reassuring exterior while preparing the
Speaker 1: machinery that will steal your soul. Yeah, this is this
Speaker 1: is a wonderful performance. And you know, you don't see
Speaker 1: a lot of him here. We're not in Kansas for
Speaker 1: too long. But yeah, yeah, he seems he's a he's
Speaker 1: he doesn't come off as a suspicious adult. He seems
Speaker 1: like a trusting adult who is in who's rightfully in
Speaker 1: a position of authority and is going to help you.
Speaker 1: Like there's a part where he's showing Dorothy. He says, look,
Speaker 1: this machine has a face. Here its eyes, and here
Speaker 1: is its nose. Uh. And of course the machine is
Speaker 1: the machine they're going to use to administer electro convulsive
Speaker 1: therapy to Dorothy. Now, a brief note on psychiatry in
Speaker 1: this film, I would say this movie depicts psychiatry in
Speaker 1: general and electro convulsive therapy in particular as cruel and evil,
Speaker 1: which I would say I have twofold thoughts about number one.
Speaker 1: It really works in the context of the plot. But
Speaker 1: of course, if you're going to be literal about it,
Speaker 1: I think this is very misguided. Like I think if
Speaker 1: you get your ideas about E. C. T. From the movie,
Speaker 1: especially like I don't know, movies made in the seventies
Speaker 1: and eighties, such as scenes from One flo Over the
Speaker 1: Cuckoo's Nest and stuff. You would basically think that it
Speaker 1: is like a pseudo scientific involuntary torture mechanism used to
Speaker 1: inflict pain and terror. But I think actually, uh, you
Speaker 1: know a lot of psychiatrists think that there's very good
Speaker 1: evidence that it's helpful and that you'll beat people who
Speaker 1: have experienced severe major depression that did not respond to
Speaker 1: other treatments, and they would say e c T made
Speaker 1: a major positive difference in their lives. Uh. Though, obviously,
Speaker 1: if it were actually administered in the way it is
Speaker 1: depicted in this movie, which is like an unexplained, non
Speaker 1: consensual punishment inflicted on children for the crime of having
Speaker 1: an imagination, that would be pretty awful. So while you
Speaker 1: should obviously not get your real real world ideas about
Speaker 1: ECT from from the Odds universe, it does make a
Speaker 1: really great plot device, scary plot device within the fantasy
Speaker 1: context of the movie. Yeah, absolutely so. Anyway, Dorothy has
Speaker 1: left at this clinic to uh, to be subjected to
Speaker 1: the electrical cure for her brain, and there's this great
Speaker 1: scene where you know, Dorothy is kind of thinking about
Speaker 1: other things while you hear the doctor talking to aunt
Speaker 1: Em in the background. Saying, you know, the mind is
Speaker 1: simply a machine. Sometimes the machine has too much electricity
Speaker 1: in it. Uh, And and you get a similar foreboding
Speaker 1: elements from other things at the clinic. So Gene Marsh
Speaker 1: plays a what would you call her, she's like an
Speaker 1: assistant sort of a warden at this clinic, and she's
Speaker 1: wearing a dress that looks like it might as well
Speaker 1: be Darth Vaders suit. Yeah. It is like such a
Speaker 1: gothy number. I don't know how else to describe it.
Speaker 1: It's just like multiple shades of black and and has
Speaker 1: all of these like crenulations and sort of fabric spikes
Speaker 1: on it. It's like if you combine like a Little
Speaker 1: House on the Prairie Dress and the Road Warrior. But
Speaker 1: also here at the clinic, Dorothy meets a mysterious blonde
Speaker 1: girl who like appears in her room and warns her
Speaker 1: about Dr Worley's machines. I think, is this the scene
Speaker 1: where they're like hearing people screaming and she says like
Speaker 1: those are the people who have been subjected to the machine. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's this is probably the darkest moment in the film.
Speaker 1: I thought for me anyway, like this is this This
Speaker 1: is the moment it where I was sitting there watching it,
Speaker 1: you know, next to my son, and I'm like, this
Speaker 1: is maybe a little too dark, but he didn't seem
Speaker 1: to mind, and and you're you're through it pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: And there's a scene where they're like taking Dorothy to
Speaker 1: to be hooked up to the electrical machine, the one
Speaker 1: that had eyes and a nose in a mouth, and
Speaker 1: they're hooking the electrodes up to her head, and just
Speaker 1: when they're getting ready to send the charge the there
Speaker 1: is a storm and lightning strikes and power is lost,
Speaker 1: and Dorothy actually escapes during this lightning storm, along with
Speaker 1: that strange blonde girl who she keeps seeing in the mirror,
Speaker 1: and they get swept up in a flood. They're being
Speaker 1: chased by Jean marsh and that that crazy black dress
Speaker 1: and they end up floating away down a torrent in
Speaker 1: a chicken coop. By the way, I couldn't help but
Speaker 1: be reminded of the movie Brazil, which I guess came
Speaker 1: out the same year. But that film has a scene
Speaker 1: where an individuals strapped to a contraption, and in that
Speaker 1: case is about to be tortured when something miraculous happens
Speaker 1: that seems to save him, and then at the end
Speaker 1: of the film, all depending on the cut, you find
Speaker 1: out that this was all just what an occurrence at
Speaker 1: what is at al Creek Bridge situation where everything was
Speaker 1: happening in his head and he really died on the
Speaker 1: interrogation table. So I'm I'm happy to say that that
Speaker 1: is not the case in Return to Oz. There's not
Speaker 1: a scene later where you realize, oh, this was all
Speaker 1: just electricity going through Dorothy's brain. Right, No, No, there
Speaker 1: is like a waking up later scene, but it's not that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she did really go out and get in the mud
Speaker 1: and into the river and then seemingly into the ocean. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's and it's a good thing she did run out
Speaker 1: into the floodwaters because apparently if she had remained behind
Speaker 1: at the clinic, she maybe she may have been incinerated. Yes,
Speaker 1: But so from here we're gonna go to Oz. We
Speaker 1: we gotta we gotta talk Oz. First thing is she
Speaker 1: wakes up in that chicken coop being wrecked in what's
Speaker 1: called the Deadly Desert, which is a plot device that
Speaker 1: that I love. The idea of the deadly desert is
Speaker 1: if you touch the sand, you turn to sand. And
Speaker 1: it's very simple, but it's great. We see a wheeler
Speaker 1: turned to sand at some point and and it's brutal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was one of my son's favorite moments. U and
Speaker 1: in part because we hated the wheelers. Like you could
Speaker 1: tell the wheelers were bad news. So any bad things
Speaker 1: that happened to the wheelers are somewhat justified. But as
Speaker 1: soon as Dorothy wakes up in the deadly desert, her
Speaker 1: chicken friend Billina is there with her, and Billina can talk. Now,
Speaker 1: remember by the mechanism we discussed earlier, you know, you're
Speaker 1: an animal, you're an OZ. Now you're a talking animal.
Speaker 1: And it turns out all along if Billina could talk,
Speaker 1: we would have noticed that she has like a sassy
Speaker 1: old prairie grandma twode. Yeah. Yeah, it's full of of
Speaker 1: fun one liners as well, and occasionally has information and advice.
Speaker 1: So they're going around, they're checking out Oz. They're like,
Speaker 1: what's up in OZ? And oh, everything is wrecked. Nothing's
Speaker 1: good anymore. The yellow brick road is all torn up,
Speaker 1: Munchkin Village is gone. I think Emerald City is in ruins.
Speaker 1: That we see it in the distance, and it looks
Speaker 1: like it has and shelled. And we gather that when
Speaker 1: Dorothy last left, the Scarecrow had been crowned King of
Speaker 1: Oz in the Emerald City. And I think there's an
Speaker 1: understanding that Scarecrow was going to be a good and
Speaker 1: just ruler. Scarecrow is kind, Scarecrow is thoughtful, you know.
Speaker 1: He he wouldn't do he wouldn't be a bad king.
Speaker 1: But in the meantime, something has gone terribly wrong. And
Speaker 1: I was immediately tempted to think how different the story
Speaker 1: would be if it had been like George R. R.
Speaker 1: Martin's returned to Oz or the friendly Scarecrow has a
Speaker 1: heel turn as soon as Dorothy leaves. He's corrupted by power.
Speaker 1: He immediately institutes, you know, draconian repression, purges of his
Speaker 1: perceived enemies. He sends tin Man to prison. Uh, he's
Speaker 1: got dungeons in the Emerald City. That would have been
Speaker 1: a way to go. But no, it's not that the
Speaker 1: Scarecrow had a heel turn. Instead, what happened is that
Speaker 1: the Scarecrow has been deposed and someone else has taken
Speaker 1: over someone bad. But I don't know, wouldn't that have
Speaker 1: been a good twist. What if the Scarecrow was the
Speaker 1: villain of the movie? Yeah, yeah, it would have been.
Speaker 1: It would have been nice and twisty. It seems like
Speaker 1: the kind of thing they would do today if they
Speaker 1: were to make return to Oz, though this film does
Speaker 1: have some neat twists concerning what exactly happened. So anyway,
Speaker 1: Dorothy and Billina investigate everywhere there are statues of human forms,
Speaker 1: and in the ruins of the Emerald City they find
Speaker 1: a creepy graffito on a wall that says beware the Wheelers. Yes,
Speaker 1: written in red um. I don't think it's written in blood,
Speaker 1: but but who can say for certain. It looks like
Speaker 1: it's written in red colored pencil. Yeah, or they didn't
Speaker 1: have a lot of blood. It's not drippy blood, but
Speaker 1: it's like we do. We know we're not not going
Speaker 1: to really just the layer it on. We only have
Speaker 1: so much blood to work with here. I'm just saying
Speaker 1: it could be blood. It could be blood. I think
Speaker 1: blood is a scarce resource in Oz now because most
Speaker 1: human bodies have been turned into stone from what we
Speaker 1: can see. And in the ruins of the city, Dorothy
Speaker 1: and Billina get attacked by these horrible creatures called wheelers.
Speaker 1: We've already talked about. They got wheels instead of hands
Speaker 1: and feet. Uh and uh Dorothy uses her special key.
Speaker 1: I think this is the osky that she found on
Speaker 1: the farm in Kansas, Is that right? He uses that
Speaker 1: to open a door inside a secret room. There she
Speaker 1: finds this bulbous mechanical man. And this is one of
Speaker 1: our heroes, TikTok. I loved TikTok. He is like a
Speaker 1: wind up copper ronan. He is a mechanical warrior whose
Speaker 1: master has been deposed and now he's in the service
Speaker 1: of Dorothy. Great design, great effects with this uh, this
Speaker 1: being the uh like a lot of it is puppetry,
Speaker 1: but also it's clearly a person in a suit, and
Speaker 1: it's they're able to pull off this wonderful gait, this
Speaker 1: wonderful walking style of of TikTok. It's it's, it's, it's
Speaker 1: absolutely wonderful. He was one of my favorite parts of
Speaker 1: the whole film. He's sort of a little bit teddy
Speaker 1: roosevelt ish, but other elements too, like he's blustery and
Speaker 1: headstrong and as a big walrus mustache a metal one
Speaker 1: of course, but I thought a really interesting recurring theme
Speaker 1: is that we are equally reminded throughout the movie that
Speaker 1: TikTok is not alive. Like when Dorothy first finds him,
Speaker 1: there are instructions on his back for how to wind
Speaker 1: him up and make him work. But uh and and
Speaker 1: one of the things the instruction says is like the
Speaker 1: you know, the TikTok, the mechanical man, does everything but live.
Speaker 1: But what does that mean? So TikTok clearly has a mind,
Speaker 1: he has a personality, and he even has preferences in
Speaker 1: the ability to take offense. Like there's a scene later
Speaker 1: when Jack Pumpkinhead suggests throwing TikTok out of the gump
Speaker 1: aircraft because he's the heaviest of them, and TikTok clearly
Speaker 1: takes a front like he is annoyed by this suggestion.
Speaker 1: And yet there are other times where TikTok seems to
Speaker 1: reference the fact that he is not alive as a
Speaker 1: reason for not being concerned about something. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't really worry about getting turned into an inanimate
Speaker 1: object because I'm not alive anyway. Well, in oz being
Speaker 1: a non living entity, I think you have a lot
Speaker 1: of company. It's not one of these story ways where
Speaker 1: oh I am the lonely being that is a machine
Speaker 1: and not a human but has feelings. In Oz, everywhere
Speaker 1: you look there's some sort of reanimated form. There's some
Speaker 1: their machine people all over the place of just different varieties.
Speaker 1: I think Returned to Oz explores some of the same
Speaker 1: thematic territories Terminator to can this machine be a good parent?
Speaker 1: Does this machine no? Does it understand why we cry?
Speaker 1: Even if it's something it can never do? So? Anyway,
Speaker 1: I thought that this is like a kind of a
Speaker 1: thoughtful movie for kids that plants some interesting philosophical ideas
Speaker 1: in their mind. But what does it mean to be alive?
Speaker 1: But also I like the the wind up and wind
Speaker 1: down dynamic with TikTok. So TikTok has uh winding keys
Speaker 1: for three different things, thought, speech, and action, and at
Speaker 1: various times throughout the movie, one of the three but
Speaker 1: not the other two will wind down, including a very
Speaker 1: funny scene where they're trying where all the good characters
Speaker 1: are trying to like work on a project together, but
Speaker 1: TikTok's thoughts down while his speech and action are still active. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love this as well the three um wind up
Speaker 1: line down dynamics, Because on one level, I think it's
Speaker 1: it's a good way to get kids potentially thinking about
Speaker 1: like what what what the human experiences, you know, like
Speaker 1: thinking of our of our own mental facult of faculty.
Speaker 1: He's not as a single entity, but this thing that
Speaker 1: sort of emerges out of, out of, out of out
Speaker 1: of different things and different stimuli and different pro processes. So, uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's an interesting way to look at a in
Speaker 1: this case of fantastic being, but also to sort of
Speaker 1: turn that reflection back on yourself at times. But so
Speaker 1: we said the TikTok, he's a soldier, right, he's a
Speaker 1: warrior for the Scarecrow. And he's been left behind by
Speaker 1: the Scarecrow. I think to wait for Dorothy. So here's
Speaker 1: Dorothy and and now they're they're teaming up. So right
Speaker 1: from the outset, TikTok is ready to beat up some wheelers.
Speaker 1: He like walks out, Oh he there's a there's a fight.
Speaker 1: Seeing that you could regard as underwhelming because TikTok is
Speaker 1: just basically spinning around in a circle whacking wheelers. Uh,
Speaker 1: but it I don't know something about it is really good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's intensely satisfying, in part because the Wheelers
Speaker 1: have established themselves as a total menace and they're acting
Speaker 1: is over the top. Here comes TikTok. He absolutely whales
Speaker 1: on them, and then he captures the lead Wheeler, who
Speaker 1: is again the most animated and annoying of the Wheelers,
Speaker 1: and begins to roughly interrogate him. And we were just
Speaker 1: cheering for TikTok during this scene. We're like, yeah, get him, TikTok.
Speaker 1: It's great. And of course under under torture essentially no
Speaker 1: under you know threat. Uh. The lead Wheeler reveals that
Speaker 1: the Scarecrow has been overthrown and taken prisoner by the
Speaker 1: Nome King, and to learn more about what's going on,
Speaker 1: they have to go and visit the castle of Princess
Speaker 1: mom By. Yeah, so that's what happens next. The whole
Speaker 1: section in Momby's Castle in the middle of the movie
Speaker 1: is just awesome. Uh, where do you want to start here?
Speaker 1: So Momby's palace is like in many ways it's made
Speaker 1: of mirrors, or at least sort of. The throne room is,
Speaker 1: which is very creepy, especially in scenes where like Dorothy's
Speaker 1: trying to find a door, figure out what to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: her whole palace is just oh my goodness, sets are amazing.
Speaker 1: Even sets, even parts of the palace that you don't
Speaker 1: really spend much time in just look incredible. Like they
Speaker 1: walk through a bedroom and you do nothing ever happens
Speaker 1: with the bedroom, but you see it in the background
Speaker 1: is just just stupendous. It's like a this weird, evil
Speaker 1: princess cathedral and then you venture into this hall of heads.
Speaker 1: This is where Momby stores these various stolen female heads
Speaker 1: that she has, stores them alive and we'll use them. Uh.
Speaker 1: We've mentioned this on the show before because somebody wrote
Speaker 1: in on listener mail about this. How curious it is
Speaker 1: that Momby is always the same Momby, but Momby takes
Speaker 1: off her original head and puts on these other heads,
Speaker 1: and while she has these other heads on, she again
Speaker 1: is still Momby. But it also is stated in the
Speaker 1: film where it's it's sort of uh suggested in the
Speaker 1: film where it's hypothesized by one of the characters that
Speaker 1: if she does something with one head on and she
Speaker 1: switches to another head, she might not remember something she
Speaker 1: did previously, which just sends my head really trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how all of that works. Yeah, her personality
Speaker 1: always seems to be the same, but I think it's
Speaker 1: Jack Pumpkinhead says that because Dorothy is about to meet him. Uh.
Speaker 1: He says that Momby locked him up in the tower,
Speaker 1: but then forgot he was in there because she switched
Speaker 1: heads and that movie, he was in a different head.
Speaker 1: And when we first meet her, it's not Jeane Marsh's head,
Speaker 1: so we don't, you know, our guard is down. We're
Speaker 1: not seeing like, oh, that's the scary lady, remember her
Speaker 1: from the clinic. It's just some other ladies. She looked nice,
Speaker 1: and you know, she's sitting there playing a harp, and
Speaker 1: then she and Dorothy start talking. But then she's like, Dorothy,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna need to cut your head off and keep
Speaker 1: it in my keep it in my collection. But you're
Speaker 1: not old enough yet, so I got to lock you
Speaker 1: in a tower for a few years. Then your head
Speaker 1: will get bigger and then I'll cut it off and
Speaker 1: then I'll keep it. Yeah, she she realized, is an investment.
Speaker 1: We're gonna wait for you to mature a bit. We
Speaker 1: she didn't want to wear a little girl for Ruza
Speaker 1: bak Head. She wants to wear the craft for Rusa
Speaker 1: balk Head and she don't have to wait a few
Speaker 1: years for that to happen. So off to the the
Speaker 1: dungeon chamber with you, up to the locked room, and
Speaker 1: so she's thrown in there with Jack Pumpkinhead, who she meets.
Speaker 1: But also there are all these pieces that will eventually
Speaker 1: become the gump because at this point we're dealing with
Speaker 1: an escape plan. Uh, they find out about this what
Speaker 1: is it the is it the power of powder of
Speaker 1: animation or the powder of life? Powder of life? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a magical powder that Momby has that she sprinkles
Speaker 1: over inanimate objects to wag them up. Um. And this
Speaker 1: is originally I think where Jack Pumpkinhead comes from. That
Speaker 1: he's like he's made of sticks and a pumpkin. Though wait,
Speaker 1: I think he was originally a real boy. Maybe, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure. He he asked if he can call Dorothy
Speaker 1: mom and she allows it, which is a little creepy
Speaker 1: but it's also kind of sweet at the same time.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, but anyway, they realized we got
Speaker 1: to get out of here. Well, we could fly out
Speaker 1: of here if only we had a winged mount. Well,
Speaker 1: we could make one out of this moose's head or
Speaker 1: Gump's head on the wall and this couch, and we
Speaker 1: could use these pieces of this this fern to make
Speaker 1: wings and this will somehow work. But we need that
Speaker 1: powder in order to bring all of this to life
Speaker 1: and fly out the window. Where's the powder? Well, we
Speaker 1: find out it's stored with Mombi's original head. So Dorothy
Speaker 1: is going to have to sneak out and make your
Speaker 1: way through that museum of heads and try and find
Speaker 1: the original head and steal the power her from that
Speaker 1: head locker. It's a heist at the head repository. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this is an amazing sequence and also just a
Speaker 1: wonderfully magical dark fantasy sequence because you know, it's the
Speaker 1: scene where Dorothy's creeping down the hallway all these silent
Speaker 1: heads are in the are in their chambers, and then
Speaker 1: when she gets there she opens it up. There's Jeane
Speaker 1: Marsh's head, and there the original Mombi head. And of
Speaker 1: course it's not gonna go without without at least a
Speaker 1: single hiccup, because she ends up waking up the mombie head,
Speaker 1: All of the heads wake up all of the heads
Speaker 1: are screaming, and then she takes off with the powder. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Mombi's body is waking up from the bad OI do
Speaker 1: see something with the bedroom, and that's right, but it's
Speaker 1: like walking around like a zombie with no head coming after.
Speaker 1: It's a wonderful nightmare. So with the Gump aircraft they've
Speaker 1: put together again, it's like a moose type thing, a
Speaker 1: gump head that's mounted and then it goes with some
Speaker 1: couches and wings made out of plant leaves, like I
Speaker 1: think Poem gives her something. Uh, they make this aircraft
Speaker 1: and they fly out to escape, and they're gonna fly
Speaker 1: to the Nome King's mountain. Though it's very funny because
Speaker 1: the Gump is like, I don't know how to fly.
Speaker 1: I'm just ahead. I've never I never flew in lives,
Speaker 1: so I don't know what I'm doing. Yeah, the Gump.
Speaker 1: The Gump is wonderful and has lots of little snide
Speaker 1: comments about how he liked it better when he was
Speaker 1: just ahead. This current life is a little more challenging
Speaker 1: than he likes a little more moving around. So they
Speaker 1: fly over the deadly desert to get to the Nome
Speaker 1: King's mountain. He lives in a mountain, and oh, the
Speaker 1: Nome King when they get there. I feel like here
Speaker 1: maybe we should start to describe in a little more
Speaker 1: in lighter detail. But warning, if you're going to watch
Speaker 1: the movie, you don't want anything about the ending at
Speaker 1: all spoiled. Maybe maybe you can tune out here until
Speaker 1: you've seen it, because we will discuss a few things.
Speaker 1: But the Nome King is so cool. He is some
Speaker 1: kind of humanoid elemental being of mineral origin. He's a
Speaker 1: greedy but clever sorcerer of rocks. Yeah, and the claymation
Speaker 1: here is just wicked. So throughout the movie we've seen
Speaker 1: this like rock Face doing reports of what's happening to
Speaker 1: the Nome King, and that's all stop motion animation. That's
Speaker 1: very good. But here we start seeing claymation in general
Speaker 1: stop motion of uh, the King himself and the sorcery
Speaker 1: that he casts. Like one of my favorite animations is
Speaker 1: that there's a that like Dorothy and her friends are
Speaker 1: in a cave with the Nome King, and occasionally the
Speaker 1: Nome King will open a portal to go into a
Speaker 1: into a palace with these halls, and the way the
Speaker 1: portal opens is the rock turns into many hands that
Speaker 1: start pulling the like pulling a hole open in the
Speaker 1: rock itself. Yeah, all of these effects, all of the
Speaker 1: effects they used to bring the Nome King to live,
Speaker 1: are amazing, and most of them are these kind of
Speaker 1: stop motion effects. Though, as as we'll discuss, something is
Speaker 1: happening that makes the nome King increasingly more human inform uh.
Speaker 1: And so we eventually get William send himself there as
Speaker 1: the nome King that covered under a lot of like
Speaker 1: rock makeup and like a rocky beard and so forth. Right,
Speaker 1: So the nome King has Dorothy and her friends play
Speaker 1: a guessing game where he says, oh, yes, I have
Speaker 1: the scarecrow captive, and I've turned him into an inanimate object,
Speaker 1: into an ornament. And if you can walk around my
Speaker 1: palace and guess which ornament is the scarecrow, then I'll
Speaker 1: let him go. But if you guess wrong three times
Speaker 1: in a row, I'm gonna turn you into an ornament.
Speaker 1: Actually he doesn't tell them that at the beginning. It
Speaker 1: happens first too, uh, I think the gump And then
Speaker 1: they're like, wait, you didn't say that was gonna happen,
Speaker 1: And he's like Oh you didn't ask. Yeah, he's he's
Speaker 1: he's adding a lot of rules after the fact, though
Speaker 1: at the same time, are heroes are not really asking
Speaker 1: for a full breakdown of the terms ahead of time either. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you get the sense that he is made of rock,
Speaker 1: but he sort of wants to become a human for
Speaker 1: some reason. And the more humans he absorbs and turns
Speaker 1: into inanimate objects are not necessarily humans living things he
Speaker 1: absorbs and turns into inanimate objects, the more he becomes
Speaker 1: a fleshly creature instead of a rock. Yeah, And it's
Speaker 1: not explained in the film why this is. And I
Speaker 1: kind of like that. I like, I mean, anytime there's
Speaker 1: sort of grandiose evil magic going on in something, it's
Speaker 1: even more creepy if there's stuff going on that you
Speaker 1: don't fully understand. Like, we don't know why he wants
Speaker 1: this transformation to occur or why it is occurring, but
Speaker 1: it is at least a byproduct of the evil that
Speaker 1: he's doing. Oh, we should say the entire time there
Speaker 1: with the nome king and playing this scussing game the balina,
Speaker 1: the chicken is hiding inside of Jack Pumpkinhead's pumpkin Head
Speaker 1: He's like, right, she's in the jack o lantern. Oh,
Speaker 1: so this is another important thing. Now that we've mentioned
Speaker 1: the chicken. It has been established a few different times
Speaker 1: that the chicken is noteworthy in Oz and that and
Speaker 1: that the Nome King will want to know about this chicken,
Speaker 1: and and it's even implied that the chicken is really
Speaker 1: the most important member of this party. He is of
Speaker 1: the most interest to the Nome King. And Momby realizes this,
Speaker 1: and Momby is rushing to the Nome King's castle. I
Speaker 1: guess to warn him of the chicken, and she does so.
Speaker 1: Oh God, I love this sequence. She does so by
Speaker 1: getting all of her wheelers together and lashing them to
Speaker 1: a chariot and then climbing aboard the chariot and whipping
Speaker 1: them to get them to ride at top speed and
Speaker 1: take her to the Nome King's castle. It is tremendous.
Speaker 1: They're traveling through some kind of underground tunnel that cuts
Speaker 1: underneath the deadly desert. I think, yeah, it is. It's
Speaker 1: wonderful and eyebrow raising. Uh it's it's it's tremendous. And
Speaker 1: she does get there, but I don't think she's able
Speaker 1: to really uh, to warn him sufficiently, at least not
Speaker 1: enough to to save him in the end. I don't
Speaker 1: remember what she says, but like when he gets there,
Speaker 1: he's very haughty. He's like bow bow lower, yeah, and
Speaker 1: then he locks her in a cage. I believe, so
Speaker 1: ultimately it doesn't really make a huge difference that she
Speaker 1: made it there at all. But the nome King here
Speaker 1: is becoming more and more humanoid in appearance, and more
Speaker 1: and more of Dorothy's friends are being turned into unknown
Speaker 1: ornaments in the room, and I think this is Is
Speaker 1: this also where we find out how the nome King
Speaker 1: was able to carry out this um this attack on
Speaker 1: the Emerald City? Is this when he reveals his feet?
Speaker 1: Oh no, explain that, well, there's he reveals that it's
Speaker 1: it's mentioned earlier in the film that you know that
Speaker 1: I think it's an m asking. Well, Dorothy, if all
Speaker 1: this odd stuff is real, then where are these ruby
Speaker 1: slippers that you speak of that gave you this power?
Speaker 1: And she said, well, they fell off when I was
Speaker 1: returning to Earth. And they're like, okay, well see there's
Speaker 1: no proof. While the nome King reveals that he is
Speaker 1: wearing the ruby slippers that they basically fell into his lap,
Speaker 1: and he used the power of the ruby slippers too
Speaker 1: then overthrow the Scarecrow King. And so we see this
Speaker 1: the see the Nome King wearing the shiny ruby slippers.
Speaker 1: They're great twist. I think. Dorothy tries to go for them,
Speaker 1: and he's like no, no, when he tucks them back
Speaker 1: under um. And in the end, how how are they
Speaker 1: going to defeat the Nome King? I mean, the Nome
Speaker 1: King is so powerful? What what kind of power do
Speaker 1: they have that could stand up against a creature of
Speaker 1: such such immense potency? Well, well, for starters, Dorothy is
Speaker 1: able to retrieve some of her friends from ornament transformation.
Speaker 1: But but this just makes the Nome King all the
Speaker 1: more enraged. He turns into this gigantic stone monster and
Speaker 1: he has decided he's going to eat them. He started
Speaker 1: he like picks up the gump and like eats the
Speaker 1: gump's body, uh, and like the head falls off, and
Speaker 1: then he goes to eat Jack pumpkinhead instead as well.
Speaker 1: And but Balina the chicken is in Jack pumpkin heads
Speaker 1: head and it is finally time for Billina to lay
Speaker 1: her egg. She lays the egg inside Jack Pumpkin head's head,
Speaker 1: It rolls out of the pumpkin and goes down the
Speaker 1: Nome King's throat. And then oh, the nome King realizes
Speaker 1: that something has gone terribly wrong because the big twist
Speaker 1: is that eggs are poison to the Nome king. Right,
Speaker 1: we we didn't know this until it is finally revealed.
Speaker 1: We knew that, we kind of got the sense that
Speaker 1: the chicken was a threat, but we didn't know why
Speaker 1: the chicken was a threat to the Nome King's rule.
Speaker 1: Now it is revealed. The egg is uh has terrible
Speaker 1: magic in it, the terrible It does terrible things to
Speaker 1: the Nome King's power, which I guess it's not I
Speaker 1: don't know. I didn't do a lot of deep thinking
Speaker 1: about this, but eggs do factor into various magical rituals
Speaker 1: and so forth. There is something about the egg that
Speaker 1: is often seen as sacred, and somehow the egg is
Speaker 1: able to undo everything that the Nome King is doing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the eggs symbolizes potential, symbolizes transformation. Yeah yeah, it has
Speaker 1: a lot of symbolic loading, so that makes sense. But
Speaker 1: of course, so yeah, Nome King is defeated. And then Scarecrow,
Speaker 1: who has been restored from I think he had been
Speaker 1: turned into it like a just a big green gym Uh,
Speaker 1: he's back to he's back into his form. Dorothy is
Speaker 1: able to restore everybody who got turned into an ornament,
Speaker 1: and then they all go back to the Emerald City
Speaker 1: where the Scarecrow's back on the throne. Everybody's happy again.
Speaker 1: Mombi is in a cage and then they're like, they're like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know, she doesn't have powers anymore, so she'll be
Speaker 1: all right. I know. It's The Wheelers are also just
Speaker 1: hanging around at this point in the movie, and I
Speaker 1: was thinking, the Wheelers, Yeah, they just get by with
Speaker 1: the sorry like they seem to be the scourge of
Speaker 1: the of the realm there for a while. But everything's forgiving.
Speaker 1: Everybody's happy again. How many denizens of Oz that they
Speaker 1: eat or whatever they do. But also we get another twist,
Speaker 1: which is that the blonde girl that Dorothy had seen
Speaker 1: several times already is uh her name is Ozma, and
Speaker 1: what is her role? She's like the rightful Princess of
Speaker 1: Oz or something. Yeah, she's like the Yeah, she's like
Speaker 1: she's the good She's the good witch of this movie. Basically,
Speaker 1: and she's been sort of in the background helping things
Speaker 1: move along the whole time. But then also there's this
Speaker 1: idea that like she is also connected to Dorothy, she's
Speaker 1: going to be She is like the way that Dorothy
Speaker 1: remains in Oz and in the earth realm at the
Speaker 1: same time. She is Dorothy's counterpart, so Dorothy can be
Speaker 1: on both sides of the mirror. Dorothy can go back
Speaker 1: to Kansas and be home, but also stay in Oz
Speaker 1: in the form of this other girl and and be
Speaker 1: be the princess there. And Ozma is like basically like, hey,
Speaker 1: you can still be in Oz all the time in
Speaker 1: your head. Just don't tell annem about it. Just be
Speaker 1: quiet about it, and everything's fine. And then we get
Speaker 1: a very sweet reunion back in Kansas where Toto finds
Speaker 1: Dorothy washed up on a washed up on a grimy
Speaker 1: river shore and and then there's Uncle Henry and they
Speaker 1: all get back together again and it's very sweet. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: though we do see um Mombi's earthly counterpart. This would
Speaker 1: be a nurse Wilson. We see her being taken away
Speaker 1: in the back of a carriage that also kind of
Speaker 1: looks like a cage, and then and then it's revealed
Speaker 1: that Dr Warley died in the fire because he had
Speaker 1: basically the clinic facilities that had been struck by lightning,
Speaker 1: and he went back in to save his machine and died.
Speaker 1: He was he was too devoted to his machines and
Speaker 1: it killed him. Yeah, so very very Frank Herbert kind
Speaker 1: of moment there where. Oh yes, uh, this character died
Speaker 1: off screen, so returned to OZ. Deeply strange, fantastically imaginative,
Speaker 1: totally wonderful, one of my favorite new fantasy movies or
Speaker 1: kids movies. Uh yeah, it's just a blast. I I
Speaker 1: richly enjoyed it. I mean, obviously parents will have to
Speaker 1: make their own decisions about films like this. I was
Speaker 1: researching it a little bit before we watched it. I
Speaker 1: went to the IMDb parental guidance area where the users
Speaker 1: submit stuff about films, and they did have the chicken
Speaker 1: lays and egg in the Nome King's head as an
Speaker 1: example of violence in the picture. I didn't really think
Speaker 1: of it as violence per se um, but it's certainly weird.
Speaker 1: It is an act of inadvertent poisoning. So I guess
Speaker 1: it would be like a scene where if a character
Speaker 1: accidentally put arsenic in somebody else's sandwich. Yeah, I guess,
Speaker 1: but anyway, Yes, returned to Oz. I absolutely loved it.
Speaker 1: I think it's a lot of fun. And I'd love
Speaker 1: to hear from folks out there though, because, like it's
Speaker 1: like we've been saying, Joe and I only just watched
Speaker 1: this movie and full as adults. We'd love to hear
Speaker 1: from folks who saw it back in the day. What
Speaker 1: was it like seeing Return to Oz on the big
Speaker 1: screen in five or seeing it on VHS once it
Speaker 1: was available on home video? How did other people in
Speaker 1: your life presented or respond to it? Did you hear
Speaker 1: people saying, well, this is not what OZ is all about?
Speaker 1: What is this gum business? It's it's supposed to be
Speaker 1: the cowardly lion? Did you have to put up with
Speaker 1: all that? Was it effective? All of this is fair
Speaker 1: fair play. I'd love to hear from everyone. So that's
Speaker 1: it for this edition of Weird House Cinema. Just a reminder,
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema publishes every Friday in the Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind podcast feed. We are primarily a science podcast,
Speaker 1: but on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns and
Speaker 1: just talk about a weird film. I blog about these
Speaker 1: episodes at smut music dot com and if you use
Speaker 1: letterboxed dot com, that's l E T T E R
Speaker 1: b o x D dot com. You'll find us on there.
Speaker 1: Are user name is weird House, and we keep a
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema episode list going there where you can
Speaker 1: see all the films that we've covered thus far. As
Speaker 1: of this episode, it is eighty two films that we've covered,
Speaker 1: and I'll often ahead and add the next film on
Speaker 1: the list so you can sort of look ahead and
Speaker 1: see what we're talking about next. Huge thanks as always
Speaker 1: to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you
Speaker 1: would like to get in touch with us with feedback
Speaker 1: on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic
Speaker 1: for the future, or just to say hi, you can
Speaker 1: email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind
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