Patchwork Girl of Oz + Magic Cloak of Oz (1914) Adventure, Family, Fantasy, Silent (DVD)

Directed by: J. Farrell MacDonald.

Starring: Mildred Harris, Violet MacMillan, Fred Woodward.

The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1914) 

The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1914) is a silent film made by L. Frank Baum's The Oz Film Manufacturing Company. It was based on the 1913 book The Patchwork Girl of Oz.

The film was written and produced by L. Frank Baum and directed by J. Farrell MacDonald. It makes almost no use of the dialog from the book in the intertitles. While there are a number of modest special effects, the movie relies largely on dancing (or rather cavorting), slapstick, and costuming. The Patchwork Girl uses acrobatics regularly with good effect. Dr. Pipt's daughter is added for love interest, as well as an additional plot thread: her boyfriend is turned into a small statue which women find irresistible. The plot omits the Glass Cat, the Shaggy Man, and the phonograph, but also adds Mewel, a donkey, and "The Lonesome Zoop", both slapstick animals.

Much of the film was shot on the grounds of the Panama-California Exposition in San Diego. Other scenes were presumably filmed at The Oz Film Manufacturing Company's studio facilities in Los Angeles, located on Santa Monica Boulevard.

Notable cast members, one uncredited, were future producer/director Hal Roach and comedian Harold Lloyd. The two of them, after meeting on this film, worked together for several years.

Baum cast acrobat Pierre Couderc in the title role because, due to social restrictions, he was unable to find a woman with the level of acrobatic training to do the role.

The Magic Cloak of Oz

The Magic Cloak of Oz is a 1914 film directed by J. Farrell MacDonald. It was written by L. Frank Baum and produced by Baum and composer Louis F. Gottschalk. The film is an adaptation of Baum's 1905 novel, Queen Zixi of Ix.

The Magic Cloak of Oz had distribution problems, owing to the box office failure of The Patchwork Girl of Oz. Advertisements claimed that the film would be released September 28, 1914, by Paramount Pictures, but this apparently never occurred, though it was apparently released in its entirety in 1917. It was eventually reduced from a five-reel film to two two-reel films known as The Magic Cloak and The Witch Queen. The current prints are assembled from these two films, and so the film is incomplete. All of its titles are missing, and The Magic Cloak title card, which is not in The Oz Film Manufacturing Company style, is used without any additional credits. Its only allusion to Oz is a title card's claim that the fairies of Burzee are "fairies of Oz".

Contained in: Standard DVD Case.

Format: Either PAL or NTSC (depending on world location), Region 0 (Multi-Region/Worldwide).