When MGM bought the rights to L. Frank Baum's novel, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," it also purchased the rights to the 1902 stage musical by Baum and Paul Tietjen and Il mago di Oz (1925), Larry Semon's failed silent comedy. From the latter it derived Dorothy's companions as farmhands she knew in Kansas, and the it-was-all-a-dream ending--an element of fantasy literature Baum decried in several essays but used in his "Laura Bancroft" titles for very young readers. From the former, it took only the snowstorm summoned by the Good Witch of the North to destroy the poppies, which in the play was a huge set piece that concluded Act I (in the novel, the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman carry Dorothy out and hoist the Lion onto a truck that is pulled on strings by hundreds of mice). A lengthy debate occurred at MGM as to whether or not to include the songs from the play, but as the vaudeville-style show mostly included songs of no relevance to plot or characterization, they were replaced with new ones.

Film

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