Totally agree. The music is sublime, but i have never managed to sit through the whole film despite many attempts. It is truly awful, yet Diana and MJ are two of my all time favourite performers. Go figure.
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Interesting and insightful comments RanRan79.
I agree with everything you say except The Wiz being a great work from start to finish. The music yes, the film no.
Viewing the film forty years after its first release the passing years for me have added enchantment to the view. It still has many flaws, but there is also a lot to enjoy as well.
The Brand New Day sequence being my favourite, Dororthys arrival in Oz being my least. It took a long time but the Wiz finally found it's audience and has gone on to become a cult classic.....:cool:
Yeah, I imagine it could've been better in some ways. [[I do agree with those who say it's too dark.) But any of it's shortcomings aren't big enough to knock it down in my book. I get the feeling that the movie is knocked mostly by folks who grew up with only the Wizard of Oz and is mostly beloved by folks who grew up with both movies. I get the feeling also that it may have been more popular with African American children who grew up with it. I remember it coming on television once when I was seven or eight. The next day at school that's all we kids talked about was "The Wiz". We never talked about the Wizard of Oz. Lol
Here is a video of the behind the scenes, making of the Wiz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHYANjtk4gA
I found The Wiz to be okay, but not the big musical and hit it should have been considering the talent. I see they were trying to give it a 1970's NYC vibe with the sets but it didn't transfer as well to film as it would as a set piece in a play. None of the acting was awful but I was disappointed in Diana Ross' performance after she was superb in Lady Sings The Blues and was able to rise above the material in Mahogany. She seemed to be playing it with just being downhearted or scared and it should have been a vehicle she could have easily transcended whatever shortcomings in the production with her abilities. She did a decent job later on television with Double Platinum and was excellent in Out of Darkness, so wondering if it was direction or simply miscast. The good thing was Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson bonded and formed a collaboration that set the music world on fire. I remember reading Jackson wanted to play Peter Pan, but maybe reflecting on how the Wiz was initially received he never got it off the ground. Shame, because Diana Ross was a good actress and this film seems to be the one the new generation is familiar with.
Don't think Diana was at fault for how The Wiz turned out. Turns out Sidney Lumet stepped over his boundaries trying to produce a BLACK musical...
Had some things have been different like the cinematography and special effects, it would've turned out to be a better film.
That said, ONE thing the film had going for it was the music. Everyone - except Nipsey Russell lmao - was brilliant with the songs they sang.
Diana slayed "Home". And MJ's studio version of You Can't Win remains an underrated masterpiece in the MJ canon:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bZfQEmG4i8
BUT I still love that part where things changed colors and people reacted according to the color change. :) The film version of "The Wiz" is pretty campy and with campy films, that's all you need, forget everything else. Everything can go wrong but as long as if it has something campy in it, it's forgiven. That seems to be the case with "The Wiz".
Plus Luther's "Everybody Rejoice [[Brand New Day)" shows that early on before he became Luther Vandross, he was already a force to be reckoned with.
Berry must have been in his "whatever" mode by this point.
"Don't think Diana was at fault for how The Wiz turned out. Turns out Sidney Lumet stepped over his boundaries trying to produce a BLACK musical..."
Sidney Lumet was the director.
What "boundaries" are you trying to suggest?
Actually the way THE WIZ turned out lies directly at Diana's feet. Once she muscled her way into the leading role , the intended director, John Badham , no longer wanted anything to do with the project and bowed out thus taking the film's original concepts with him. He apparently wanted nothing to do with a film centered around a 30 something year-old woman playing the part of a 24-year-old teacher that' replaces the central part intended to be about a young girl .
Back at that time, we did not have the internet of course, many people wrote into different publications complaining about the casting of Diana Ross in the Wiz. This was a whole year before they began shooting that it was announced in Jet Magazine that Miss Ross got the part. Even Mr. Gordy had reservations about her playing Dorothy. She said she had a dream one night that she WAS Dorothy and that she had to play the part. LOL! Now this was the biggest budget black film in history up to that point. The estimated cost was around $33 million to produce it. Mr. Gordy had more than a few reasons to be nervous, but he relented and let Ross do the part. This was a grown woman with 3 kids and had been in the public eye going on 15 years by that time. I do not recall reading that anyone believing that she would be good for the role.
Even though Nipsey clearly isn't a vocalist [[I wonder why they didn't get a comic who could sing to do the role?) he managed both of his songs very well. "What Would I Do" is fantastic and Nipsey's lack of vocal skills doesn't detract. Makes me wonder what the song would've turned into had a real singer done it. Can you imagine Luther singing this? Woo...
The film did not have a 33 million dollar budget until they hired Diana Ross. Universal would have never financed the film for that amount if it weren't for the star power of Diana Ross. In fact they paid her a million dollars to do the film making her one of the highest paid actress of the time.
Without Diana it was going to be a low budget film.
Here they report production costs of $ 24 million. By the time they wrapped, Jet Magazine gave the final figure of $33 million so stop with the lying please:
http://mentalfloss.com/article/71780...know-about-wiz
12 Things You Might Not Know About 'The Wiz' | Mental Floss
mentalfloss.com/article/71780/12-things-you-might-not-know-about-wiz
11. AT THE TIME, ITS 1978 FILM ADAPTATION WAS THE MOST EXPENSIVE MOVIE MUSICAL EVER MADE. The film, which cost $24 million, bombed at the box office. 12. MICHAEL JACKSON’S SCARECROW MAKEUP TOOK FOUR HOURS TO APPLY.
Marv:
"She said she had a dream one night that she WAS Dorothy and that she had to play the part. LOL! "
I had a dream once that I was Long Dong Silver but that still didn't qualify me for the part!!
😝LOL!!!!
I am not arguing with you. Yes it did flop at the box office. And I guess that makes you very happy! That is very sad..
But it is now a cult classic and has been release on DVD several times as well as BlueRay. It is now appreciated by many. And I know that kills you. Also Diana was paid a million dollars! Lol
I don't call everyone a liar. I only point it out when it is clear that you are willful in lying. It's about the truth. It is not about agreeing with me, nor is that important. The truth is! You see when you're clearly lying, you are not the only one that knows that you are lying. Do not add anything to it and do not take anything away from it, the truth. The Wiz ran over budget and it ran over $30 million. $33 million is the number that keeps coming back to me from 40 years ago now. I thank God I still have an excellent memory, because this is where I read about the $33 million 40 years ago!
Jet Magazine, Nov.16, 1978
Attachment 14308
Read the article I just posted from Jet Magazine, where I got the number $33 million. Do not apologize for lying to me. You see when someone lies to me, I loose respect for them, so anything you say to me from that point on, I tend to not believe. Here is also the link to the article:
https://books.google.com/books?id=gL...%20Wiz&f=false
You can read. You read where I said it was $33 million, yet you persist in lying just to keep up an argument. A good person, an intelligent person would simply respond with "I'm sorry, I had inaccurate information, thank you for providing me with the correct information". It is clear, you're not one of those people.
A famous dutch tv-host ended a run of 5 years of late night shows last week and guess which clip they showed when guests were asked which songs were hits the year they were born?
A Brand New Day! And the whole audience sang and clapped along.:o
A Brand New Day was a HUGE hit in the Netherlands. :)
But seriously that song is that knock. Again, a testament to Luther's genius.
He even did his own version in '76.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWRS6WbkfLE
Wow...Marv2 has made 20 plus postings on this thread alone obsessing over Diane Ross. Thats so sick to spend all that time on a woman he "claims' not to like but is totally infatuated with. LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
There is no doubt that the film is leaden. It should have a sense of magic and fun and it does not. Also, so much of the film is shot poorly. Brand New Day repeats the same camera moves over and over cutting down on the excitement of the number so it doesn't really build. The fashion sequences in "Oz" are long and boring, not exciting or magical in any way. Even the Wizard, before Richard Pryor is exposed, is just a head that sits there with lazar eyes, which photographs poorly. Why no fire? Why no true lighting effects? Even poor Lena Horne just hangs from her wire and sings with all those babies just hanging from wires. Lumet had no sense of enchantment, and that is the movies downfall to me. I think Diana could have worked in a movie willed with wonder, but it doesn't in a movie that eschews the wonder for reality.
He was the wrong director for it. It's a very cold film, with terrible editing. I mean, Ease On Down The Road is some of the worst filming I've ever seen
I thought the entire cast did well with what they had to work with but as a movie it's a stinker. Great soundtrack though.
I hope one day to make it to the end in one sitting.
The film was given a 24 million dollar budget when they secured Diana Ross. So it went over budget at 33 million. Where am I lying? I agree to that. If you pay attention. I am not disputing the budget amount! I am just saying it was given that amount due to having Diana Ross in the starring role. I am sorry Marv if that upsets you.
Just out of curiosity , are there memorable lines from The Wiz?
There must be a good twenty lines you can throw out from the original that would be recognized.
Did Diana deliver any "Run, Toto! Run!"s??
I only saw "The Wiz" once long ago. After seeing the stage production [[although Stephanie Mills wasn't in it when I saw it), it was a great disappointment. As much as I love Ross, she was just all wrong for the part. But the main thing I remember about it is that it just wasn't fun as a film. There was no excitement, no sense of wonder or magic. It seemed overlong, tedious and too message-heavy. There's nothing wrong with a message but I don't like it beaten into me!
Nobody is interested in when you saw The Wiz or where or when you were in your college years. We are real interested in you staying out of threads you cant be civil in. Your poisionous ugly rantings about Diane Ross are disgraceful for a grown man whos darned near Social Security age. Find your self respect and ask God to show you the high road. It cant be good for your health carrying around so much hate for a women you dont know and never will know. Stop and smell the roses or read a book or go feed the homeless or volunteer at a Childrens hospital. Those are things humbling acts that really matter and bring a sense of satisfaction to all of us.