DVD Review: THE WIZ (1978)

The Wiz

Released: October 24, 1978


Box Office: $13.6 million
(ranked approx. 20th of 1978)

Starring- Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Nipsey Russell, Ted Ross, Mabel King, Theresa Merritt, Lena Horne, Richard Pryor

Directed by Sidney Lumet


DVD Issue: 1999

Grade: D+

The Wiz is as fascinating to watch as it is terrible. With such a strong roster of pop and jazz singers such as Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Lena Horne, Nipsey Russell, Thelma Carpenter, and Mabel King, along with one of the funniest comedians of his time, Richard Pryor, The Wiz should have succeeded on its acting and singing alone. Alas, because of some dreadful directing and writing, and let's face it, the entire project, The Wiz becomes a sour, almost blackface minstrel-like offshoot of L. Frank Baum's 'The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz'.

That being said, unlike modern African-American re-imaginings of seminal "white" classics, including recent bombs such as Cedric The Entertainer's The Honeymooners, The Wiz is done with all seriousness and a sense of pride in its production. Based on the popular titular Broadway play of the time, The Wiz therefore plays like a failed prototype of what Dreamgirls would realize 28 years later rather than something that truly offends. This was a film that was suppose to change the market for urban audiences. Instead The Wiz's box office failure singlehandedly set back the financing on black films for several years.

Diana Ross, somewhere in between her Janet Jackson-like diva makeover of the late seventies, plays Dorothy, remade as a shy, 24-year-old kindergarten teacher in Harlem. Like her original character's counterpart, Dorothy gets transported to the magical land of Oz, which is a sort of fantasy version of New York City. She must travel to Emerald City to see 'The Wiz', a metallic head with a metallic afro voiced by comedian Richard Pryor. Along the way she meets and befriends The Scarecrow (Jackson), Tinman (Russell) and the Cowardly Lion (Ted Ross), and faces all sorts of strange baroque versions of real-life city dangers such as homelessness, drugs, and shiny gold disco dancers.

I've never been a fan of Ross' musical career after she left the Supremes, and The Wiz doesn't really change my opinion of her here. She's fairly less of a megalomaniac diva as Dorothy, but also plays the character as a near infantile nitwit. She's 34, playing a 24-year-old with a 4-year-old's emotional capacity. Luckily, there are far more baffling things in the film to truly pinpoint her as the film's ultimate flaw.

Michael Jackson provides key selections to the soundtrack just fine, but with his youthful, pre-vitiligo/lupus looks hidden behind a Raggedy Andy style costume of The Scarecrow, Jackson looks and sounds more like Anna Faris in drag than he does a teen heartthrob. His and Ross' dough-soft acting, especially in comparison to the overly Shakespearean theatrical Ted Ross, recreating his Broadway role of the Cowardly Lion, and the weird vaudevillian antics of Russell as the Tinman, bring an odd combination to the bulk of the film.

Then there's the storyline. The Wiz starts off fairly innocuous, mostly with painted sets and jazz stylings. But about halfway through the film seems to only get stranger and stranger. The foursome run into a cavalcade of nightmares in a yellow brick train station led by a creepy character called the Subway Peddler. They finally reach the World Trade Center-inspired building of gold disco convention, led by the 'phony' silver head of Richard Pryor's Wiz, but not before Dorothy and the gang visit worlds involving opium dens, sweatshops, and flying monkey motorcycle gangs.

Even more troubling is the Caucasian hierarchy in control behind the scenes. Outside of the musical score and actors, almost everyone else involved is white, which might have led to some friction between what makes a truly successful film. Obviously people of all race and creed can make the best films ever made, but when an all-white production crew is trying to make an all-black musical, there are racial tolerances that are obviously going to be stepped on and mixed up. It's like The Wiz was made with the utmost stress on being hip and fresh to black audiences, an African-American Tommy if you will, and instead comes off like a big-budget blaxploitation film.

Sidney Lumet is a famous director, known mostly for classics such as 12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, The Pawnbroker and Before The Devil Knows You're Dead. These type of films are gritty, and often are shot like photoplays; movies that don't require many external sets. Lumet's treatment of The Wiz at times seems both terribly expensive and cheaply bare. It is also remarkably poorly lit for a musical with so much color. Helmed by a legitimate musical director of the time like Bob Fosse or Alan Parker, The Wiz might have worked under camp brilliance like Grease did the same year.

Then you have a younger Joel Schumacher adapting the screenplay. Schumacher, known mostly for directing films such as The Lost Boys, Batman & Robin, Phone Booth and The Number 23, doesn't seem like the type of person that would service a black musical script, and his almost comically "darkie" dialogue is definitely a part of the film's failure. Rob Cohen, director of such modern action fare as The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor, The Fast & The Furious, xXx, Stealth, Dragonheart, and The Skulls, was a producer on the film as well, and was a crucial factor in getting Diana Ross the lead part.

The Wiz is almost surreal to see. With sets and songs planted firmly in the late seventies, it's almost as enjoyable in its dreadfulness as it would be watching a legitimately good version of the Broadway musical. It's easy to see why Ross and Jackson never really became actors, nor why Lumet ever helmed another musical or principally black cast again. Somewhere along the yellow brick production road, The Wiz succumbed to a terrible fate of being without much of a brain. At least the music was fly.