VivaX

Based on the award winning musical.

Directed by Sidney Lumet.

Music by Charlie Smalls.

Starring Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Ted Ross, Lena Horne, Mabel King, Thelma Carpenter, Theresa Merritt, and Richard Pryor.

The music is great- Ease on Down, Brand New Day, You Can't Win, Slide Some Oil To Me, Mean Ole Lion, Home, The Feeling That We Have, and The Emerald City ballet are all great and catchy songs.

Yet, the music drags in some places and is downright boring in others.

Why was The Wiz a failure?

EDIT: Starring Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Nipsey Russell, Ted Ross, Lena Horne, Mabel King, Thelma Carpenter, Theresa Merritt, and Richard Pryor.

First mistake: Miss Ross as Dorothy.

Sidney Lumet's grounded directing style was not a good fit for a musical.

When I think of home

I think of a place

With laundry and beer cans all over the place.

Dorothy looked as if she were 50.

Sidney Lumet is certainly not the first person you would think of to direct a musical.

And the screenplay was by Joel Schumacher, only his third screenplay ever produced.

So, not a lot of experience with musicals at the helm.

That’s when Miss Ross was big into est, aka the Forum and Landmark.

[quote]Why was The Wiz a failure?

It was a big budget, all black, film project in 1978. It's not that complicated.

It was also the most expensive musical ever made at the time so it kind of set itself up for failure as well.

But things are different now and The Wiz is considered a cult classic.

The cinematography was really awful.

The soundtrack is great though!

Loved this movie. One of the wonderful things from the 1970s. Until hypercapitalism and globalization destroyed creativity.

Diana Ross as Dorothy was the big mistake. She was much too old for the part, and her acting was on the level of Doris Day's in "Midnight Lace" (which is surprising, because Ross was so great in "Lady Sings the Blues").

Should have gone with the first choice for Dorothy, Danielle Spencer.

Ahh - the Forum/Landmark, the 80s narcisstic capitalisT version of 60/70s EST. Any Rand for the hippies.

Its one of my favorites. But the main problem is Miss Ross looking uncharacteristically frumpy.

The most somber musical film ever made but I love Diana Ross and I thought it was interesting to make Dorothy older and repressed. For me, she makes it work.

It is not a cult classic. It’s one of hollywoods biggest misfires. The only halfway decent clip is Lena’s spot at the end.

It all just had such a plastic, chintzy look. It was like filming a movie inside different sections of Macy's.

It was creepy. Even the "happy" moments were unsettling.

The twin towers fashion show was fun though.

R14 great point. Those really wide shots of Dorothy walking around dilapidated buildings before she meets the Scarecrow are bizarre as hell.

They really didn't know how to film a musical.

No Bad News is another one. Supposed to be funny, but just cringey.

[quote]It is not a cult classic. It’s one of hollywoods biggest misfires.

No. It is. Especially if you're black.

BET still airs the damn movie every few months.

The Wiz is one film that really needs a remake. If handled well, it could be a huge success. The material is there.

[quote]It was a big budget, all black, film project in 1978. It's not that complicated.

It was crappy. That was the problem.

I was 16 and into movies when this film came out in 1978. I kept up with what was coming out. But I never heard of the movie until years later. Must have had a limited advertising campaign aimed exclusively at the black market.

FYI, I am white and I grew up in the South, which likely plays a large part in why I didn't hear about it at the time.

[quote] They really didn't know how to film a musical.

Except that Oswald Morris was the cinematographer and he'd photographed some of the most celebrated musicals of the previous 25 years, including Oliver! and Fiddler on the Roof (for which he won an Oscar), as well as big budget musicals Scrooge and Goodbye Mr. Chips. So he absolutely knew how to shoot a musical.

I'd blame the editing, except the film was edited by Dede Allen, who was a fantastic editor, cutting such classics as Bonnie & Clyde, Dog Day Afternoon, The Hustler and The Breakfast Club. Allen knew how to make a film move.

I think the blame lays squarely at the feet of Lumet, who seems to have only wanted to work in master shots and who also seems to have had the final say over everything, despite what his very experienced creative team may have been advising him. It's a terribly constructed film, but I would wager Morris shot enough coverage to have given Allen the ability to cut the film a different way.

That being said, it's a master of production and costume design, and Ted Ross is fantastic, deserving of an Oscar nomination for Supporting Actor. Ross' Dorothy does not bother me. It was another way to go and it could have worked if it had been explored a little better, but the blame there lies in the script.

I liked the tv adaptation of the stage musical. Stephanie Mills as Aunt Em was a nice touch.

I was 11 when it came out and I thought it was great! I loved the big toilet although I can't really remember what that was all about now.

I didn’t understand why Aunt Em made a turkey AND a ham for her daughter coming home with her new baby. I’m always amused by the very old lady extra at the table who’s mouthing the lyrics of “The Feelings We Once Had” along with Theresa Merritt when she shouldn’t. And why did Lumet direct that guy to look at Dorothy like he was going to rape her before dessert?

The Wizard of Oz was a huge flop too,surprisingly so.

[quote]It was a big budget, all black, film project in 1978. It's not that complicated.

[quote]It was crappy. That was the problem.

Crappy or not R27, films with a predominantly black cast did not start to do well until the late 80s thanks to Eddie Murphy (Coming to America) and Whoopi Goldberg (The Color Purple).

It would have been a historic triumph for that film to do well in the 70s.

[quote]Crappy or not [R27], films with a predominantly black cast did not start to do well until the late 80s

R34 You do not know what you are talking about.

"Shaft" 1971 "The film was one of only three profitable movies that year for MGM, grossing what Time magazine called an "astonishing" $13 million on a budget of $500,000.

"Cooley High" 1975 "a critical and commercial success. Produced on a $750,000 budget, the film grossed $13 million at the domestic box office"

"Uptown Saturday Night" 1974 "grossed $7,400,000 in the U.S., surpassing its production cost of $2,500,000. It was on the list of top 50 highest-grossing films at #3, just three months after its release"

"Sounder" 1972 "The film was both a critical and box office success, and the National Board of Review ranked it as one of the Top 10 best films of 1972. Cicely Tyson and Paul Winfield both received Oscar nominations for their performances, and the film was nominated for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. "

And so on.

So please, quit making things up. "The Wiz" failed because it was not very good.

I could name a couple dozen more, from blaxploitation to comedy to serious drama. The 70s was arguably the most successful decade for black cinema.

People like R34 are intent on rewriting history.

It was a bloated overproduced mess. It needed a much lighter, organic touch.

Ross played Dorothy like she was constantly on the verge of a nervous breakdown. That’s no way to play Dorothy.

Why can’t we get an Asian or Latin version?

[quote]Why can’t we get an Asian or Latin version?

Who wants to hear "Ease on Down the Load"?

I've never seen the movie before, but from the trailer, it looks washed out, like there was a layer of dust covering the camera lens.

Diana’s hairdo was very unflattering in this

Paul Mooney blamed The Wiz being an initial flop on America being too racist to be able to accept a black Dorothy, which is utter BS. He failed to recognize the cultural impact of the original Broadway production, which was huge success, turning Stephanie Mills into a household name. So America indeed was open to an alternative telling of The Wizard Of Oz. It just wasn't willing to accept that a shitty, over-produced, drawn out film version was anywhere near as charming as the beloved play. It's really that simple. I remember going to see this movie in my provincial CNY city & thinking "When is this thing going end!?" The soundtrack on the other hand is magnificent!

Paul Mooney was an idiot and a whiner stemming from a victim complex and bitter he never became a big star.

Terrible movie, terrible casting, terrible production values.

Michael Jackson thought this was going to be the film that would make him a movie star. Instead, it killed his movie career.

It was a very poor looking production. DR was miscast as an old Dorothy. Ugly too.

[quote]R34 You do not know what you are talking about.

And you, R35 [bold]can't read.[/bold] It's like you tried to make a whole bunch of arguments that are irrelevant.

The Wiz had a budget of [bold]24 MILLION[/bold] which is more than [bold]any[/bold] film you listed. It made 22 million.

And whether you personally liked those films or not, none of the films you listed had a box office gross that put them in the top grosses of the decade.

There's a difference between, "This was a good film" and "this was a profitable film." That's what you fail to understand. It's not about how "good" the film was.

The Wiz would have had to of made more money than ANY black movie released in the decade and not a single one you listed even came close to costing as much as it did. They set themselves up for failure. If they could have cut the budget by a few million it would have at least made its money back.

And since, you actually don't know anything because you're copying sentences out of Wikipedia

[quote] grossed $7,400,000 in the U.S., surpassing its production cost of $2,500,000. It was on the list of top 50 highest-grossing films at #3, just three months after its release.[6]

Stop trusting Wikipedia.

The #3 highest grossing film of 1977 was Saturday Night Fever NOT Uptown Saturday night.

The #3 highest grossing film of the decade was Jaws.

None of the films you listed came close to making what even The Godfather did and that's in the top 50 grossing films of the 70s at the bottom!

Rule #1 of research. DO NOT TRUST WIKIPEDIA

That was my 2nd favorite colored movie ! Right behind that movie " Walnut" with that other colored movie star Billy Davis Jr. , the one that Donna Summer was a model and taken under the wing of Paul Lynde that homosexual actor from Dennis the Menance

Diana Ross was too old, too worldly, too glamorous and too strong to play the innocent, naive Dorothy. Given to her own devices, she’d disapprove of the Scarecrow for his terrible wardrobe, toss the Tin Man into the recycling bin, and would dismiss the Cowardly Lion for being a wimp. She’d demand that the Wiz and Wicked Witch address her as “Miss Gale.”

She didn’t look glamorous in the wiz. She looked old and ugly.

Diana was too old. I can't buy her as sweet and innocent either. They could have cast Stephanie Mills or an actual child actress like Danielle Spencer or Janet Jackson instead.

The WTC was used as a backdrop for this sequence

And you, [R48] can't read. It's like you tried to make a whole bunch of arguments that are irrelevant.

You have a gross reading comprehension problem. In my post at R35 I was responding to the following comment:

"Crappy or not [R27], films with a predominantly black cast did not start to do well until the late 80s"

That statement is false.

I then listed a number of films with predominantly black casts that indeed did do well in the 1970s. Exceptionally well.

[quote]There's a difference between, "This was a good film" and "this was a profitable film." That's what you fail to understand. It's not about how "good" the film was.

What are you babbling on about?

There was no claim made by me that those films were "good" films. That was not the issue. The issue was whether they did well or not. And the ones I listed all did.

As others have pointed out here: The Wiz did poorly because it was not a good film. It had nothing to do with the fact that it had a predominantly black cast.

In fact in 1972, two films with predominantly black casts were among the top 15 highest grossing films for that year:

Once again let me repeat: The Wiz did poorly because it was crappy. And there were a number of films with predominantly black casts in the 1970s that were successful at the box office.

Got it now?

I saw the original Broadway production of The Wiz five weeks after it opened. House seats, sixth row just off center, courtesy of my date who was in the business and was comped.

It was such a mixed bag. The musical numbers were FANTASTIC. God bless George Faison, the choreographer. But director Geoffrey Holder, who won a Tony for his fabulous costumes, couldn't direct a book scene to save his life. You kept saying to yourself "Oh, just shut up and get to the next number!"

The producer, Ken Holder, almost closed it after opening night and it struggled along, not always making its nut. But then the New York discos, and later that Spring, the Fire Island discos started playing "Ease on Down the Road" at 4am to empty the house and then "Ease on Down the Road" was featured in the show's TV commercial and became a big pop hit. The BO turned around and the show sold out every night. It ended up running a long time.

Two other memories of that night:

1) I was sitting right behind the notorious critic John Simon. He was famous for his vicious attacks on performers' looks and for his yellow teeth. The person next to me leaned forward to greet him and he turned his head around and smiled back. His teeth weren't yellow, they were brown.

2) William Como, the editor of After Dark, which was then at the height of its fame, came in to sit on our row accompanied by a wan, frail looking blond twink. I whispered to my date "Is that really the best the editor of After Dark can do?" He replied "It's only Tuesday night, dear."

^ I was very young and new to New York.

A big budget remake would have been a great idea 15 years ago when Eddie Murphy could have played The Wiz and Whoopi could have camped it up as Evilene. But now? They’d kill the score, strip all the Motown and funk out of it and make it hip-hop.

[quote]They’d kill the score, strip all the Motown and funk out of it and make it hip-hop.

"Home" is such a beautiful song. Of course if it were done today it would be performed in the popular over-wrought trashy caterwauling style that has infected everything.

Lumet's "Valentine To New York City" concept was interesting on paper, but failed on film. In undergrad, I designed the costumes for a solo Master's thesis show, and the actor and I ended up on this subject for some reason.

He (a black man, as it happens) said he saw the original Broadway production as a child, and that it had been incredible. His opinion of the film wasn't as positive. Ultimately, he lamented the fact that the screenplay hadn't stuck as closely to the stage version as he thought it should.

I find this movie and Return to Oz (1985) actually closer to the books by Baum. The books are way more unsettling and bizarre in imagery. Baum seemed on some psychedelics. The 1939 is a classic of course and will always be memorable but it wasn't faithful to the book. Fairuza Baulk though is the only Dorothy that was actually the age of the book character. Both Garland and Ross were too old, Dorothy is supposed to be 8 or 9.

R62 closer to bomb or as New Yawkers might pronounce baum!

The movie also bombed because many 1970s white parents were too afraid to take their kids to a theater that would have black people.

Movies being crappy are usually not the reason they flop. So many shitty movies were box office hits because a lot of people want mindless entertainment for 2 hours with pretty people, action-adventure and special effects.

The Wiz's demographic would be kids and families and America just was not ready for a family movie with an all-Black cast which would integrate moviegoing audiences and give little white kids a positive representation of Black people. This was only a decade after the Civil Rights Act was passed and many states were forced to desegregate. Older white people were still resentful of this especially in The South. Even if The Wiz was good, I think it would have flopped given the time period.

Now if it was release in 1988, it surely would have been a hit. The 1980s was a golden era of children's fantasy movies and Eddie Murphy's huge success opened the doors for families going to see movies with Black leads.

the original Wiz flopped and bankrupted the film studio.

I saw it on Broadway and it was wonderful but the movie didn’t have any magic at all.

The music is awesome. But can some of the people here who understand broadway musicals (or music production) explain -- is there a term for bloated song production? Because the songs go on forever. Just when you think they're at the final chorus, they go to an instrumental part and then go back into more choruses. Results in a movie over 2hrs and it doesn't seem like they cut for time anywhere.

Some of the cinematography issues would have also benefitted from a tighter cut. There are shots that work, many that don't and it feels like everything got included.

Oh, they also threw out the script of the broadway show and wrote all new dialogue.

r65 None of those fantasy movies of the 80s were big hits.

Black Cauldron - Killed disney animation for a decade. Return to Oz - Bomb. Legend (Tom Cruise/Ridley Scott - Bomb. Jim Henson/David Bowie's Labyrinth - Bomb Ron Howard and George Lucas' Willow - Bomb. Never ending story - Broke even after marketing and did most of its business overseas. Massively budgeted.

I remember seeing this at the Loews Astor Plaza in Times Square the weekend it opened. Nice big screen. Diana’s face looked frightening. And Lena Horne got a HUGE laugh from the crowd when Glinda went “Uh huh” after Dorothy asked if she could always go home by clicking her heels three times. And I don’t think Horne even said “Uh huh,” it was probably added in post production.

Wow, R70, was just thinking about “the babies.” Damn, there was at least one extra cut to a close-up of them which has always irritated the shit out of me. The first two were adorable but the last one was totally unnecessary.

[quote]The Wiz's demographic would be kids and families and America just was not ready for a family movie with an all-Black cast which would integrate moviegoing audiences and give little white kids a positive representation of Black people.

1974-75: the number 2 rated show on TV: "Sanford and Son". Number 4: "The Jeffersons". At number 7: "Good Times".

"Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids" so successful it ran for 13 years starting in 1972.

Certainly this was TV and not the movies, but the times were not as dire as you think.

The Wiz could have been a smash hit.

Bad, bordering on criminally bad direction

It's ugly

Shitty camera work- "Don't Nobody Bring Me No Bad News" is shot almost entirely in a wide master shot...huh?

Diana Ross is miscast

It's leaden and slow

Placing the story in NYC was dumb

[quote] The movie also bombed because many 1970s white parents were too afraid to take their kids to a theater that would have black people.

My dad got stuck taking me to see this when I was little. We went to a dumpy twin theater in Florida with my mom and grandmother, who went into the other auditorium to see Oliver's Story. It was a Saturday night and the place was packed. The movie theater was in a really seedy neighborhood, but for some reason, it got a lot of really huge movies back then. I remember seeing Star Wars, Grease, Saturday Night Fever (both the R & PG versions played there and I got to see the latter), when they played exclusively at this shithole instead of the nicer, larger theaters in the area.

Anyway, we were two of the very few white people in the audience. I guess I liked the movie, but I don't really remember. (I like it now, even though it's not very good.) What I do remember is towards the end, when Lena Horne came onscreen, I turned to my dad in a really loud voice and said, "How come that lady is in the movie? I thought everyone was supposed to be black?" (I was eight.) My dad smacked me in the torso, shushed me and looked like he was ready to pick me up, tuck me under his arm and start running up the aisle any minute in case the audience turned on us.

I love Diana Ross but my God, she's absolutely awful in this film. Lumet was simply the wrong choice to direct this film. He just didn't have the visual flair or touch for a musical. As r73 stated, the scene with the Wicked Witch is shot in wide shot, very few close-ups. There should be loads of tension and we should be scared of Evillene but Lumet doesn't even let us get to know her. Even Ross herself wrote in her autobiography that Lumet directed the film as if it were a play and she was right. The film is not dynamic or imaginative.

Michael Jackson, however, was absolutely perfect as the Scarecrow. He's the best part of the film.

R2: Miss Ross should have been cast as "Auntie Em".

What gets me is how homely and goblin-like Diana’s appearance is in this film.

R9 No, it failed because it was an all-around bad movie.

Brainstorm No. 1: Diana Ross' insistence that she play Dorothy. Brainstorm No. 2: Sidney Lumet's inspired idea to set the whole story in Manhattan.

Is this awful enough, or do I have to go on?????

This is one musical that could definitely stand being remade with the right cast and director.

Only if Dorothy is trans.

This song was written by Luther Vandross.

Excellent music. Classic soundtrack. The film looks ugly on the whole, it could be the 1970s aesthetic which was a hairy,ugly decade.

R83 I grew up in the 1970s and I saw The Wiz when it was in theaters. The look of the movie wasn't in any way a 1970s aesthetic. It was as ugly then as it is now.

That's one of the things I hated about the movie when I saw it. The looks of it all was so cold and flat. It didn't match the richness of the music and the message at all.

It really could gotten remade in the 90s with an all-star cast. Many teen R&B singers then.

[quote]The look of the movie wasn't in any way a 1970s aesthetic. It was as ugly then as it is now.

How ironic! The 1939 Wizard of Oz was known for being so colorful and vibrant, switching to color when Dorothy arrived in Oz.

Yet, the musical version of the same story is considered visually ugly and flat.

The camera and lighting used for The Wiz looked more like a gritty urban drama than a whimsical children's story. The movie in fact reminded me more of a postapocalyptic NYC than a fantasy world.

It's flat because the camera down's move. Can you imagine that, a musical filmed with a stationary camera? Hideous. That's this movie.

The Wizard of Oz was already a musical, r86.

Is that Michael Jackson's real nose, Dorothy?

It's flat because the camera down's move.

I meant "doesn't move".

It was boring. That's why it bombed.

Many of my favorite films were made in that decade, the costumes and hairstyles were over the top ugly in that decade. The exceptions would be an Ali McGraw in The Getaway or a Meryl Streep in Kramer Vs Kramer. Pam Grier at the height of her beauty wore terrible costumes and makeup in Foxy Brown and Coffy.

Michael Jackson was perfect and gave a really good performance. Diana Ross was too old, looked too ugly and too old and couldn't connect to the sweetness of Dorothy. And I say this as somebody who's a big fan of her.

Diana Ross being miscast as Dorothy seems to be the consensus here.

So, who should have been cast in the part as a teenage Dorothy when a 33-year-old Diana Ross was to old.?

The American Film Institute catalog has an interesting write-up of the movie's production history.

MJ was unbearably cutesy as the Scarecrow.

Jackson seemed joyous under that makeup; the burden of his insecurities temporarily lifted.

Michael was awful in that role. It killed any hopes of a future in the movies.

Mike is one of the highlights of a problematic film. The Wiz is one of my favorite films and Lumet, one of my favorite directors but this film has noticeable flaws.

R100 I thought Jackson sucked in this one. He tried to do an impression of Ray Bolger and mistook flailing around like one of those used car lot tube thingies for acting.

Jackson just loved Diana. She was his inspiration and the closest thing to a mother.

I would have liked to have seen Ben Vereen as th Tin Man.

Irene Cara could have pulled it off.

Irene Cara would have been very good as Dorothy.

She was 18 in 1977, so at least could have credibly played a teenager.

I’m gonna take a big whiz.

Jackson was terrific. He was the only one who seemed to be having any fun. This should be joyous and fun and it's joyless and drab.

After the film’s flop, there was wasn’t a major theatrical film made with a predominately black cast until A Soldier’s Story almost four years later. Thanks Diana.

More like SIX years…my bad

Stop with the race shit. The movie sucked because it was bad, overproduced, miscast, etc...It could have had an all white cast, an all purple cast, a polka dotted cast...it wouldnt matter...IT SUCKED.

It should not have r110, but it did because the white producers in Hollywood were afraid to bankroll any big budget films with all black casts. It was unfair. It was wrong.

Motown Productions produced it.

[quote] Irene Cara would have been very good as Dorothy. She was 18 in 1977, so at least could have credibly played a teenager.

Had she shown her raisin titties to the Scarecrow, Michael Jackson would have become even gayer.

Now, that's a situation that's hard to imagine.

I love the Emerald City sequence with the giant stoplight signalling the changes in the color fashions.

But it really bothers me to this day they cast Richard Pryor (a non-singer) in the title role so we didn't get to hear one of the best songs from the stage show, "Y'All Got It!" ("Gimme a reason why I should stay, and I'll judge it...")

The Wiz being made today would get the high budget it deserves.

The YouTube comments on this clip are... enlightening.

The clip at R116 shows one of the big flaws of the film - great idea, amazing production design & costumes — but 95% of it plays out in extreme wide shots - so it quickly feels static and dull despite all the incredible visuals that are on screen.

Yes, I don't understand why Lumet chose so many wide shots, especially in the clip at r116. You have all of these extras in gorgeous clothes and the camera is miles away.

As a non-American, I'm always fascinated by how black American culture seems to run parallel to the mainstream white culture. So white Americans have The Wizard of Oz and black Americans have The Wiz.

[quote]Michael was awful in that role. It killed any hopes of a future in the movies.

His wasn't the only movie career it killed.

Aside from being too old, Diana Ross is just weepy and dreary throughout. She really drags the movie down.

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