The Wizard of Oz

A silent-era, very loose adaptation of L. Frank Baum's Oz books, written, directed by, and starring Larry Semon as the Scarecrow. The plot barely resembles the familiar 1939 film: a tyrannical wizard rules Oz, a farmhand disguised as a scarecrow helps a deposed princess, and Oliver Hardy (before his partnership with Stan Laurel) plays the Tin Woodsman. Semon stuffs the film with his trademark gag-heavy, slapstick style, and the result is a curious artifact more than a classic, but it is the earliest surviving feature-length Oz adaptation. Published in 1925, it is in the public domain in the United States.