Great Scene: “The Wizard of Oz”

A tornado transports Dorothy from her Old World to the New World of Oz. Compare script to screen.

The tornado scene sequence in The Wizard of Oz is memorable for a number of reasons, not the least of which is without it, there’s no Oz and therefore no story. This meteorological event is (my terminology) The Lock, serving as the major plot point that transitions the story from the Ordinary World (Kansas) into the Extraordinary World (Oz). The script, credited to Noel Langley & Florence Ryerson & Edgar Allan Woolf, based on the books by L. Frank Baum (in IMDb, there are fifteen other people who provided uncredited writing services for the project), is an interesting read, especially to see how much camera direction existed in screenplays of that era. In fact, to read the scene, you’ll need this guide to camera shot abbreviations:

CU: Close Up

MCS: Medium Close Shot

MS: Medium Shot

MLS: Medium Long Shot

LS: Long Shot

ELS: Extra Long Shot

And now the tornado scene from The Wizard of Oz.

Here is the movie version of the scene:

Funny thing is if you eliminate the camera shots, the scene description — at points — reads pretty much akin to modern standards. For example, what if we tweak this paragraph:

It would be an interesting exercise to rewrite parts of the script to modern style preferences. Then when someone asks how you’re writing is going, you can honestly say, “I’m rewriting The Wizard of Oz!”

Seriously how much nicer is it not to have to insert all those camera shots into a screenplay? We have much more readable scripts nowadays. Now if we could only come up with stories as great as The Wizard of Oz!

For more articles in the Great Scene series, go here.