Thirty Five Years Ago - Return To Oz

It’s fair to say that there was a period of time where I was obsessed with this fim. I compulsively rewatched the few clips we had of it in a taped-off-the-telly episode of Disney Time; my drawings were all of The Gump, Jack Pumpkinhead and Tik Tok and my reading list began to include the original set of books by L. Frank Baum (all being republished to coincide with the release of the film). Oddly, despite this fervent obsession, it’s never really stood out with many of the other 80s films that I have in my head as defining my childhood film love. It was only in looking at the films of 1985 that suddenly this one came back into my head.

Return To Oz (1985)
Dir. Walter Murch / Dur. 113 mins

What’s It About? In this belated sequel to The Wizard Of Oz (based upon elements of two of the sequel books). Dorothy and her chicken Billina find themselves back in the Land Of Oz only to discover that the Land is now under the control of the villainous Nome King…

Why’s It Any Good? First things first - this is pretty terrifying stuff in places for a kids film. It opens in the real world with Dorothy essentially being tortured in an asylum for all the “lies” she’s been telling about Oz, features creepy Wheelers with grotesque face masks on the top of their heads and has a witch who not only changes heads but at one point runs around without a head at all. Fortunately, as a child with the fondness for the macabre and the grotesque, this was right up my darkened alleyway.*

This is the only feature film (to date) to be directed by Walter Murch, famed amongst film geek for the sound design work he did upon such films as The Godfather and Apocalypse Now (the latter of which earned him an Oscar for Best Sound). A combination of the experience itself (Murch was briefly fired from the film by the studio before being reinstated thanks to the intervention of George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola) alongside poor box office were strong contributory factors in this being his only directorial effort.

It’s a shame really as the darkness (for the most part) works on this one and there is some lovely character design, in particular for The Gump and Tik Tok. While not strictly a Henson film as the puppetry was provided by Lyle Conway, it is Henson-adjacent as Conway was one of the original founders of the Jim Henson Creature Workshop before breaking away to form his own company and Brian Henson came on board to provide voice and puppetry for Jack Pumpkinhead. Added to that, the stop motion work for the Nomes and the Nome King is excellent and still looks good today. While the open scene may be a little too grim, there’s something appealing about this darker version of Oz. It’s probably more of a fun curiosity than a genuine classic but it’s definitely worth a watch for anyone with an interest in Baum;s world of Oz beyond the 1939 musical version.


* Not a euphemism, don’t be dirty.