What one reviewer at amazon said about The Annotated Wizard of Oz: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz:
This is a marvelous book for Oz lovers, but especially for those interested in the history of musical comedy and silent movies. Mark Evan Swartz has has written a scholary, meticulous book that is clear and exciting. The book pays off in loads of information about Baum and the development of his ideas for Oz in print, on stage and in motion pictures. What I found most fascinating was Swartz's account of how "The Wizard of Oz" became one of the biggest hits in American theater and about the business of managing a big production that ran, in New York and on tour, for years.
Swartz performs a near-miracle in marshaling information about business issues into a cogent and exciting story. His retelling of how the show looked and sounded to audiences of the time is masterful. The show made enormous stars of the comedy team Montgomery and Stone as the Tin Man and the Scarecrow. (Stone lived long enough to act in movies in the 30's and 40's, so that it's possible for us to see one of the biggest broadway stars of the eary 20th century in movies like "Alice Adams" and "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine." Even as an old man he has some of the twinkle that enchanted theater audiences.)
Swartz is equally good in drawing a picture of the Oz silent movies and of how MGM came to make the "Rainbow" version in 1939. And speaking of pictures -- the book is lavishly illusrated with pictures of the original production and its stars, with shots from the silents and with wonderful color reproductions of posters and other ads. It's a scholarly book that is fun to browse and a handsome book you can learn something from.
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