SOURCE: Street, Douglas. “The Wonderful Wiz That Was: The Curious Transformation of The Wizard of Oz.” Kansas Quarterly 16, no. 3 (summer 1984): 91-8.
In the following essay, Street discusses Baum's intent to create a uniquely American fairy-tale, distinct from the European tradition, in which a sense of reality was paramount, and then examines the reasons why the story was transformed back into pure fantasy for the film version.
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