Journey Back to Oz

Journey Back to Oz (1972)

All the Fun and Splendour of the Magical Land of Oz in a Wonderful NEW full-length Musical Cartoon Adventure

Dorothy and Toto return to Oz to find the Scarecrow ruling the Emerald City. Unfortunately for the new overseer, the wicked Mombi is conspiring to take over the city. With the help of the Tin Woodsman, the Cowardly Lion and other familiar friends, Dorothy sets out to save Oz.

Date of release
1972-12-14
TMDB
5.4 / 10 (26)
Runtime
1h 28m
Genres
Animation, Family, Fantasy
Director
Hal Sutherland

Casting

Interesting facts

Journey Back to Oz is a 1972 American animated fantasy film produced by Filmation. Although L. Frank Baum received no screen credit, the film is loosely based on his second novel The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904). While a commercial flop in theaters, the film received a better reception on television, premiering December 5, 1976 on ABC.

Production

Development began in 1962; however, Filmation ran out of money and the unfinished film was shelved for nearly eight years. It was only after the Filmation studio profited on their numerous television series that it was finally able to complete the project, copyrighted 1971, released in 1972 in the United Kingdom and 1974 in the United States.

The film features Liza Minnelli as the voice of Dorothy (played in the 1939 film by her mother Judy Garland, and in what would have been her first major role had the film been released as originally intended, as it released after Cabaret).

For the film's American release, Filmation partnered producer Seymour Borde and distributed through a process called four wall distribution, whereupon the studio rented venues to show it and kept all of the box office revenue. Outside the United States and Canada, Warner Bros. distributed the film.

The film contains twelve original songs by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen. The arrangements and some of the film's score was by Walter Scharf. The original songs (which were featured on a ℗1980 soundtrack album released in conjunction with the film's television airings on the SFM Holiday Network) include the following:

A majority of the film contains library music from other sources. The piece of music heard in the opening titles is The Awakening from Johnny Pearson, recorded in 1967 (three years after production on this film began). It is otherwise used as theme for ITN's News at Ten.

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