Wiz Redux (A Truthy Tale)

 

When it was released in 1939, the United States was coming out of what we now call the Great Depression. Things were looking up -- for a while.

The movie, which was roundly praised by critics of the day, has never fallen out of favor with the American public. No surprise that. The film is a thinly veiled propaganda piece in favor of naked capitalism.

Consider this treatment that was recently discovered by a Hollywood mole:

"A shiftless farm girl runs away from honest work after letting her equally shiftless dog nip at the heels of a local landowner.

She narrowly escapes the clutches of a grasping conman and finds herself amongst a tribe of hopped-up socialists after their leader is overthrown in a targeted hit.

The yammering villagers are marshaled by a beguiling but sinister regional rival who tries to make the farm girl comrade-in-charge but the girl's not interested.

Instead, she finds willing road companions in the limping education, manufacturing and defense sectors, who follow her mindlessly to seek handouts from a wealthy industrial wizard.

The industrialist has mastered the forces of branding and marketing and built an empire but is later destroyed by the meddling farm girl and her communistic malcontents after they fail to give over to the fallen leader's beneficiary stolen property, killing the beneficiary instead.

Girl tries on the reigns of leadership, fails miserably and dies in a mob hit."

A note at the bottom by Producer Mervyn LeRoy reads: "Zowie! Make it a fairy tale and go with it!"