Why the 1933 Wizard of Oz feels like a fever dream

Is this for you?

Look, if you want that polished musical from the late thirties, turn back now. This 1933 version is a completely different beast—it’s jagged, strange, and feels more like a collection of sketches glued together by a fever dream. If you enjoy early animation history or just want to see how weird things can get before the studio system really tightened the screws, you’ll dig it. If you’re looking for a coherent story, you will probably hate every single second of it. 🌪️

The whole thing has this unsettling stop-motion energy that makes the Emerald City look less like a magical kingdom and more like a place you’d find in a dusty attic. The movement is jerky. The characters pop in and out of the frame with zero warning. It reminds me a bit of the frantic energy in Alice in the Wooly West where the physics of the world just decide to give up.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of The Wizard of Oz (1933) through its definitive frames.

Dorothy doesn't really 'act' so much as she just sort of exists in the space while things happen at her. It’s funny because you can tell the animators were experimenting with every trick in the book, sometimes all at once. There’s a scene where the transition between the farm and Oz is just so abrupt it gave me whiplash. One minute you're bored in Kansas, the next you're staring at a background that looks like a watercolor painting left out in the rain.

It lacks the emotional anchor of the more famous versions. There isn't much 'heart' here, just a lot of movement. Sometimes it’s genuinely eerie, like the way the Scarecrow just kind of... flops around. It’s not graceful. It’s just odd. It feels closer to the gritty, experimental vibe you see in Struggling, where the narrative takes a backseat to just trying to see if the technology can hold the image together.

• The tornado sequence is actually kind of impressive in a 'what-the-heck-is-happening' sort of way.
• The munchkins don't look cute. They look like they are judging your life choices.
• The music is mostly just background noise that never quite lands a hook.
• I’m pretty sure the background artist was having a better day than the character designer.

I found myself zoning out during the dialogue, but snapping back to attention every time the screen did something visually impossible. It’s not a masterpiece, and I’m not sure it’s even a 'good' movie by modern standards. But it’s definitely a relic. It feels like someone tried to capture a dream but only managed to film the static between the channels. Worth a watch for the sheer audacity of it, I guess. Just don't go in expecting a sing-along. 👠