Turkish Wizard of Oz (1971)

What is it about Turkish movies that give its viewers (like me) a warm fuzzy feeling, like wrapping up in a warm, comfortable foreign-language blanket?

Maybe it's the way that, by simply watching them, the viewer feels they are getting away with something...how best to say it...subversive.

After all, without the cumbersome restraints of copyright laws, Turkish film-makers can themselves dive into the subversive by taking some classic American films, recasting them, rewriting them and rethinking them to become - while still the same film ostensibly - something altogether different.

This has brought the discerning viewer many unique interpretations of films such as Star Wars, The Exorcist, Rambo, Superman and...

...well, since I've brought it up, another one may just have something to do with the Lollipop Guild.

Anyone out there ever heard of Zeynep Degirmencioglu? No? Don't Google her - you either know her or not. Okay, it's small wonder many of you don't; you'd have to be of a certain age and Turkish to know Zeynep. Back in the day, she was quite the hot little commodity and parlayed her fresh-faced innocent looks into over 40 films in three decades. An Istanbul Mary Pickford, as it were. Usually cast in the personae of her most famous film character Aysecik, Zeynep enjoyed a career which spawned many films featuring the sweet, demure young Aysecik in a variety of situations...even as Snow White, seven dwarfs and all.

Then in 1971, director Tunç Basaran decided to take Zeynep's popular character in a bold new direction: by transplanting her in the L. Frank Baum chestnut The Wizard of Oz. Okay, it was the same direction, just a different movie.

And so came to be Turkish Wizard of Oz. Or as it is better known in the ol' homeland, Aysecik ve sihirli cüceler rüyalar ülkesinde, or Aysecik and the Bewitched Dwarfs in Dreamland, or Aysecik in the Land of the Magic Dwarfs.

What, you didn't expect a film on my site to go by without having at least one alternate name, did you? For shame....

Anyway, to the plot: amid Turkish narration (which escapes me thoroughly), Dorothy's parents are shown to be hard-working farm folk - though they'd have to be hard-working seeing as they have no farm hands to help (more on that in a minute) and their farmland consists of rocks and dirt, respectively. No crops, no plants, no spot of green anywhere. And if the Turkish films I've seen are any indication, this is indicative of Turkey as a whole. No wonder their main export are films like these.

So along skips Dorothy and Toto across what looks for everything like Gamera's back. Of course, since this is TURKISH Wizard of Oz, Dorothy is Aseycik and Toto is Banju. That out of the way, after a few disjointed scenes of domesticity in the Turkish Gale household, a shirtless Pa Gale is shown plowing rocks in the back 40 when he sees an oncoming twister...

Which then cuts to an animated segment of the twister, the Gale family barricading themselves and Dorothy, house and all whisked away to (Turkish) Oz. Yes, animation. And not good animation, either. Like, what did you expect? And knowing that no amount of description would do this segment justice, just look at these screens:






























I don't think Hanna-Barbera has anything to worry about.

Then back to live action as Dorothy (let's just call her for now) wakes up inside her house then is seen dancing outside in a lush forest with a woman in a white dress and seven midgets dressed like toy soldiers, who disappear as quickly as they appear.

Let's forget for a minute where the other individuals came from - that's just Oz for you. I want to know where this thick green forest came from. There are no forests in Turkey, not in anything else I've ever seen. The whole country is used to the same effect as Bronson Canyon in California is for science fiction landscapes and desert epics. They must have snuck across the Turkish border to a neighboring country with greenery to film the Oz scenes, is all I can think of. Hopefully they got permits to do so...but what am I thinking; this is Turkey, why should they get permission to do anything?

So after changing dresses and casually taking the silver shoes off of a dead body which happens to be under her transplanted house, Dorothy and Toto (let's just call him for now) traipse off to the strains of Ferrante & Teicher, or maybe the music guy just found an album of The Best of Richard Clayderman and slipped it in. Then they come across the Turkish versions of Scarecrow, The Tin Woodsman and the Cowardly Lion, respectively.

A word about these three jokers. In the 1939 movie, let alone the book, these are supposed to be the manifestations of the farm hands back in the real world. There are NO farm hands in this film, so what are they even doing here, except to remind us what the basis for this movie is? Anyway, they certainly don't put one in the mind of Ray Bolger, Jack Haley and Bert Lahr. I'd say Turkish Scarecrow is more like Carson Kressley, Turkish Tin Woodsman is Tommy Lee Jones and Turkish Cowardly Lion is Harvey Fierstein. That should put you in the proper frame of mind of what to expect when you see these clowns. Because "classic characters of popular American literature" sure won't be what you're thinking after you see them.

And there's no show-stopping songs here, either. No "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" or "Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead" - just lots of orchestral interludes, lots of piano playing and all of one song the characters do end up singing, three or four times in fact. Its name escapes me, but what I do remember is they repeat "shim-shim-shim". A lot.

With all of this nonsense going on - the Scarecrow limply playing the effeminate one more effectively than Dorothy, Tin Woodsman grumpily trudging along with every move he makes accented by a ratchet sound and Cowardly Lion sniffling and growling like he's gargling - Turkish Wizard of Oz actually does hit other points of the story: they do encounter grouchy trees, they do have a bright green-skinned witch chasing after them, they do go to see a Wizard to help them, they....

Okay, those are the only other familiar points of the original story this movie visits:

* Instead of Munchkins, there are the aforementioned seven toy soldier dwarfs who pop in at random intervals throughout the movie.

* Instead of Munchkin City, Dorothy and company visit a small doll house town filled with little girls in doll dresses.

* Instead of flying monkeys, there are cavemen who attack the group at one point, only to be defeated by the midgets, who appear out of nowhere and produce a golden cannon to blow them all away with.

* Instead of multiple images or even the big head of the ruler of Oz to intimidate everyone, there is a skull on a table, which is in turn voiced by a wizard - and by wizard, I mean a pointy-hatted man with white hair and a long white moustache in a purple gown with stars and moons on it. A freakin' wizard.

OH! But the Witch! The Witch! This thing has bright green skin, bright red hair, a hook nose, bad teeth, a scary echoing voice and long fingernails. She's like Witchie-Poo as played by Ruth Buzzi playing a method actress. And she blows a mean conch shell. She's mean and evil, I'll give her that, but she doesn't do any magic stuff, she just commands her soldiers (none of who are green-skinned or hook-nosed, unfortunately) to do her heavy work for her. And when Dorothy throws water on her - like you didn't know what would happen - instead of melting into the ground, the Witch simply writhes around, claws at the wet makeup on her face and slowly slumps to the floor. One camera cut later, she's gone. Oh well, at least she left an impression when she was onscreen.

Not like Zeynep doesn't leave an impression herself, but as the vivacious innocent she never gets to emote anything more than a look of concern. Other than that, she smiles, curtsies, dances, sings "shim-shim-shim" and models her dresses like a good little actress. But like anyone else who has made a career out of playing one character, Zeynep must have felt that everyone else should compliment her, like the vase compliments the roses. And she certainly was a rose.

But in the end, it is all great fun to watch as long as you go in expecting to see NOTHING like what you've experienced before with anything that had the words "Wizard", "Oz" and "Baum" attached to them. Turkish Wizard of Oz is very entertaining in a bad film kind of way; it's all very goofy, very kiddish and extremely light-headed. Perfect entertainment for someone like me who lives, eats and breathes this kind of movie.

If you can get a hold of this movie, go for it. And have an open mind when you do so: because Turkish Wizard of Oz will certainly challenge everything you've ever experienced before.

In other words: Banju, you won't think you're in Istanbul anymore.

Shim-shim-shim.