The Oz Film Manufacturing Company
| Private | |
| Industry | Film industry |
| Fate | Closed |
| Founded | 1914 |
| Founder | L. Frank Baum |
| Defunct | 1915 |
| Headquarters | Los Angeles, CA |
The Oz Film Manufacturing Company was a short-lived independent film studio from 1914 to 1915. It was founded by L. Frank Baum (president), Louis F. Gottschalk (vice president), Harry Marston Haldeman (secretary), and Clarence R. Rundel (treasurer) as an offshoot of Haldeman's social group, The Uplifters, that met at the Los Angeles Athletic Club. Its goal was to produce quality family-oriented entertainment in a time when children were primarily seeing violent Westerns. It was a critical but not a commercial success; even under a name change to Dramatic Feature Films, it was quickly forced to fold. The studio made only five features and five short films, of which four features (in part) and no shorts survive.
The company is best known for three of its films that survive, albeit with missing footage, today: The Patchwork Girl of Oz, The Magic Cloak of Oz, and His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz.
The studio was located on Santa Monica Boulevard between Gower Street and Lodi Street. The facility would later be used by Famous Players-Lasky and National Film Corporation of America. It was considered state-of-the-art at the time. It was used almost exclusively for interior shots. Exterior shots were done outdoors rather than simulated in the studio.
J. Farrell MacDonald directed all of the film productions and acted in some of them. L. Frank Baum wrote all the scripts, and Louis F. Gottschalk wrote complete original scores that were sent out with the films, at time when improvising stock cues from the repertoire was common. James A. Crosby was the studio cinematographer, and Will H. White was the technical director. The records do not show who was responsible for film editing.
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