Get Off My Set!
Photographing Director Sidney Lumet and “The Wiz”
Oh what a Wiz he was! Four-time Oscar-nominated director and recipient of the Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award, Sidney Lumet never allowed his mastery of both dramatic storytelling and cinematic technique to eclipse the great performances he inspired from his actors. Think of Twelve Angry Men, The Pawnbroker, Fail Safe, Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, Network, The Verdict. He made another thirty-seven films, most of them shot within the confines of his beloved New York City. One of them took a detour off the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and merged onto the Yellow Brick Road.
In 1977, the Astoria Studios soundstage in the borough of Queens, mothballed since the Marx Brothers made movies there decades earlier, was renovated to accommodate a new twist on The Wizard of Oz: simply, The Wiz. But a truncated title didn’t bode any skimping on star power. A new cast included Diana Ross as Dorothy, Michael Jackson as Scarecrow, Lena Horne as Glinda, and Richard Pryor as the Wiz. It featured Nipsey Russell as Tinman, Ted Ross as Lion, and “Toto as Toto,” as the rolling credits traditionally tagged agelessly eponymous canines to take a bow (wow-wow). New…
