By the time "The Wiz" was made into a big-budget movie in 1978, it was familiar and beloved. Now critics were complaining that the film had trashed a classic (they knew it all along). And once ...

Though a star-studded 1978 film (Diana Ross! Michael Jackson! Richard Pryor! Lena Horne!) bombed both critically and commercially, that hardly tarnished the musical’s legacy. The Wiz has ...