Fairylogue and Radio-Plays, Baum's 1908 multi-media stage show, had been an artistic success but a financial failure. The project left Baum owing thousands of dollars to his creditors, including the Selig Polyscope Company, the Chicago firm that had made the film segments employed in the show. As part of Baum's efforts to settle his debts, the Selig company won the right to make a movie of the author's best-known work. While scenes from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz had been filmed by Selig and featured in Fairylogue, the 1910 project was the first attempt to adapt the whole story. Yet Selig chose to made a single-reel version (thirteen minutes running time), so that the story is intensely compressed and somewhat incoherent.