Hello movie fans. I'm Lily Percy and I'll be your guide this week as I talk with lawyer Michael Strout Manus about the movie that changed his life, The Wiz. It's okay if you've never seen the movie. We're going to give you all the details you'll need to be singing and dancing along in no time.

The Wiz is a movie that I had actually never seen until I talked with our guests this week, Michael Strout Manus.

It's a movie that I knew starred Diana Ross and Michael Jackson, and that was kind of it.

I had no idea what it was about, aside from being some sort of modern retelling of the Wizard of Oz story.

But watching it was a revelation, not just because of the music, which is fabulous.

And you're going to hear that all throughout this conversation, but also in the way that the movie just takes this story.

This familiar story of Dorothy and Toto and the Tin Man and the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion and makes it so cool.

Say what's your name?

My name is Dorothy.

Dorothy and Toto.

Okay, Dorothy and Toto, seems like we're going to have to find our own yellowbird.

He's on down. He's down the road.

Come on, he's on down the road.

Don't you carry...

The Wiz tells the story of Dorothy, played by Diana Ross.

And this time she's an older version of Dorothy than we see in The Wizard of Oz.

She's a 24-year-old Harlem schoolteacher.

And the movie begins with Dorothy's family home where everyone is celebrating for Thanksgiving.

Dorothy and her Aunt Em are cleaning up after dinner.

And her aunt is teasing Dorothy because she's never been outside of Harlem.

She's never left the place that she grew up in.

And as we see her go outside to take out the trash, Toto runs out in the middle of a very violent storm, and they're suddenly transported to a faraway place.

...