The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Preamble

Another one to look forward to. I haven't watched The Wizard of Oz for years, certainly since I was a kid, so I was looking forward to viewing it through adult eyes. If that doesn't sounds a bit creepy.. ;)

What I already knew

The Wizard of Oz is one of those films that has become so ubiquitious that it has become something of a joke - like The Great Escape. When I was young it felt like it was on at Christmas every year (although I'm sure it wasn't), and I must have seen it half a dozen times. I certainly knew the plot, the characters, the black and white/colour change, the songs, and many of the lines. So it's not exactly new territory.

Review

The titles reminded me that the film was based on a book - like many of the films in this list, and I really must get round to reading it - another trivia fact that I knew is that the book was written by Frank Baum; always a handy thing to know in a pub quiz.

In case you've been in a coma and never seen The Wizard of Oz, the plot is very simple - Dorothy is traumatized by a nasty neighbour threatening her dog, Toto, and decides to run away. She meets a travelling conjuror who changes her mind, but as she returns home a twister springs up and she is injured, slipping into a dream which echoes her fears about her life at home.

The opening scenes, shown in a sepia-toned version of black and white, are far longer than I remembered and set up the background for what follows quite well. I'm not sure why they went for sepia rather than true black and white, but it does work quite well, having a softer tone than the harsher black and white might have. The onset of the storm is rather sudden for my taste, I think more could have been achieved by building it more slowly, but that's just me.

The transition to Oz and colour is very well handled, and brings up the point that (in my opinion) the effects on this film were actually quite advanced for their time. I may be quite wrong about that, but this is the first time in watching films on the list that I have felt that the effects were good, so I thought it worth mentioning.

I would never have thought so in the past, but through the film I felt a growing affection for the Cowardly Lion. I'm not really sure why - he's not a particularly loveable character, but I guess we all love an underdog and he does have some nice lines, and I just like doing the "put 'em up. put 'em up" impression I supppose :)

The character of Glinda, the good witch, bothered me for a while although I couldn't work out why, and then I realised that she reminded me of the 'Ghost of Christmas Present' character from Scrooged. Carol Kane plays that part like a sort of caricature of Glinda, which I had never realised before. One thing that I was hoping I would pick up through watching these films is the influence that films have on those that follow, and in some small way maybe this is one of those instances.

The main action of the film centers around the four main characters - Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion. It quite an impressive ensemble, and they work together very well. One thing that I had never realised before was that Judy Garland was only 16 when she made this film - she has a vey mature voice for her age, and she really dominates much of the action on screen, which is impressive for such a young performer.

Eventually of course, all things must come to an end, and with another of those iconic lines that everyone knows, Dorothy declares that 'there's no place like home' and so returns to Kansas. It's a nice resolution to the film, if slightly predictable, and leaves a good feeling. A bit 'Hollywood' perhaps, but it suits the film perfectly. Overall, I did enjoy this, proabably more that I thought I would. I thought of it as something of a 'kids' film, but it has some quite adult themes in places, and there is plenty to enjoy. It's hardly taxing, but it does exactly what it says on the tin, and the musical numbers keep the momentum going without being over the top.

Rating : Buy it

Mrs Worm's Opinion

Watch this space.

Useful links

IMDB | Roger Ebert | MRQE