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The Wizard of Oz
There are a handful of films that cinephiles immediately associate with the adjective "classic" and one of those films is the 1939 timeless confection from MGM studios called The Wizard of Oz that not only made an official movie star out of a seventeen year old Judy Garland but became an annual television staple for decades.
Based on a novel by L. Frank Baum, this is the story of a little girl named Dorothy Gale, who lives on a farm in Kansas with her Aunt Em. her Uncle Henry, and her dog, Toto. A monumental twister hits the farm and magically transports Dorothy and Toto to a magical land called Oz populated with good witches, bad witches and singing little people called munchkins. The munchkins send Dorothy to Oz to get help getting back home where, enroute to the Emerald City, she meets a scarecrow, a tinman, and a cowardly lion who are in search of a brain, a heart, and courage, respectively. It's no coincidence that the scarecrow, tinman, and lion look exactly like Hunk, Zeke, and Hickory the three farmhands that work on Dorothy's farm.
Three writers do an admirable job of adapting Baum's novel into a workable screenplay, providing a lot of clever word play that foreshadows a lot of what happens to Dorothy during the story without actually giving it away. I love that during the opening scenes on the farm, Hunk, Zeke, and Hickory all use words that connect to the characters they become in Oz, which was something that it actually took several viewings for me to make the connections.
Director Victor Fleming (King Vidor is credited as a director on the IMDB but only Fleming receives onscreen credit) put a lot of thought into the way the story is presented. I love that the film starts in a delicate black and white and doesn't switch to color until Dorothy arrives in Oz. The attention to production values is unprecedented, the eye-popping sets and costumes for munchkinland and for the Emerald City are perfection. I also loved that in the closing credits, the scarecrow, the tinman, and the lion are billed as Hunk, Zeke, and Hicko9ry.
Looking at casting, research reveals that original casting could have made this a very different movie. The suits at MGM were nervous about pouring all of this money into a movie starring an unknown Garland and tried to borrow Shirley Temple from 20th Century Fox for the role of Dorothy. But Temple couldn't handle the vocal demands of the score and Fox wouldn't release her, so the role finally went to Garland. During early screenings of the movie to MGM execs, they wanted to cut the scene where Garland sang the Oscar winning "Over the Rainbow" because they felt it slowed the movie down. WC Fields was originally approached to play the Wizard, but that role and three other roles eventually went to the wonderful Frank Morgan. Ray Bolger is a delight as the Scarecrow and Bert Lahr steals every scene he's in as the Lion. His rendition of "If I Were a King" is definitely one of the film's highlights. As many people already know, Buddy Ebsen began working on the film playing the tinman but developed an allergy to the makeup which forced him out of the role and brought Jack Haley in. Margaret Hamilton was robbed of a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her Wicked Witch of the West, one of cinema's most frightening villains.
The legacy that this film has left behind is hard to beat. It's not just the fact that film became a television staple, broadcast annually on CBS for over 50 years. The film has also produced an animated and a live action sequel, a Broadway musical called The Wiz, which reworked the story with an all black cast, winning the Best Musical of 1975 Tony Award. That musical was brought to the screen in 1978 with Diana Ross, but this is definitely one case where I absolutely must say: Please! Stick to the original.
There are a handful of films that cinephiles immediately associate with the adjective "classic" and one of those films is the 1939 timeless confection from MGM studios called The Wizard of Oz that not only made an official movie star out of a seventeen year old Judy Garland but became an annual television staple for decades.
Based on a novel by L. Frank Baum, this is the story of a little girl named Dorothy Gale, who lives on a farm in Kansas with her Aunt Em. her Uncle Henry, and her dog, Toto. A monumental twister hits the farm and magically transports Dorothy and Toto to a magical land called Oz populated with good witches, bad witches and singing little people called munchkins. The munchkins send Dorothy to Oz to get help getting back home where, enroute to the Emerald City, she meets a scarecrow, a tinman, and a cowardly lion who are in search of a brain, a heart, and courage, respectively. It's no coincidence that the scarecrow, tinman, and lion look exactly like Hunk, Zeke, and Hickory the three farmhands that work on Dorothy's farm.
Three writers do an admirable job of adapting Baum's novel into a workable screenplay, providing a lot of clever word play that foreshadows a lot of what happens to Dorothy during the story without actually giving it away. I love that during the opening scenes on the farm, Hunk, Zeke, and Hickory all use words that connect to the characters they become in Oz, which was something that it actually took several viewings for me to make the connections.
Director Victor Fleming (King Vidor is credited as a director on the IMDB but only Fleming receives onscreen credit) put a lot of thought into the way the story is presented. I love that the film starts in a delicate black and white and doesn't switch to color until Dorothy arrives in Oz. The attention to production values is unprecedented, the eye-popping sets and costumes for munchkinland and for the Emerald City are perfection. I also loved that in the closing credits, the scarecrow, the tinman, and the lion are billed as Hunk, Zeke, and Hicko9ry.
Looking at casting, research reveals that original casting could have made this a very different movie. The suits at MGM were nervous about pouring all of this money into a movie starring an unknown Garland and tried to borrow Shirley Temple from 20th Century Fox for the role of Dorothy. But Temple couldn't handle the vocal demands of the score and Fox wouldn't release her, so the role finally went to Garland. During early screenings of the movie to MGM execs, they wanted to cut the scene where Garland sang the Oscar winning "Over the Rainbow" because they felt it slowed the movie down. WC Fields was originally approached to play the Wizard, but that role and three other roles eventually went to the wonderful Frank Morgan. Ray Bolger is a delight as the Scarecrow and Bert Lahr steals every scene he's in as the Lion. His rendition of "If I Were a King" is definitely one of the film's highlights. As many people already know, Buddy Ebsen began working on the film playing the tinman but developed an allergy to the makeup which forced him out of the role and brought Jack Haley in. Margaret Hamilton was robbed of a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her Wicked Witch of the West, one of cinema's most frightening villains.
The legacy that this film has left behind is hard to beat. It's not just the fact that film became a television staple, broadcast annually on CBS for over 50 years. The film has also produced an animated and a live action sequel, a Broadway musical called The Wiz, which reworked the story with an all black cast, winning the Best Musical of 1975 Tony Award. That musical was brought to the screen in 1978 with Diana Ross, but this is definitely one case where I absolutely must say: Please! Stick to the original.