the wizard of oz
Wicked just came out over Thanksgiving this year, and it was great. So many fantastic songs, so much emotional oomph, so much production value, so much fun to watch goofy characters be goofy together. But it got me thinking about what next year’s second part will look like, and how it’s going to tie in to Dorothy’s story and wrap back around to the beginning. That sparked an interest to revisit, for maybe the tenth time in my life, the definitive adaptation of the hundred-year-old classic The Wonderful Wizard of Oz- a movie that could arguably be considered the most iconic and well-known film of all time.
Victor Fleming’s Wizard of Oz adaptation from ‘39 is one of my favorite films of all time, simply and purely because it is an unrequited joy. A triumph on its own right and a tentpole event in the history of the art of cinema, The Wizard of Oz is infectiously fun even eighty five years later.
It’s hard to imagine the wonder on people’s faces in 1939 seeing the slow reveal of the land of Oz in full Technicolor. It wasn’t the first film in the new three-strip Technicolor process, but to widespread American audiences in a time where sharing information around the globe was much more limited than it is now, it was still pretty cool, and still looks fantastic to this day thanks to modern remastering technology. A magical tornado of technical advancement, I desperately hope to see a landmark moment in film history like this in my life (and hopefully attached to a better movie than Avatar).
The performances here are all delightful. Margaret Hamilton, upon rewatch, is my favorite performance thanks to her voice, emotiveness and almost hidden empathetic qualities. They’re (mostly) all great vocalists, and it’s easy to catch yourself grinning, not only because of the whimsical gags, set pieces and songs, but with the old-timey language and slang terms, “radio” accents and production slip ups (i.e. being able to see the trapdoor the witch disappears through) as well. It not only feels like a vast expansive world, but at the same time, a world filled with characters all played by actors representative of their time as if you’ve opened a time capsule.
What can I say about the songs? They’re iconic for a reason. Like Wicked, this movie has the perfect amount of musical numbers, not drying up with songless dialogue over time and not overwhelming the audience with number after number with no time to breathe. It’s pointless to praise the songs everybody knows, so instead I’ll criticize by far the weakest, “King of the Jungle”, which I always nearly fast forward through due to its clunky structure and subpar vocals from Bert Lahr.
The sets are a massive standout, as Oz is such a rich and vibrant place. I love old timey castle sets, and the witch’s domain is no exception. Munchkinland and the intense greenness of the Emerald City are iconic and lovely, and though the film was shot entirely indoors and you can definitely see the matte paintings and edges of the sets, it adds to the film’s charm, making it feel like an enclosed familial stage play.
The movie is also surprisingly funny, with the whimsical nature of the film seeping into it’s dialogue to provide some extremely cute moments (the certificate of death being already printed out is hilarious). My favorite growing up was always the “doorbell out of order” joke, but there were all new moments to make me laugh out loud, mostly from Professor Marvel/Oz. He’s becoming a new favorite character of mine; he’s interesting and funny, and he knows he’s a charlatan but doesn’t care.
The Wizard of Oz is a film with a tumultuous and disastrous production, leading to the injuries and lifelong emotional scarring of dozens of cast and crew members as a result of horrible decisions from horrible people. But closer to a century than not later, Fleming’s feature presentation has cemented itself as a titan of the film industry, and its carefree and infectiously happy tone whisks viewers into a a magical world to escape from the disappointments of reality such as these. The characters, performances, songs, set design, engaging story, attitude, familial feel and special effects for the time are all sublime and provide those of any age, 6 to 96, with pristine magical fun on celluloid. It doesn’t matter that it’s from a bygone generation- The Wizard of Oz is one of the greatest films of all time, and it should be at the top of the watchlist for anybody who has ever appreciated this art form.
