I mean is there even a point to review Wizard Of Oz? So many people have watched it from a young age, myself included but I'll admit it's probably been 20 years since I last saw it, and yet it leaves such an indelible mark on everyone to where you can recount the film almost flawlessly even if you've seen it just once. Young farm girl from Kansas named Dorothy is bored with her life, tornado transports her to the magical land of Oz where she hits the radar of two witches as she gains magical ruby slippers, and a quest to return home begins as Dorothy encounters a Scarecrow with no brain, a Tin Man with no heart, and a Cowardly Lion lacking courage as they venture to the Emerald City to speak with the eponymous Wizard. I have absolutely no clue why this story is as memorable or as engrossing in the culture 85 years later, but I can pin it down on one particular thing. This movie is a weird movie, break it down anyway you like from the plot or the production or anything and there simply is no other film like it, and your brain remembers such elements because of how strange it is. Hell the scope of the, for lack of a better word, "iceberg" this movie has gained for almost a century is kinda wild, break this down with me here. We have just the iconography of the land of Oz and all the design choices firmly embedded like Wile E. Coyote into the ground of our pop culture, Margaret Hamilton appearing on Mr. Rogers showing off her costume and telling kids not to be afraid of witches, we have a myth of one of the actors commiting suicide on film by hanging, we have the coded phrase "friends of Dorothy" used for decades by homosexuals seeking like minded people, we have Dark Side Of The fraking MOON somehow syncing up to the first 40 minutes of the film! Star Wars ain't got shit on the levels of lore The Wizard Of Oz has garnered. It should be impossible for a film like this to have gained this much of a reputation, and from the 1930s??? Many people think it was the 50s because that's when color film entered the fray, and speaking of which could you imagine walking into this movie in 1939 and seeing the kaleidoscope of color presented here? The color footage itself was nothing short of a gamble on an experimental method by the future kings themselves Technicolor! What even is this movie?? It has to be magic, there's just no way. And I'll level with you right here right now, this movie scared me a bit as a kid, not just the Witch though her red smoke and fireball entrance is still incredible, but the talking trees, the haunted forest, the flying monkeys still kinda weird me out a bit, the flippin' twister that's some scary stuff right there, but the big one strangely was the red sand hourglass counting down until the Witch was going to kill Dorothy which just set my nerves on edge and filled me with dread and uncertainty, and it's still as vivid a feeling way back when in contrast to now. I will freely admit though for a musical, the songs are often pretty dang short but they hit frequently enough to justify that genre and are all memorable as the film itself. I feel Judy Garland gets all the spotlight for this film and for just being 16 she does do mighty good, easily playing a girl with a heart of gold and she can hit those emotional marks especially towards the end, not even acting but seemingly being Dorothy! But I have to give fair dues to everyone here. Margaret Hamilton by all accounts was a joy and to know she was a big fan of the books and easily crafted top 10 movie villain material is positively legendary in my book! In fact if I was being both incredibly honest and yet also praising to the heavens, the Wicked Witch is childhood fears solidified and personified in one clean move. Is it any wonder this character has practically grown into her own outside of this film? Ray Bolger as the Scarecrow, about as nà ive as Dorothy but a stalwart friend to the end and probably aside from the Witch is my favorite character, and trivia note here on rewatch, with the high definition transfer you can notice the face makeup looks like burlap bags, awesome! Jack Haley as the Tin Man, who has my vote for best design among our protagonists is more easily than others coded as a friend of Dorothy, with a sentimental glean in his eye and a more femme voice and mannerism but it certainly doesn't detract from the performance! And of course Bert Lahr as our wannabe king of the forest as the Lion, I don't know what it is but his performance still got as much a kick out of me as it did when I was younger, the physical acting and the accent just add to the humor so well and hands down was my favorite as a kid, so it's good to know somethings never change. And I would be remiss to leave out Frank Morgan as the Wizard, even though you don't truly see him much until the end he has this affability and knowledge about him, after all 'wizard' is an off shoot of 'wise one', so he has that quality to him even if it doesn't match what we think of when we hear the term nowadays. Now the production value was insanely huge for 1939, over 2 million smackaroos as a matter of fact but every penny can be seen on screen from environment pieces certainly, architecture, costuming especially, painted backdrops that yeah are noticeable, but it's a technical marvel to behold in all seriousness fully showcasing fantasy and imagination and that my dear ones are what movies are made for. Even if the story doesn't necessarily do much for you, there is far more that you can appreciate on screen. I keep trying to wrap my head around the impact this movie has, which is funny because it barely made it's money back but as time passed it was re-released, it was broadcasted on television a lot, home video came around and through persistence got to be an untempered classic. I don't really know what to rate it, I feel it's above such things but if I had to lay it all down and put a number to it I'd give it 4 stars, 9/10! And now we turn the clock simultaneously forward and backward to the 2013 prequel so stay tuned until next time.
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