Zeus

WE ARE ALL "FRIENDS OF DOROTHY" IN MGM'S MASTERPIECE

Posted by DEWEY on Feb 11th 2024

With MGM's "The Wizard Of Oz" (1939) now so firmly established as an essential aspect of American popular culture, it is easy-- perhaps too easy-- to forget what a great film it is, and how cinematically ground-breaking it was in 1939. Bursting from bleak Sepia into glorious Technicolor, it is a "Film Classic" truly deserving of that distinction.
The trials and tribulations of bringing L. Frank Baum's epic fantasy novel "The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz" to the screen have been well documented. "Oz" had ten screenwriters (final screen credit is given to Noel Langley, Florence Ryserson and Edgar Allan Woolf), four directors, and a production schedule that lasted nearly eighteen months.
The ill-suited original director Richard Thorpe was fired, and George Cukor, busy with pre-production on "Gone With The Wind", wasn't interested. Cukor did offer some important advice and production suggestions, however. Victor Fleming directed most of "Oz"-- until Clark Gable threw a hissy-fit, and demanded that Fleming replace Cukor as director of "Gone With The Wind." An uncredited King Vidor finished the final two weeks of filming on "Oz." Fleming, meanwhile, directed "GWTW" by day, and supervised the editing of "Oz" at night.
Worst of all, the enduring ballad "Over The Rainbow" was almost left on the cutting-room floor. Short sided executives felt they shouldn't have a "fat girl singing a slow ballad in a barnyard" (thus reinforcing Judy Garland's inferiority complex). Composers Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg demanded the song stay in. Their common sense prevailed and "Over The Rainbow" received the Academy Award as "Best Song" of 1939. The song became so emotionally associated with Judy Garland, she was obligated to sing it for years to come in the adult "Concert Years" of her extraordinary career.
Judy Garland is the emotional center, the heart and soul of the film. As the original "Friends Of Dorothy", Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, and Bert Lahr are delightful as the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion. Bert Lahr, in particular, steals several scenes and provides the brightest comedy moments.
Wonderful character actress Margaret Hamilton is a whooping, wild, nightmarish hoot as the vengeful and truly frightening Wicked Witch Of The West, who cackles at Dorothy, "I'll get you, my pretty-- and your little dog, too!"
The film is somewhat flawed by turning Dorothy's epic "coming of age" experiences in Oz into a dream-- and by the sentimental insistence that "there's no place like home"-- implying that "home" is always the best place for Dorothy and the audience to be. Once again, Judy Garland gets to the real truth. Her intense conviction that Oz is a "real, truly live place" carries more more emotional weight than "there's no place like home."
Many film-makers have tried to follow-up on MGM's masterpiece, and Disney's infamous, nightmarish and non-musical 1985 sequel "Return To Oz" has astonishingly become a "cult classic" in its own right.