Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Cinema Bestius: The Wizard of Oz

This delightful, one-of-a-kind film has been written about so extensively, trying to come up with something new to say about it leaves me wishing that I only had a brain.

#31 – The Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz looms large in the history of film and in most of our collective memories. Is there any other classic Hollywood film that is better known? For decades we have suffered from legions of hack comedians referencing the film for easy laughs. We remember the film fondly from our childhoods. How many of us have revisited this wonderful movie in the last ten years? Warner Brothers, which currently holds the rights to the film, makes this easy enough; it seems they perform a new re-mastering of the film about every ten years or so. The latest iteration (and theatrical rerelease) of the film even saw it converted to 3-D.

Great films are alchemy: their magical formulas can never be repeated or explained. When we look at what producer Mervyn LeRoy and MGM had in store for this production, we can thank the Movie Gods for moving heaven, hell, and circumstance to engineer the finished product. MGM originally envisioned perky Shirley Temple as Dorothy, pernicious W.C. Fields as The Wizard, and lovely Gale Sondergaard as a beautiful, glamorous Wicked Witch of the West. To say the least, that would have been… a very different film. From the scripting to the casting to the production design to the costumes to the gorgeous Technicolor cinematography to the songs to the direction to the performances, The Wizard of Oz emerges as a one-of-a-kind miracle of a film in which all the pieces fell into place.
The Plot in Brief: Are you kidding me? If you are over the age of ten and cannot recite the plot of this classic film in detail, something has gone very, very wrong.

Given the film’s status as a beloved piece of everybody’s childhood, we forget that The Wizard of Oz is actually a classic Hollywood musical from the very beginning of the era (era) that saw MGM’s dominance of this genre. The Wizard of Oz is an early example of an “integrated” musical in that the songs and dance numbers are not merely for ornamentation but exist to define character (“If I Only Had A Heart” and “If I Were King of the Forest”) and advance the storyline (“Ding Dong, The Witch is Dead” and “We’re Off to See the Wizard”). This is interesting in that many histories of the musical cite Oklahoma on Broadway as the first integrated musical, but Wizard was completed in 1939-- Oklahoma would not debut until 1943.
Disney princesses from the late 1980s and ’90s all seem to have borrowed a page from The Wizard of Oz songbook. The female protagonist’s journey usually starts with questioning and dissatisfaction with her situation. Much like Dorothy (Judy Garland) imagining better things for her life with “Somewhere Over the Rainbow, “ we have Ariel in The Little Mermaid singing about being “Part of Your World,” Belle in Beauty and the Beast singing “There must be more than this provincial life,” Aladdin and Jasmine pondering “A Whole New World,” Pocahontas exhorting us to see her situation with nuance so we can paint with all the “Colors of the Wind,” and Mulan tunefully wondering when her “Reflection” will show what is truly inside of her. A new children’s film trope is born, courtesy of The Wizard of Oz.

(By the way, the now iconic “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” scene was actually directed by King Vidor and not credited director Victor Fleming. Fleming could not be on the set that day because he was deep into pre-production on his other 1939 film, Gone With The Wind.)

But the borrowing goes both ways. Walt Disney always maintained that, for the happy parts of any tale to ring true, the scary parts needed to be truly scary. The Wizard of Oz seems to borrow a page from that Disney master plan (specifically the evil witch from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, released two years earlier) and provides its young audience with the stuff of childhood trauma. If Margaret Hamilton’s performance and make-up as the Wicked Witch wasn’t scary enough (“I’ll get you, my PRETTY!”) the film offers up those nightmarish winged monkeys that have always seemed uncanny in their execution. Are they costumed, masked children? Are they little people? Are they a freakish genetic experiment gone horribly awry?
The Wizard of Oz is a fairytale, and so contains many of the tropes familiar to that genre. Dorothy is an orphan raised by her uncle and aunt. The whereabouts of her mother are never explained, but the film posits several other mother surrogates: pinch-faced but kindly Auntie Em (Clara Blandick); the sweet, bubbly Good Witch of the North (Billie Burke); and the nightmarishly evil Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton). In the best Joseph Campbell “we-only-get-the-adventure-for-which-we-are-ready” spirit, I think besides the explicit “there’s no place like home” message, The Wizard of Oz also provides a more subtle, more telling exploration of how Dorothy becomes a mother figure to her needy (in the case of the Cowardly Lion, very needy) companions and returns home a more complete person.

Thanks to the Internet, we are all familiar with the urban legend of a stagehand (in some versions of the tale, it’s a munchkin!) hanging himself on set and actually being visible in some shots of the forest. That story is bunk, but an unusual amount of calamity did beset this film during production. (No, no one was actually crushed by a house.) Buddy Ebsen was originally cast as the Tin Man, but was rushed to the hospital after the make-up department first applied the aluminum dust to make him silver by spraying it; the aluminum dust coated the inside of his lungs. When Jack Haley took over the role, they applied the aluminum as a paste. Margaret Hamilton too was rushed to the hospital after the fiery exit in her first scene actually set her on fire. Her green make-up was copper based, which made her burns more severe.
Most, if not all, of my stored Wizard of Oz knowledge comes from Aljean Harmetz’s indispensable book The Making of the Wizard of Oz, one of the best production histories ever written. Harmetz interviewed most of the surviving cast members and explored reams of studio paperwork to produce her definitive book. I am pleased to report that the book, first published in 1977, is back in print in a nifty paperback edition published to coincide with the film’s 75th anniversary.

The Wizard of Oz’s three miracles: Career-best performances from the entire cast, but especially the five leads (Jack Haley once revealed that his engaged, breathless line readings were inspired by the way he read bedtime stories to his children); beautiful, literate songs written by the team of Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg and sung by the incomparable Judy Garland; and CBS television’s smart decision early on to show the film only once a year, which made it something special to look forward to around Easter.

“In nomine Baum, et MGM, y spiritu Garland. Amen.”

13 comments:

  1. Love your point about CBS limiting how often the movie is played. It's one of the (many) reasons the movie still feels like magic - it's not overplayed in much the same way many movies are during the course of holidays (I'm looking at you, Christmas Story).

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  3. I cannot be subjective about this movie. Like a lot of others, it's a favourite. I own it in three different formats. And I usually watch it once or twice a year. In NZ it seemed to play at every single Holiday and Long Weekend. It's that movie that has grown with me, from a kid and even teenager to a uni student who missed home and also insisited on watching it with Dark Side of the Moon. To something I made my niece and nephew watch every time I baby sat. Its my go to movie when I am sad. Yeah I like the movie.

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    1. I love the addition of the avatar Lindsay! I love how the people who play the munchkins still talk about how lovely Judy was. A special human being. I am glad to hear you making your neice and nephew watch it! I have done the same thing to my siblings :)

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    2. I traumatised my newphew a little with it. He may have been a little too young, and had nightmares about flying monkeys. But he's fine now, he's a teenager he's forgotten about it, just as long as you don't sneak up behind him and go oh we oh we ohhh.

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  4. When I was growing up, a tradition was the yearly showing of The Wizard of Oz (I can't remember which network showed it, but it was roughly the same time each year). One reason why the film works so well for me is how witty the songs are. The sweet munchkins sing merrily about how the witch is "not only merely dead, but really most sincerely dead." And my fav lyric in the whole thing:

    "If ever if ever a whiz there was, the wizard of Oz is one because,
    Because because because because becauuuuuuuse...because of the wonderful things he does!"

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    1. I like to quote that most sincerely dead when ever the oppertunity arises!

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    2. I think that was when I seriously fell in love with this movie, was when I finally clicked what the Munchkins were singing about.

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  5. Absolute favorite for me as well. And I still find something new each time I watch it (almost all of the lyrics in Munchkin land went way over my head as a kid). I remember this and that really long musical version of Alice in Wonderland being annual traditions growing up (the one with Carol Channing as the White Queen and Sammy Davis as a tap dancing Caterpillar -- NOT equating these two in quality btw).

    The revisionist in me now kinda wishes that Kansas would have been in color at the end of the film (since Dorothy learned to appreciate it through the course of the movie) but it's still perfect as it is.

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    1. That's an interesting point, about Kansas being in color at the end. It goes to the whole deal about whether or not Dorothy should even go back to Kansas. I think it was John Waters who said that he didn't understand why Dorothy would want to return to Kansas after the eye-popping beauty of Oz. I tend to look at it like Oz being a spectacular life-changing event that makes a person grow and mature. However, no one would be able to tolerate a life that was just one huge dramatic moment after another. To quote Sondheim, "If life were only moments, then you'd never know you had one." We all need to get back to our personal Kansas at some point. So I understand perfectly why Dorothy would want to return home. Personally, I'm fine with Kansas remaining sepia-toned at the end.

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    2. I love that perscpective Steve! And I love the Sondheim quote, how fitting. One day I will write my article on a view of the film that was backed up by the article 'My beautiful wickedness: The Wizard of Oz as lesbian fantasy' in the book Flaming Classics: Queering the Film Canon by Alexander Doty (My Beatiful Wickedness was John Waters favourite line in the film and inspired him in his movies, I think.) There are many themes and layers to the film, but this one I always have a lot to say about. In fact, I throughouly enjoy myself when talking about it!

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  6. Great article J.B.

    This film is one of those movie miracles. Like Mary Poppins, practically perfect in every way.

    Plus, any film you can sync up with Pink Floyd certainly gets bonus points.

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  7. 'A one-of-a-kind miracle of a film', Ain't it the truth? Ain't it the truth?
    This is my absolute favourite film and I loved this piece J. B!

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