The Wizard of Oz

What can be said of this movie? One word can describe this: classic.

I remember my mum recorded the movie and when I first saw it, I was so amazed by the movie that the tape wore out thanks to my constant viewing. This colourful epic was based on the novel by L Frank Baum.

The story is pretty basic; a young girl named Dorothy gets sucked up in a hurricane and ends up in the magical world known as Oz. Dorothy meets the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and a Lion along her journey to meet the Wizard of Oz so she can get home back to Kansas. The Wicked Witch of the West tries to stop Dorothy reaching her goal after Dorothy ‘accidentally’ killed her sister at the beginning.

The sepia style tone at the beginning of the movie is one of the most recognisable traits especially when Dorothy first opens the door of her house, it suddenly transforms into colour, when I first saw this moment my jaw fell on the floor with amazement. The movie was made in 1939 so whenever I bring up the movie, people often think it was made in the 1950s.

Sure this movie looks like a pantomime with its musical numbers and costumes, but you have to give credit to the costume designers, aside from the four main characters, every munchkin and the residents of the Emerald city were all made by hand. I especially love the Lion costume, if you watch the movie, try playing spot the string. The string is used to move the Lion’s tail through the movie. It was said that MGM wanted to use Leo the Lion for the Lion part and have an actors voice dubbed in! The idea got dropped when Bert Lehr came in for the part. I love every detail in each costume especially for the Tin Man played by Jack Haley, you can see the detail of the rust to show that indeed he had been stuck for years from rust.

Also the sets are top notch. All bright and colourful contrasting with the Wicked Witch’s castle of course which is dark and gloomy, this clearly visually contrasts the good and evil side. One notable set which is dominant is the Emerald City which Green is the main colour even the costumes are all green. The munchkin city doesn’t have a dominant colour other than the yellow brick road which plays a major part of the movie. The castle of the Wicked Witch has a lot of light and dark greys, even the soldiers’ costumes are grey, fortunately they don’t camouflage into the scenery. My favourite set is the forest, all the trees are twisted with faces, leaves scattered everywhere like an autumn night. I remember this scene being scary for me, the Witch sends the monkeys to capture Dorothy and Toto, they rip apart the Scarecrow from limb to limb as if they try to kill him and Scarecrow was my favourite character in my childhood so to see him getting ripped apart was truly a frightening experience.

The musical numbers are so memorable that everyone knows the lyrics and even some portions of the songs are spoofed by a variety of comics. The musical number ‘Over the Rainbow’ was nearly cut from the movie as the company MGM thought the segment with Kansas was too long and being over the head of young children as it was intended. Fortunately it stayed and from there, it’s won so many awards and magazines have considered this to be the greatest song of movie history. It truly deserves it as well. I thought the song ‘If I were King of the Forest’ was the weakest of the song numbers. It didn’t feel right for me. I remember fast forwarding the song when I was a kid as it didn’t have the bounce that the other songs contained.

A movie I hope to show to future generations for years to come, it’s fun, inventive, it’s a special movie that holds so dearly in my heart, it’s a movie for all of us and for all time!

I give this a PERFECT 5/5 stars!


Also quick news,
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