We're excited to feature this second guest post from Michael Wilmington, co-author with Joseph McBride of "John Ford," and film critic for Movie City News, www.moviecitynews.com.
“The Wizard of Oz,” now in its 70th anniversary year, and one of the crown jewels of the storied Hollywood “best year” of 1939 (annus mirabilis of “Gone With the Wind,” “Stagecoach,” “Ninotchka,” Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” “The Women,” “Gunga Din,” and dozens of others), was based on the turn of the century children’s classic by writer L. Frank Baum. The “Harry Potter” of its day, “Oz” kindled the dreams of millions, and spawned a whole best-selling series of Oz books, not to mention at least three silent movies, one directed and written by Baum himself, and one starring Oliver Hardy (without Laurel) as the Tin Man.
The Wizard of Oz bouquet features festive yellow flowers: chrysanthemums, roses and alstroemeria.
In partnership with Warner Home Video's release of the 70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition of the film, Teleflora has created a commemorative bouquet. It’s available through a local Teleflora florist or online at teleflora for $64.95.
Neither previous movie “Oz” was much good -- and when Mervyn LeRoy (“Little Caesar”) moved over to MGM from Warners, he had a new “Oz” high on his list of desirable to-dos. But Louis B. Mayer, tyrant/phony/windbag that he was, refused to let LeRoy produce and direct the same film. So, after Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, Edgar Allan Woolf crafted an unusually witty script, and Arthur (“Singin’ in the Rain”) Freed joined on as an (uncredited) associate producer, the show proceeded to go through two changes of direction: Richard Thorpe (of the Johnny Weissmuller “Tarzan” series), and very briefly, “The Women’s” George Cukor, before settling on Victor Fleming, macho movie master Howard Hawks’ best friend, and one MGM helmer so tough, no producers or execs messed with him.
Then, toward the end, Fleming had to decamp, an emergency replacement for the fired Cukor on David Selznick’s troubled super production “Gone With the Wind” (an assignment that Fleming liked less than “Oz”), and another Fleming pal, King Vidor, shot “Oz’s” starkly picturesque opening Kansas farmland scenes, including the film’s unquestionable high point: Garland dreamily singing the supremely bittersweet and lilting E.Y. Harburg (words) and Harold Arlen (music) masterpiece, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”
The rest, as they say, was movie history, though not right away. “Oz” lost money on its first release, mostly because it cost so much. Then in 1956, suddenly, it made TV history too -- and, just like Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life,” it became a classic of another kind, restarting in 1959 and repeated again and again every year, staple of a whole youthful generation, and then, of generations that followed.
It seems unthinkable now that there ever was a world without “Oz.” 70 years after it premiered, it’s still omnipresent. “The Wiz.” “Wicked.” Nobody has to explain who was that scarecrow singing “If I Only Had a Brain,” in the current TV commercials.
Why do we remember it so persistently? Because it has that classic “Golden Age Hollywood” movie mixture -- which we also find in “Casablanca,” “Citizen Kane,” “It‘s a Wonderful Life” and Fleming’s other ’39 mega-classic “Gone With the Wind” -- of savviness and sentimentality, a bit of cynicism, and a lot of soul. It takes real moxie, and perhaps a hard-case, soft-hearted director like Vic Fleming (see Michael Sragow’s excellent new Fleming biography) for a movie to get away with a line like “If happy little bluebirds fly, beyond the rainbow, why oh why can’t I?” -- and make the audience not just accept it but love it madly.
Why, oh why, indeed? As long as there’s a “Wizard of Oz” and a projector, a TV or a DVD machine to play it on, we’ll never have to surrender Dorothy…..or say goodbye to the Yellow Brick Road.
