The Wizard of Oz/Return To Oz
The Wizard of Oz is usually one of the first non-animated movies that a child remembers seeing. It's been a staple of television screenings since 1956, which was around the time television really started to get a foothold in American households. It's a beloved classic that nearly everyone has seen at least once in their lifetime. As such, it's pretty obvious this would be on my list. A little less obvious is the film it's tied with, the 1985 Disney film Return To Oz. That film didn't do well when it came out, is rarely shown on television, and scarred little kids for a while after they saw it. Two very different films set in the same magical land created in 1900 by a populist, theater loving, entrepreneur L. Frank Baum. Baum wrote 14 Oz books, which he tried to end halfway through, having gotten tired of it. He attempted to write books of other characters and lands, but they didn't sell, so he wrote more Oz until he died. There are 40 official Oz books in total, with publisher-picked authors taking up the series after Baum died. I've loved the books since I was in elementary school.
Let's start with 1939's The Wizard of Oz. The movie had a troubled production, partially due to the fact that a film like this had never been tried before. That's not to say that the book had not been adapted before. It had by Baum's production company in 1910. But that was a low budget affair, and this was to cost much more. 2.8 million dollars! The new Technicolor process made it so they had to use more lights, which meant that the sets were well above 100 degrees, Buddy Ebsen's Tin Man paint ended up coating the inside of his lungs leading him to ICU in the hospital and having to drop out of the film, the movie went through 4 directors in it's early weeks and another one at the end of filming, and the movie was going overschedule. The fact that the film ended up as great as it did is a marvel in and of itself. Margaret Hamilton was badly burned during a special effects sequence when she disappears from Munchkin city. The red smoke and some fire rises from the ground, and she's supposed to go down a trap door. Well, on the second take the fire caught to her copper-based green makeup and she got second degree burns on her face. Then they tried to get her to do the stuff on the broom with the smoke coming out of the back of it, and she refused. The stuntperson tried it, and the broom kind of exploded. Yeah, this is the stuff that happened with early special effects. Trial and error.
Despite all the trouble, it was worth it. The movie opened to great reviews, the critics calling it a second Snow White, which is what MGM was going for. The songs would be remembered by countless generations of people, especially Somewhere Over The Rainbow, which actually was almost removed from the movie. But what makes this film so much a part of my life? Well, it's so imaginative, so otherworldly, and so much fun! Sure, you can see the wires that hold up the flying monkeys if you look for them, but are you really doing so when you first see the movie, or even the tenth time? Probably not. That's adult cynicism coming in. It's also probably the first movie with scary moments a child sees. I know my sister was afraid of trees due to this film... I don't think I was ever really effected by it negatively, but Oz's giant bald head being projected with the smoke and flames used to intimidate me. I know some are scared of Margaret Hamilton as the wicked witch, but seriously Glinda scares me more... I think she's hiding an evil side. No one is that nice, and it always seems like a fake nice, ya know? Imagine seeing this piece of American cinema in the theaters in 1939. I wish I had a time machine to travel back and see it during it's first release, if just to see how people reacted to it. Now it looks kind of stagey. Like a play almost. I mean, there's very obvious matte paintings (gorgeous ones, though), there's wire work, and it's a musical... But sometimes simplicity is best.
To change gears lets talk about Return to Oz... and what a complete horror-show it is. I think I first saw it when I was 7 or 8 and it really creeped me out. It's set after Wizard of Oz by about a year, even though it was filmed almost 50 years later. Dorothy is played by a younger actress (Fairuza Balk), and she still lives with Uncle Henry and Aunt Em, who think she's going crazy due to her nightmares about Oz... Which of course was only a dream as it follows the continuity set by the MGM musical, not the book in which she really did go to Oz. So they send her a mental institution where she's about to be given shock treatment. (See, told you it was different.) Right before being administered, the power goes out and Dorothy escapes aided by another girl. The other girl apparently drowns in the river saving Dorothy. Dorothy arrives in Oz with a talking hen, and travels the ruined Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City, which is in ruins and everyone has been turned to stone except the Wheelers, which have caused countless child viewers nightmares... and Princess Mombi, who has a collection of heads. Yeah, enough to cause many children nightmares. Watch this:
Yes my friends, the stuff nightmares are made of. Ah, what the 1980s thought kids were prepared for. Wish we'd still make these types of family movies. Kids need to be scared.
Now the movie isn't all nightmarish. No, there's also a talking pumpkinhead named Jack, a hastily put together pile of sofas and animal head called a Gump, a walking mechanical man named Tik-Tok and of course the hen Belina. The special effects in this film are very 80s, so don't expect much more than stop motion animation and blue screen. This film is based on the second and third Oz books by L. Frank Baum, and the movie has more of the tone of the books than the MGM musical did. Also to set it apart from the 1939 film, this movie is NOT a musical and it's not a rich Technicolor experience. No, in fact the film is very drab and run down looking, as Oz is supposed to be spoiled by the Nome King and Mombi. Seriously, if you haven't watched this film, do so. It's a real treat.
These two films got me to read the Oz books, which I still read to this day. They are great examples of childrens' literature, and are very easy to get sucked into. I will say that the 1939 film is one example of a film being better than it's paper-bound counterpart, if only for the fact that the first Oz book isn't that special. Still, try out both the book and film, as the book is very different from the film. Very few people have grown up without watching The Wizard of Oz, very few have seen Return to Oz (though that should be remedied), and an average amount of people will see Oz The Great and Powerful, which was released earlier this year. (It was good.) Oz still has a place in today's world. It's a world of little technology and full of wild unexplored areas... and unlike 95% of fantasy worlds, it ain't crap! Introduce this world to your kids, reintroduce yourself to it! You're never too old for Oz. It's not Neverland, after all! Come on, have a heart, have a brain, get some courage!
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