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Is there any other movie so timeless it has captured the imagination of children generation after generation? The Wizard of Oz is that rare classic movie that holds its own, no matter how quickly the times and tastes change. It delights us as children and entrances us all over again as adults.

The Plot

The plot of The Wizard of Oz is known to every English-speaking child born since the movie was released in 1939, and many who can't speak a word.
Drawn loosely from Frank L. Baum’s novel, the story is the classic childhood tale of a resourceful orphan lost, stranded far from home and safety in a strange land.

She triumphs over adversity and danger, wins lifelong friends, and learns a great lesson: “There’s no place like home.”

The allure of the movie lies in its tremendous imagination, strong characters, gorgeous music and beautifully realized sets, as though a beloved, quirky storybook had become oddly, happily, weirdly real. Which is pretty much what happened.

The Cast of 'The Wizard of Oz'

Although Shirley Temple and Deanna Durbin were both considered, Judy Garland was an inspired choice as Dorothy, with her huge, expressive eyes and rich voice, so perfect for the movie's Harold Arlen songs.
Since the filmmakers made the decision to interpret Dorothy’s journey to Oz as a dream, many of the main characters play double, triple and even quadruple roles, first as their drab selves in black-and-white Kansas, and then as their magical incarnations in a brightly colored Oz. (Remember figuring it all out when you were a kid? “Wait a minute...the Wizard is really Professor Marvel? And the Emerald City doorkeeper?

And the carriage driver?" Whoa.)

Ray Bolger was originally cast as the Tin Man, but asked to switch roles with Buddy Ebsen to play the sweet-natured Scarecrow instead, the dream version of farmhand Hunk. Ebsen agreed, but nearly died when filming began and he breathed in the aluminum-powder makeup and it coated his lungs. He was summarily replaced with Jack Haley, who also played farmhand Hickory.

Bert Lahr was tapped as the Cowardly Lion (aka farmhand Zeke), rounding out Dorothy’s traveling companions.

Frank Morgan is full of genial bluster as the wizard, and perhaps a better choice than first pick W.C. Fields, who negotiated a little too hard with the studio. Margaret Hamilton is old-school perfection as the Wicked Witch of the West and the nasty Miss Gulch, forever pursuing Dorothy and her little dog, too (Toto, played by a female black Cairn terrier named Terry). And who better to arrive via magic soap bubble as than Billie Burke as the Good Witch Glinda, shimmering in pink chiffon with her high voice and tremolo delivery?

As good as the named characters are, the world of Oz would not be so enchanting without its denizens -- most famously the Munchkins in their candy-land village, as notorious for their off-screen antics as their on-screen charms. The Munchkins were marvelous, but it's a shame they sometimes overshadow the rest of Oz's strange and wondrous residents. The mean old apple trees. The art-deco folk of Emerald City. The witch’s blue-faced guards and her hideous flying monkeys. (Those things still scare the bejabbers out of me.)

The Music

Harold Arlen and E.Y. “Yip” Harburg’s songs remain among the most beautiful and sprightly ever written for the screen. Over the Rainbow has been covered by dozens of artists, never losing its melancholy charm. Just try to get If I Only had a Brain out of your head once it’s stuck there. And who doesn’t love the Munchkin coroner’s proclamation that "she’s not only merely dead, she’s really most sincerely dead?"
Herbert Stothart's score is instantly recognizable, particularly the witch's urgent theme (think of Margaret Hamilton furiously pedaling her bicycle) and the dirgelike chanting of her castle guards (lin-o-le-um, oh, um). Not to mention the cheery MGM chorus as the Emerald City at last comes into view ("You're out of the woods, you're out of the dark, you're out of the night...")

Among classic films, possibly only the shark theme from Jaws, the shower-scene violins from Psycho, the opening bars of the Star Wars theme and Ennio Morricone's unmistakable music for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly have achieved such universal recognition among moviegoers around the globe.

'The Wizard of Oz' - the Directors

While Victor Fleming was credited onscreen with directing the film, several famed directors took the helm at different times during the six months of production, including King Vidor and George Cukor. Cukor began directing another film that year, and was ironically replaced by Fleming as the director of Gone With the Wind, making Fleming perhaps the only director ever to be credited with two certified classics in the same year.

The Backstory

Made in 1939, an astounding year in Hollywood for the number and quality of classic films produced, The Wizard of Oz may be the best. Not very profitable when it first came out because of its huge cost, it was embraced immediately by critics.
Several books have been written about the making of this film, and the anecdotes are movie legend. Hamilton was seriously burned filming the witch's pyrotechnic exit from Munchkinland.

Her stunt double was seriously injured "flying" the broomstick. Morgan’s frock coat, found in a second-hand store, supposedly once belonged to Frank L. Baum. The Munchkins were wild partiers who tore up the hotel every night, becoming the subject of a crass 19xx movie, Under the Rainbow.

The stories go on and on, but the most durable contribution of the movie may be the dialog and lyrics that permeate the language. "We’re not in Kansas anymore." "I'll get you, my pretty!" "Ding, dong, the witch is dead." "Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!" "I'm melting!"

To this day, we all speak the language of Oz.

'The Wizard of Oz' - The Bottom Line

If somehow you have never managed to see The Wizard of Oz, don’t let another day go by. I promise you, when the door opens from Dorothy’s sepia-toned little Kansas house onto the technicolor world of Oz, you’ll get a little chill. I still do -- every time.

Just the Facts

Year: 1939, Color
Director: Victor Fleming
Running Time: 101 minutes
Studio: MGM

If you liked 'The Wizard of Oz...'

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