A timeless moment for supporting actors

Rating: Null/10 (26 August 2005)

It is as if all the struggling ex-vaudevillians who had labored through countless "second man" or "second woman" roles in B musicals and before that, on the early 20th century stage, were handed a moment of grace in this film, lending them immortality... I'm thinking of Billie Burke, Margaret Hamilton, Jack Haley, Ray Bolger,Charley Grapewin and especially Frank Morgan...you get the feeling they all were somehow motivated to give every iota of talent they possessed for this one shot...a couple of them had other fine roles: Grapewin the "The Good Earth" and "The Grapes of Wrath", Morgan in "Tortilla Flat", coincidentally another Steinbeck adaptation, and as the telegraph operator in "The Human Comedy" with Mickey Rooney,in which, incidentally, Frank Morgan gives one of the most poignant performances I have ever seen in a film...he proved there, once again, that he was capable of great things.