One of the greatest movies ever made

Rating: 9/10 (26 November 2006)

It's hard to pinpoint exactly why this is such a good movie. I loved it when I was a kid- and I can't say exactly why it was so good back then either. And yet I can't deny the fact that it's a great movie.
The story sounds ludicrous if slightly charming- Dorothy, a young farm girl, gets caught in a tornado with her dog Toto and, when the storm finally sets her house down, finds herself in the magical land of Oz where she meets the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion, all of whom look strangely like the farmhands that work with her aunt and uncle. Dorothy is sent on a journey down the Yellow Brick Road to Emerald City to find the Wizard of Oz whom she is led to believe will help her get back to Kansas.
Apparently, L. Frank Baum intended it as an allegory to the politics of the time, but I can't see why anyone would care about that when the movie stands on its own two legs just fine. I think the main reason it works so well is that there is never a feeling of ridiculousness throughout the entire movie. Oz is strange, but it's meant to be strange; it never feels completely unrealistic though. I think this has something to do with the contrast provided by the Technicolor applied to the film when Dorothy is Oz and the sepia look when Dorothy is in Kansas. Oz is a different world, but not an entirely unreal world. Our dreams may be larger than life, but there is always something very real about them.
Maybe that's the special allure this movie always has for me. Oz is real in this movie. There's never a sure explanation of Oz as Dorothy's dream, but there might as well be. And when I dream, I want to escape into that world because sometimes it's more exciting and better. Dorothy's world is drab, and Oz helps her to see the good in it- the color in it.
Metaphors aside, The Wizard of Oz is a fun movie. Somewhere Over the Rainbow is one of the best songs ever recorded, and many of the other songs in the movie are memorable. Judy Garland is obviously not an amazing actor, but her naïveté makes her performance very true and it's near impossible to imagine anyone else in the role.
It may be hard for me to establish exactly why The Wizard of Oz has remained such a classic, but there's no difficulty in saying that it is truly a great movie.