Still a whiz of a "Wiz" all these years later!

Rating: Null/10 (24 November 1999)

I thoroughly agree with the many who see 1939 as the single greatest year in the history of American Film. What other year can boast a list of successes, both critical and box office, on the order of: "Gone with the Wind," "Love Affair," "Dark Victory," "Juarez," "The Roaring Twenties," "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," "Babes in Arms," "Beau Geste," "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," "Union Pacific," "Goodbye, Mr. Chips," "Wuthering Heights," "Drums Along the Mohawk," and on and on? And one of the greatest of these is still "The Wizard of Oz," probably the best family film ever made some sixty years after it was released.
This is a film where everything works. Most notably, there is the casting. With the possible exception of her "Vicki Lester" in "A Star is Born," Judy Garland never had a better cinematic vehicle for her talents than right here. Even when one knows her history of personal and professional heartbreak, her Dorothy Gale can still make believers of us all, while simultaneously causing us to regret what might have been had Louis B. Mayer stayed out of the pharmaceutical business. Ray Bolger brings his usual effortless charm to his best-known role, the Scarecrow. Jack Haley, Sr. rarely had a better vehicle for his understated brand of humor than the Tin Man. And the great Bert Lahr can still elicit his share of belly-laughs as the Cowardly Lion. Frank Morgan brings his usual dithery charm to Professor Marvel/The Wizard. And, Finally, Margaret Hamilton can still elicit a good old-fashioned scare in the role that would make her immortal, the Wicked Witch of the West. Interestingly, in real life, everybody who knew her had only the nicest of things to say about her. A single mother at a time when such things were less common than they are now, she was, by all accounts, a loving Mom to her only child, journalist Hamilton Maserve.
Now to the technical end of things. If Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg had written the score to "Oz" and nothing else, that alone would have put them among the immortals. A. Arnold "Buddy" Gillespie's special effects were state of the art for that age, and how they could have lost the Oscar to "Suez" is beyond me. Harold Rossen's camerawork makes it all come alive, like a dream come to life. But the biggest suprise is the director. Victor Fleming was best known as a dramatic director ("The Virginian," "Red Dust," "Test Pilot") whose one previous attempt at a musical, "Reckless," with Jean Harlow, was a high-budget bomb. This, however, doesn't prepare one for his work on "Oz," in which he captures the sense of fantasy, whimsey, and, yes, menace, in a way no other director probably could. He would win the Best Director Oscar that year, not for "Oz" but for "Gone with the Wind."
In short, "Oz" was, is, and always will be a delight, due both to its charming story and the dedicated team of professionals who made sure that "dreams really do come true."