Sixty-some-odd years young

Rating: 10/10 (27 January 2003)

This movie seems fresher every time I see it.
Some reviewers here have commented that the acting might seem "overdone" as compared with acting of today. Maybe, but I wonder if the acting might even have seemed a little overdone as compared with acting of 1939, the year the movie was made. For that matter, it's only the acting of Dorothy's three friends that seems a little overdone to me, and that only occasionally. And even at that, I'd say it fits the movie to a "t." As far as Judy Garland and the actors playing Professor Marvel, the bad Witch, and Dorothy's aunt and uncle go, their acting has always seemed to me to be right on the money.

Something I admire about the "Over the Rainbow" sequence: The practice in movie musicals at that time was for singers to pre-record their songs in a studio and then lipsync to them once filming started. Now, I've noticed that, in most musicals, there is always an editing cut at the moment the actor is about to begin "lipsync-ing." In other words, the camera stopped filming right before the the actor was to lipsync to first note of the song. I'm guessing that this was done so as to make it easier for the actor to match her lip movement to the beginning of the song once the cameras started to roll again. In the case of "Oz," however, the camera did *not* cut away at the moment Garland had to begin her lipsync-ing. This meant that she had to time things exactly right. In other words, while--and in addition to--listening to the introductory instrumental music of the song, she had to pace herself so that she'd have both finished her lines ("beyond the rain, etc.)" *and* have hit her mark at the precise moment that her pre-recorded voice would start. (No pressure, Judy!) However big a headache it was, I'd say it paid off, as the segue from her talking to her singing is virtually seamless. In addition, Garland's ability to look as if she were singing in real time (rather than lip-syncing to a recording) made her look all that more connected to the song. It helped make the song into a soliloquy.
An Oscar-related side-note: Rather than being nominated for a full-fledged "Best Performance by An Actress" Oscar, Garland was merely given a so-called "Special" Oscar; that is, a miniature version of the real thing. This would have been a slight by any measure, but the fact that Mickey Rooney, her senior by just one year, *did* receive a Best Actor nomination that same year, makes it all the more of one. Surely she deserved the chance to make all the other "grown-up" Best Actress-contenders sweat just a little more? :)