The Wizard of Oz (Three-Disc Collector's Edition)

In this classic MGM fantasy, Judy Garland plays Dorothy Gale, a sixteen-year-old living a dull, black-and-white life on a farm in Kansas. Her only friend in the world is her small dog, Toto, but this world collapses when Ms Gulch (Margaret Hamilton), a wicked and spiteful spinster, accuses Toto of biting her and turns up at Dorothy's home to take the dog to be put down. As he Aunty Em (Clara Blandick) and Uncle Henry (Charley Grapewin) step aside to let the dog be taken, Dorothy resolves to run away and with Toto back in her arms, she does just that. She hasn't got far, though, when Marvel (Frank Morgan), a travelling medicine man, suggests, via a vision of Aunt Em falling on the bed, that Dorothy ought to go back home.

As she leaves Marvel, she sees a twister coming towards her across the dusty plain and, in a panic, runs back home. But when she arrives, everyone has already taken shelter, leaving Dorothy alone in the house, which, when the twister strikes, is lifted from the ground and off to the magical land of Oz. As Dorothy leaves the house and into the colourful Munchkinland, she finds that witches, both good and evil, are no longer things of her imagination. Dorothy first meets Glinda (Billie Burke), the Good Witch of the North, who shows her a pair of feet poking out from underneath her house. The feet belong to the Wicked Witch of the East, who's been killed by the weight of Dorothy's house falling on her and the magical ruby slippers on her feet disappear, only to reappear on Dorothy's. Soon, though, the Wicked Witch of the West arrives on her broom, the sister of the dead witch, and swears to take revenge on Dorothy both for the death of her sister and her theft of the slippers.

Shooed away by Glinda, the Wicked Witch leaves but as Dorothy, too, asks to go home, the Good Witch suggests to her that the only way she may get back to Kansas is to go to the Emerald City to see the great and powerful Wizard of Oz. Asking how she should get there, Glinda and the munchkins that surround her, tell Dorothy that she should follow the yellow brick road. As Dorothy does so, she meets some good friends - a Scarecrow (Ray Bolger), a Tin Woodsman (Jack Haley) and a Lion (Bert Lahr) - but also much more of the Wicked Witch of the West, who will stop at nothing to get the Ruby Slippers.

Had the makers of The Singing Ringing Tree known how frequently it would be mentioned in such shows as I Love The '70s, they might have thought twice about it. Even in the week that I write this review, it has been mentioned in Channel 4's The 100 Scariest Moments, in which it was described as a deeply strange and frightening show from the old East Germany. The brief glimpses of it - an odd creature that resembles a bear making eyes at a green-haired princess - suggests that those who were frightened of it may have had rather a sheltered childhood but the question can be asked of it, "Did they really intend for this to be shown to children?"

In some respects, one can ask much the same question about The Wizard Of Oz. Not that it's a particularly frightening film - only the flying monkeys and the Winkies could be described as being in the slightest bit scarey but, again, only the most delicate of children would dare turn away from it - but it is a remarkably bleak film in which nothing is as it first appears and Dorothy experiences little but disappointment. However, the most awful truth that one comes upon with The Wizard Of Oz is how its young lead was treated and how it left Judy Garland a star but also one that was left dependent on drugs, depressed and with a weight problem that remained with her until her death.

Of course, The Wizard Of Oz is unarguably a children's film with its bright colours, its remarkable sense of the fantastic and its natural sense of wonder, of comedy, of play and of good and evil. Everything about the film comes so easily that nothing of its troubled production appears to have made it onto the screen, least not the reactions that a number of the actors had to the makeup, the drunkenness that was rumoured to be widespread amongst those playing the Munchkins nor the various directors who worked on the project - Richard Thorpe, George Cukor, Victor Fleming and King Vidor all worked on the film at various times. Instead, the comedy, in particular, is exceedingly loose and charming despite it being a difficult thing to get right, with the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Lion all being naturally comic roles that, with the extensive makeup and exaggerated movements, could have gone badly wrong but don't.

From a child's point of view, though, it's a very approachable film that provides memorable moments of unsurpassed wonderment, including the sight of the twister approaching Aunt Em's dusty farmhouse, Dorothy's first steps in Oz, her entrance to the Emerald City with its 'horse of a different colour', the throne room of the wizard of Oz with its billowing flames and the sinister castle of the Wicked Witch with its flying monkeys and uniformed guards. As adults, we have such fond memories of this film and of those moments, in particular, that as soon as we become parents, we look to introduce it to our children and, thus, to pass it on to another generation. Children, though, need little prompting and take to it as easily as they do Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Snow White And The Seven Dwarves and Mary Poppins. Both the recurrence of characters - the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Lion are also the farm workers back in Kansas whilst Professor Marvel is not only the Wizard of Oz but also appears to fill most of the administrative roles in the Emerald City - as well as the move between sepia, Technicolor and back to sepia makes sense within the structure of Dorothy's adventures in Oz being no more than a dream and children become drawn into this, often without question. To them, a horse changing colour is as natural as we know it is not but catch a child at the right age and no amount of proof will convince them of a world without such magic.

And yet, at some point between childhood and adulthood, we begin to lose that feeling of the film making unquestioned sense and begin to look for meaning beyond the as-new surface sheen of Oz. In doing so, The Wizard Of Oz becomes a tale of self-sufficiency, of taking responsibility and of the importance of friendship but also of the disappointment that awaits us in adulthood. How else to explain the sixteen-year-old Dorothy becoming separated from her pet by the wiles of a spiteful adult and of her guardians standing idly by as Toto is taken. The farmhands are funny but, like Professor Marvel, of no use when she finds herself even more alone than usual, her hands empty when Toto would usually be with her. And when the twister comes, Dorothy doesn't even have a place in the storm shelter, finding that she's left alone in the house as the storm wreaks a terrible havoc. Disappointment and misery are piled atop one another even in Oz - Glinda, the good fairy can offer nothing more than words, the evil spinster really was a witch as Dorothy first thought and the powerful wizard is really a little man from back home who had, like Dorothy, just gotten lost. Even her best friends - the Lion, the Tin Man and the Scarecrow - are revealed as cowardly, rusting under his shiny suit and an old bag of straw without an ounce of sense.

There is, of course, hope within this, of Dorothy achieving something on her own, without her guardians, without help and without failure. As a parent, I often ask of my children to do things that I, being so much older, would think twice about - to go to ballet, to football, to swimming, to start a new school and make new friends, to talk to adults, to learn to read, write, learn a language and to do all of this, most often on their own, without complaint. And oftentimes, they do all these things and barring the occasional tear or two, they accomplish them on their own and come home. These may be minor successes but to a child, the trip back home is akin to that of a conquering hero. The sentiment may be sweet but it's an honest and a universal one - there is often no place like home - and both as children and as adults, we look forward to getting back home to be surrounded by our loved ones. In returning from Oz, Dorothy realises that and although it may not be a perfect home, few are, and Dorothy, like us all, will learn not to live with the disappointment but to take responsibility for those things that the adults either can or will not. Children learn from a young age that adults are often inadequate - mother or father won't be there when an older child deliberately trips them up in the playground - and The Wizard Of Oz succeeds by not only revealing that the future, that of adulthood, is bleak and often unforgiving but that there are rewards within it nonetheless. And the greatest reward is that of friendship.

Quite the saddest thing about this film, though, is the sight of Judy Garland in the role of Dorothy. Almost seventeen when cast by MGM, she existed, if you believe the stories, on a diet of uppers that began with breakfast and only ended with an injection to get her to sleep at night. There's something so troubled about her performance, so lost and so much of the outsider, that we, as the audience, really do feel for her. When she cries at the sight of her Aunt Em after the Wicked Witch has locked her in the tower of her castle, it's not only loneliness that she's crying for but also her own lost childhood. MGM may have strapped down her breasts, put her in pigtails and a smart blue gingham dress but there's little that's overtly childish in her performance, rather that she's a young woman who, you feel, has already seen too much of the hardships of adulthood. It is, therefore, a role that perfectly suited Garland and it's really little wonder that her Dorothy has become an icon for feelings of loneliness, of being and outsider and of feeling impossibly alone. When the gay community adopted her and Over The Rainbow, it was with an understanding of there being an undercurrent of hope, of companionship and of better times in a life that was otherwise spent alone.

These are universal hopes that we all have in our most lonely moments and it is for that reason, amongst others, that I believe we continue to come back to The Wizard Of Oz. It is, of course, simply a great film, perhaps amongst the very best, but it also something about us, being human beings, that I think we like. This viewer certainly does and I have showed this to my children on a number of occasions, as much because I know they'll enjoy as I know it's a good film for them to take a lesson from. As with my children, though, there's something in The Wizard Of Oz for everyone and, children or not, it deserves a place in every home.

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Transfer

The Wizard Of Oz has looked rather good over its most recent releases and this, thanks to Warner Brothers' Ultra Resolution process, which was also used on the stunning restoration of The Adventures Of Robin Hood, is yet more of an improvement. Everything about the picture is noteworthy, from the rich colours, the perfect levels of brightness, contrast and sharpness and the quite wonderful levels of detail in the image. Until this film is released once more with the next generation of film storage technology, be it Blu-Ray or HD-DVD, this release is, I'm sure, the best that we'll ever see The Wizard Of Oz on the small screen and is testament, once again, to Warner's careful handling of films for release on DVD. Please see the screenshots below for a comparison between this release and the existing R2:

This Region 1 Release

The Existing Region 2 Release

As you can see, the Ultra Resolution process has just left the film looking almost perfect with any loss of detail due, I suspect, more to the limitations of the resolution of today's equipment than to the condition of the film in the vaults.

In terms of the soundtrack, this version of the film is an improvement over previous releases of The Wizard Of Oz on DVD for at least giving us a choice between a 5.1 remix of the soundtrack and the original mono. Of the two, the former is rather uninteresting given that neither the surround speakers nor the subwoofer are used very much at all, possibly more for ambience than actual effects, leaving the mono soundtrack as my preference. The mono track is simply brighter and fuller with the surround track sounding slightly hollow by comparison and although the mono track is not as loud, it sounds more natural. There is also a music and effects track that isolates both from the dialogue.

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Extras

Disc One

Commentary: Introduced by Sydney Pollack, who also offers some continuity throughout the commentary, this includes contributions from Oz historian John Fricke and others, including archive interviews with members of the cast, to paint a fairly complete picture of the making of The Wizard Of Oz. Fricke's contributions are much like those of Rudy Behlmer on other Warner Brothers releases - academic and fulsome but never dry or dull - and he gets through a lot of production history in the one-hundred-minute running time. There are, however, short gaps and Fricke does seem to skip over some things that I'd rather wished he didn't - the urban legend about the suicidal munchkin, for example, or the drugs references with the poppy field and the snowstorm - but these are small complaints against an otherwise excellent commentary.

The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz Storybook (10m27s): Narrated by Angela Lansbury, this is the story of The Wizard Of Oz as read by everyone's favourite sometime crime writer and amateur detective and uses the colour plates from the original print of The Wizard Of Oz to illustrate the story.

Prettier Than Ever (11m26s): Beginning with interviews with Rob Hummell and Ned Price, who were responsible for the restoration of The Wizard Of Oz, they describe their use of the original Technicolor negatives and the Ultra Resolution process to bring this film to DVD. What follows is a full and detailed description of the Ultra Resolution techniques and how it is used to in clean up old films whilst also reducing wear and tear on the negatives and original prints.

We Haven't Really Met Properly (21m19s): Produced this year, this is a set of profiles for each of the principal actors in the film and includes both a short biography as well as a look at roles they had before their appearance in The Wizard Of Oz. As an indication of how complete this is, there is even a two-minute feature devoted to Terry, the dog who played Toto.

Disc Two

The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz (50m52s): Subtitled The Making Of A Movie Classic, this has been brought over from previous releases of The Wizard Of Oz - it's on the existing R2 double-sided disc - but given the quality of the feature, there is little to complain about. Introduced and narrated by Angela Lansbury, this is an in-depth documentary that looks at the background of the film and the studio that produced it and, via the casting and production, on to it becoming a staple of one's childhood. Unfortunately, only archive footage exists of the stars being interviewed and although nothing in the documentary is new, with the exception of Lansbury's contributions, and much of what it has to say is familiar, to have it all in one place is the principal strength of this feature.

Memories Of Oz (27m36s): Produced by TCM (Turner Classic Movies), this covers much of the same ground as The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz but does so in a much more contemporary fashion with interviews with director John Waters, several experts on Oz and on the film and a number of Munchkin actors who, reveling in the spirit of the piece, come dressed in character. Unlike the earlier feature, this is more concerned with the memories of those who were on the set but Waters' contribution is more as an onlooker and fan than one with any real knowledge of the making of the film. The most interesting part of the entire documentary, though, is in revealing where the props from The Wizard Of Oz were used next, including Dorothy's basket in Little Women (1949), Munchkin outfits in Billy Rose's Jumbo (1962) and the Wicked Witch's costume in Third Dimensional Murder (1941), which was, were it not already obvious, in 3D.

The Art of Imagination (29m44s): Subtitled A Tribute To Oz, this recently-produced feature - not only is actor Sean Astin featured (Sam in The Lord Of The Rings films) but contributor Peter Jackson is billed as being involved in King Kong - looks at some of the innovation in The Wizard Of Oz. As such, it describes the theatrical use of backgrounds in the film as well as the use of both dialogue and music with which to tell the story, highlighting, in particular, how the script and soundtrack are used in conjunction with one another despite the rules of filmmaking, at the time, saying that such an approach was too sophisticated for an audience.

Because Of The Wonderful Things It Does (25m04s): We couldn't really have such a carefully produced release of The Wizard Of Oz without a look back at the legacy of the film and this does an excellent job of describing its impact. Beginning with the first showing of The Wizard Of Oz on network television in the US (3 October 1956), this feature goes on to describe much of what followed the original film, including the reissue of the books, cartoon series, stage shows, including one set on ice, comic books, fan conventions and, surely a more recent phenomenon, impersonators. Where it could have been a series of fans of the film, it's actually an often fascinating look at how something as simple as the premiere of the film on television gave the film a new lease of life and how that, in turn, inspired the re-release and the release of much material, both old and new.

Harold Arlen's Home Movies (4m39s): Shot by the composer on the film during the portrait sittings and occasional visits to the set, this is a very short series of clips from 16mm home movies.

Outtakes And Deleted Scenes (14m19s): Also carried over from existing releases, this contains the full, alternate take of If I Only Had A Brain (4m37s), Buddy Ebsen's take on If I Only Had A Heart (1m36s) during his short stint as the original Tin Man, Hail Hail! The Witch Is Dead (1m54s), the reprise of Over The Rainbow (2m07s) and The Jitterbug (4m54s). One of these is complete - If I Ony Had A Heart - but others are constructed from stills only before The Jitterbug uses a mix of stills and Harold Arlen's home movies.

It's A Twister! (8m16s): As a piece of special effects, the tornado in The Wizard Of Oz still looks remarkable and this short feature shows many of the effects shots that were constructed before being included in the final film.

Off To See The Wizard (3m56s): In 1967, Off To See The Wizard was a Friday evening staple on ABC that showed family films that included cartoons animated by Chuck Jones, which featured the characters from The Wizard Of Oz. This short section includes a number of these animated sequences.

From The Vault (14m09s): The title suggests that the features included here are going to bear only the most tenuous of links to The Wizard Of Oz and so it proves. Firstly, there is Electrical Power, which is a short film on the production and use of electricity by, amongst others, MGM, who takes the viewer behind the scenes and onto the set of its latest film, The Wizard Of Oz. Next is an excerpt from Cavalcade of Academy Awards, in which director Frank Capra cut together footage from the Academy Awards ceremony of 1940, the year in which The Wizard Of Oz picked up a number of awards. Finally, Texas Contest Winners features the titular winners on a tour of the MGM lot meeting the stars of The Wizard Of Oz.

Audio Vault: This audio-only special feature includes an enormous amount of unedited musical numbers, renditions of the score, voice tests and various looping tracks. With a Play All option available to the viewer, this Jukebox selection lasts just over four-and-three-quarter hours and, whilst I can't admit to having listened to all of it, the fact that it's all here is quite staggering and a testament to just how much archive material Warner Brothers have included. This Audio Vault also includes a Leo Is On The Air Radio Promo (12m13s), Good News of 1939 (60m53s) and a 1950 Christmas Day Lux Radio Theater Broadcast (60m46s).

Stills Gallery: As with the Audio Vault, there's a vast number of photographs, illustrations, storyboards, advertisements and other still images that includes pre-MGM photographs, production shots and on up to re-release publicity.

Theatrical Trailers: Containing those trailers that accompanied theatrical releases only - so none for showings of the film on television nor video, laserdisc or DVD releases - this begins with a 1939 What Is Oz? teaser and ends with the 1998 Warner Bros Reissue trailer as well as including those from 1940, two from 1949 and one from 1970 in between.

Disc Three

L Frank Baum: The Man Behind The Curtain (27m43s): Adding considerably to this three-disc set is a documentary on the man who created Oz, the writer L Frank Baum. Featuring interviews with Gita Morena and Robert Baum, the great-grandaughter and great-grandson of Baum, this uses their knowledge of the Baum family as well as reconstruction to paint a picture of a man whose creativity was allowed to blossom at a very young age. The documentary then describes as much of Baum's life as it can in the half-hour running time including his writing, the portrayal of Oz on Broadway and on radio before his bankruptcy in 1911, which led simply to further writings until his death.

The Wizard Of Oz (1910) (13m17s): It's remarkable to see this and to realise how much changed in the twenty-nine years between this and the version of The Wizard Of Oz that we know best. Where the 1939 production is unarguably modern, this appears to be more of a stage production, including men walking on all fours in lion and other animal outfits, that was filmed for distribution into theatres. That said, it's not particularly interesting beyond that as there's little filmmaking technique beyond crowding each scene with action and having the camera record what happens and should, therefore, be best thought of as a curio from the early years of cinema.

The Magic Cloak Of Oz (1914) (38m26s): This is more of the same albeit a different story to The Wizard Of Oz (1910) but the techniques involved in the making of this are somewhat similar. This is, however, the better of the two with there being some clear improvements over the earlier film, notably better effects, a much better sense of story and of pacing and that it is clearly structured as a film and not simply as a record of a stage production.

His Majesty, The Scarecrow Of Oz (1914) (59m04s): The third feature film on this set is, unsurprisingly, most similar in technique to The Magic Cloak Of Oz. It concerns Princess Gloria, a young woman in the court of King Krewl who is asked to marry Googly-Goo but refuses, falling in love with Pon, the gardener, instead. Running away from Krewl, Gloria enlists the help of the Scarecrow who, in turn, asks the Tin Man and the Lion for their assistance in hiding Gloria from King Krewl. It's all rather melodramatic and sketchy stuff but it does feature a more violent Tin Man than the 1939 Wizard Of Oz with him even beheading an ill-tempered woman at one point.

The Wizard Of Oz (1925) (71m48s): Famous for featuring Oliver Hardy as the Tin Man, this is an odd telling of The Wizard Of Oz given that at least half of it takes place in Kansas rather than Oz. Even then, though, the scenes set in Prime Minister Krewl's court in Oz bear an odd similarity to Kansas but for the addition of a matte painting of Oz overhead. Otherwise, this is a fairly clumsy film, dominated by a romance between Dorothy and the two white farmhands who work for the bad-tempered Uncle Henry - there is a black farmhand but he's portrayed as a layabout eating melons in the fields outside of the farm buildings. The highlights of the film are the scenes between a toy maker and a young girl, with one reading the story of The Wizard Of Oz to the other.

Were all of that not enough, there is also a set of ten photographs used for publicity in 1939 and a second booklet containing the Premiere Program, an MGM Studio Newsletter, a Photoplay Booklet, a one-sheet print showing original campaign posters and facsimiles of the Premiere Ticket and Invitation.

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Overall

Inasmuch as it's a pleasure reviewing many of these Warner Brothers releases, there's always the very nice problem of seeing a new release that betters something that you thought was as good as a DVD release could get. For example, after reviewing The Adventures Of Robin Hood, I thought it amongst the best DVD releases I'd ever seen but then came Ben-Hur, which included an earlier and entirely different production of the film as a extra. And now this, which includes a commentary, a restoration of the film, features, over four hours of audio tracks, booklets, reproductions of original publicity material and four other productions of stories from Oz.

This three-disc release of The Wizard Of Oz is a remarkably complete set and is sure to be the best until, as mentioned earlier, the next generation of storage is well upon us. Even then, whilst there will be an improvement in picture quality, could there really be any more bonus material that someone could want with the exception of Dark Side Of The Moon playing on one of the audio tracks? This is again further proof of Warner Brothers being the very best at restoring and releasing films from the archives on DVD and being so far ahead of their competition that the others barely register - a stunning release of a superb film.