The Wizard of Oz (1939) dir. Victor Fleming
Starring: Judy Garland, Bert Lahr, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Margaret Hamilton, Billie Burke

****

By Alan Bacchus

If someone were to ask me what the most widely seen movies ever made. Not just based on box office figures but on TV and DVD I’d probably only put ‘Star Wars’ and ‘The Wizard of Oz’ on top that list with much space to the next one down. Both movies transcend time and are invisible to their age.

Like 'Gone With the Wind', ‘The Wizard of Oz’ is a producer’s picture, not a director’s picture. In fact there were four directors all of whom left or got fired for one reason or another. Including the only credited man, Victor Fleming, would also go on to direct portions of Selnick’s picture and get sole credit as well.

The opening Kansas sequence, shot famously in black & white and timed for sepia tone, evokes a cinematic period before 1939. By 1939, black & white was so sophisticated, cinematographers could manipulate light and shadows to do anything. So the sepia tone and obviously stagey studio set opening is meant to bring us back to a simpler time even before the relatively simple times of 1939 cinema. Perhaps the anachronistic opening was meant to enhance the great transition to Technicolor which announces itself so grandly when Dorothy exits her tornado-transported home and into Munchkinland.

Rare for its time “Oz” seems to have an awareness of itself.

As a strictly studio picture, ‘The Wizard of Oz’ is not much more than a theatrically staged telling of the Frank L. Baum story. Some might describe the choreography as stagey, as there’s an awareness of the interior studio setting at all times. The painted backdrops looks like, well, painted backdrops. The flowers look fake. The colours are overly saturated and unrealistic. The edges and falseness the costumes and makeup worn by the Scarecrow, Tin Man, Lion are made visible by the bright, unsympathetic lighting. Like a the front row patrons of a Broadway show, there's very little hidden from the audience in Oz.

Even within the constraints of the studio iconic imagery is everywhere. The mere sight of Dorothy and her three costumed companions skipping down the yellow brick road toward the Emerald City is as grand a composition as there ever was in the movies. The foursome framed at the bottom of the screen, with the converging lines of the road creating the sense of depth and the deco design of the castle at the top of the frame is a brilliantly fantastical work of art.

'The Wizard of Oz' is a work of pure and inspiring fantasy. The classical structure of the fairytale hits every beat so precisely in hindsight it’s a template for all fantasy cinema made after. Dorothy’s journey is not unlike Frodo’s in 'Lord of the Rings' or Alice in Wonderland, so innocent and fragile, dainty in her pretty dress and her constant follower, Toto. Even her empty basket which she refuses to put down even in the most dangerous of situations stays on her arm. Dorothy as a farm girl, doesn’t know it but her congeniality and resourcefulness is about to save the world from the tyranny of the wicked witches. Well, Glinda knows it. We can see it on her face when she first introduces herself in Munchkinland, she will be the saviour.

The late second act action sequence in Wicked Witch’s castle is frightening. Not just Margaret Hamilton’s snarling performance as the Witch, but her army of Russian Army-coat wearing minions and flying demon monkeys. The grey and gothic tones of these scenes provoke a truly dark and threatening hazard in Dorothy’s journey.

My favourite performance, no doubt, is Bert Lahr’s Lion – a character of vaudevillian extremes, with an exaggerated New York accent which, of Dorothy’s three sidekicks, best represents the trio’s slapstick comedy.

“The Wizard of Oz” is invisible to it age because, if the film were made now – or perhaps before the age of CG – under a producer as smart as Mervyn LeRoy would likely (or should) look exactly the same. Look at the 1971 version of ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’ for instance, a film made 32 years after Oz but with the same visual and tonal sensibilities. No wonder that film is also a timeless classic.

The 70th Anniversary of ‘The Wizard of Oz’ is available on DVD and Blu-Ray from Warner Bros. Home Video. The special features on the two-disc set are adequate, but mostly older featurettes which unfortunately show their age – especially the Angela Lansbury-hosted 1990 feature, ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: The Making of a Movie Classic’ urggh.

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Gone With the Wind (1939) dir. Victor Fleming
Starring: Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, Hattie McDaniel, Leslie Howard, Olivia De Havilland

****

By Alan Bacchus

The event picture of all time gets everything it’s due from Warner Bros’ pimped out Blu-Ray box set. It’s been 70 years and most of us weren’t around during the making of this picture, but there’s enough documentation about the film’s far-reaching production history, as well as David O Selznick’s own egotistical wants and desires to render GWTW the undisputed biggest, most hyped, and greatest-ever film event. Its grandeur, spectacle and pop culturally zeitgeist significance is still a marvel and remains largely untouched in the annals of cinema history.

Just go to box office mojo and sort the biggest box office films of all time by inflation adjusted numbers and you’ll see GWTW is still the highest grossing movie of all time ($1.4 billion). All the greater achievement knowing producer David O. Selznick concertedly sought to make the biggest and greatest picture of all time.

Selznick’s adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s book created a cinematic template for sweeping romantic epics, that is pitting the individual conflicts of its characters amongst in the context of far-reaching and monumental historical conflicts.

Mitchell’s hero is a naïve young southern Belle, Scarlett O’Hara. As a young girl from a well off, but self-made Irish immigrant father, she’s only seen the spoils of the Old South living on an expansive and romantic cotton plantation called ‘Tara’. It doesn’t take long for the story to send O’Hara’s blissful life into despair when her one love in the world, Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard), announces an engagement to Scarlett’s cousin Melanie (Olivia De Havilland). Scarlett whines and pouts and decides to hastily marry local dweeb Charles Hamilton on a whim and move to Atlanta. Meanwhile Scarlett continually crosses paths and flirts with dashing Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) – a charming southern gentleman, aristocrat and career-bachelor.

When the Civil War arrives Scarlett’s decadent lifestyle comes to a violent end. Hamilton is killed in battle and the city of Atlanta is burnt to the ground by the invading Yankees. Scarlett retreats to her beloved Tara only to realize that it too has been decimated by war. And so, at her lowest moment Scarlett shouts to the world and to us, the audience, ‘if I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill. As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again.’ Indeed Scarlett adapts to the new realities of the Old South, picks herself up, becomes an independent entrepreneur and rebuilds Tara. She even resorts to marrying Rhett Butler in order to reclaim her status and wealth. Unfortunately with her forlorn love for Ashley Wilkes still kindling her relationship with Butler becomes poisoned resulting in tragedy as dramatic as the war she overcame.

Under the pen of screenwriter Sidney Howard and ultimately under Selznick’s watchful eye the character of Scarlett O’Hara is never trumped by the pyrotechnics and spectacle. Over the nearly 4 hours running time, Scarlett’s motivations and goals always remain consistent. And after all the obstacles put in front of her she emerges with a remarkably precise and clearly defined character arc with as much dramatic gravitas as any character ever put to screen.

Structurally, the emotional place of her character is visualized succinctly by one shot repeated three times throughout the picture – the definitive image of the film, the sundrenched landscape vista showing framing Scarlett underneath a tree with the Tara estate in the background. In the opening, Scarlett, young and naïve, is with her father being told of the intrinsic value of land; at the midpoint, when Scarlett has returned to her home destitute and penniless, underneath the same tree, though now leafless and naked, she loudly proclaims her desire to ‘never starve again’; and then in the end after her child has died and Rhett has left her she retreats to Tara, her only true unconditional form of love – her home.

In between these benchmarks, a number of memorable characters and set pieces elevate the material to Hollywood entertainment of the highest order. Of course, Gable as Rhett Butler is iconic, a role cast by the demand of the people at the time. His elusive charm and bad boy enigma is a guide for all on-screen rebels. Hattie McDaniel, the first black person to win an Oscar, is so supremely lovable as Scarlett’s loyal housemaid.

Under the producer-driven studio machine, Selznick achieves ‘epicness’ with a number of astonishing set pieces aided by the great William Cameron Menzies phenomenal production design; The ballroom dance sequence is of course a revered classic, but set up with great tension when Rhett controversially announces to the crowd he wants to take Scarlett’s hand in the dance; the tragedy of the Civil War is visualized in one magnificent epic shot when the camera, following Scarlett, pulls back to reveal the railyard littered with dead soldiers; the burning of Atlanta sequence uses the best matte photography effects, and the final emotional moments between Rhett and Scarlett at her fog hazed doorway oozes melodrama.

Gone With the Wind is a rare case where its desire for ‘grandeur’ trickles down successfully through every aspect of production. From Selznick’s mad need for wanton audacity, the obscene four-hour running time, Max Steiner's memorable score, the film’s massive production elements, even down to Scarlett O’Hara’s character grand character arc, the film continually leaps over the audiences’ high expectations, which with much room to spare.

Even the Warner Bros 70th Anniversary Blu-Ray box-set is gargantuan enough for Selznick’s approval. The set contains, the film in stunning High Definition detail, a hardcover production art book, authentic personal memos from Selznick, even that early 1990’s 6-hour television documentary on the history of the MGM Studio, ‘When the Lion Roared’