Surreal Estate - Re-watching "The Wizard of Oz"

"Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again." -  Rick Polito's summary of The Wizard of Oz for the Marin Independent Journal

I had no interest in joining Audrey and Glory at Wicked last week, but was only too happy to watch The Wizard of Oz with them tonight, and I am glad I did.

There are those (including the American Library of Congress) who feel it may be the most "seen" movie of all time, what with the decades of holiday season television screenings piled on top of all the VHS/DVD/BluRay/4K/ad infinitum home releases.

It has to be over a decade since I last watched it, and with younger kids I around, I was probably doing something else at the same time, or leaving to pop corn or some such. Sitting down and soaking in it as an adult and a movie buff is a genuine treat. 

First, it is a well crafted adventure musical, that clips along at a ridiculous pace like any fairy story should and veers effortlessly from silly to sweet to genuinely terrifying without missing a beat. And if it comes off as excessively coy or genteel, well, it is a prodcut of its time, after all.

But before the majority of North Americans had ever heard of Gandalf the Grey of Middle Earth, this adaptation of L. Frank Baum's book was pop culture's very first iteration of a fantasy realm with borders, factions, wondrous creatures, inscrutable and powerful rulers and an epic quest.

From the moment Dorothy opens the door to Munchkinland, exposing everyone to the Technicolor brilliance of Oz, I kept thinking of just how mind-blowing this must have been to those initial audiences in the 1940s. How many midwesterners quailed sympathetically at the sight of the Kansas cyclone? Who in the audience gasped, like I did tonight, and the amazing entrance of the Wicked Witch of the West in a plume of flame and densely coloured smoke? 

The costumes and makeup of the Scarecrow, Tin Woodsman and Cowardly Lion (whose outfit weighted 90 lbs!) hold up tremendously well even in high definition. The production numbers, particularly in Munchkinland, are intricate and enormous. When they say, "they don't make 'em like they used to," I am starting to think they are talking about The Wizard of Oz.

If you are looking for a family movie to screen over the holidays this year, don't pass up an opportunity to show this 85-year-old marvel to new eyes. It is available with a Crave subscription and reantable on many digital platforms (but not Cineplex unless you havce a 4K tv, grr...).