Why does How the West Was Won get credit for being the movie that started my lifelong movie addiction? Because I can remember the exact moment when I first saw it. Though The Wizard of Oz made almost as significant an impression on me, I know only that I must have first seen it as a kid in the mid-1960s on the family’s black-and-white set. It was a Christmas season tradition, along with “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and “Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol.” (“It’s a Wonderful Life” would show up as a holiday obsession only later in life.)
As I rewatched it through the 60s, I “remember remembering” my first reactions: that the Wicked Witch creeped me out, that the flying monkeys freaked me out, and that, when the Witch’s soldiers had Dorothy and her cohort cornered on the castle wall and Scarecrow was about to go up in flames, I truly despaired for their fate. (I was too young to be jaded, having not yet learned movies like this have a guaranteed happy ending.) As I got older, I was proud that I was no longer scared, but I still felt the tension and the stakes. And I always looked forward to Dorothy’s final lesson, “There’s no place like home,” which even then I found to be corny, but also indisputably true.
More than 60 years later, I mostly remember as a kid always being enchanted by the reruns and looking forward to them the entire year.
A Dry Spell
I stopped watching TV sometime in high school, and then college and early work life intervened. (I admit I’ve never seen a single episode of “Mork and Mindy.”) As you often do with childish memories, you begin to wonder if they’d hold up should you seek them out.
Still, in those early adult years some dialog and lyrics stuck in my head. Not just the typical lines everyone knows, like Dorothy’s “Toto… I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore” or the Wicked Witch’s “I’ll get you my pretty and your little dog too!” No, I remembered the clever and quirky bits, say when Dorothy first meets Professor Marvel, whose sign declares he is acclaimed by royalty. She implores him, “Oh please Professor, why can’t we go with you and see all the crowned heads of Europe?” And the somewhat surprised Professor Marvel answers, “Do you know any?”
Or snatches of lyrics. Not the famous “Over the Rainbow” stuff. But Dorothy singing to the Scarecrow, “With the thoughts you’d be thinking, you could be another Lincoln, if you only had a brain.” And the Scarecrow replying “Oh, I could tell you why, the ocean’s near the shore.” I guess I always had an ear for the absurd.
Sometime in the mid 1980s I finally invested in a TV, and my eyes lit up when I spied The Wizard of Oz foretold in TV Guide. I settled on the couch, microwave popcorn in hand, and there it was. Zeke rescuing Dorothy from becoming the pigs’ dinner. Auntie Em confronting the wicked Miss Gulch. Dorothy’s fateful encounter with Professor Marvel. The tornado, so convincing even in those pioneering 1980s days of special effects.
But Then, I Sat Bolt Upright
Somewhere over the years I’d learned there was a transition to color, but that wasn’t on my mind as I was re-experiencing the magic. So when Dorothy opened that door to the Technicolor Oz, I was flabbergasted. And enchanted all over again. My childhood memories were all in black and white
I reinstituted the traditional Christmas time viewing, first for myself, then for family. But I would also break out the DVD when entertaining our son’s friends, worried that it would fail to impress and thankful when other young’uns actually enjoyed it.
The most memorable viewing was at the Stanford Theatre in Palo Alto, California, a gorgeously restored classic movie house. The Technicolor was spectacular on the large screen. Sitting a few seats away, two women who seemed to know the entire screenplay by heart were whispering lines to each other. Normally this would have been intolerably irritating, but instead it was oddly reassuring to know I was in the company of fellow addicts.
My fascination with The Wizard of Oz even became the inspiration for a journey that started as professional branding and ended here, today, with this hobby website. You can read more about that here.
Appreciating The Wizard of Oz for What It Is
I’ve naturally watched the DVD extras and have a poster for my office. I’ve even sampled a few documentaries on the production hassles, and avoided the derivative click-bait spinoffs. I share the most balanced and deeply researched here.
Yes, there were dozens of changes in the storyline, some quite bizarre, by multiple screenwriters; a revolving door of directors; cast injuries; and budget overruns. Counter to popular myth, the Munchkin actors were not unmanageable hedonists. And at its premier it was mostly well reviewed and appreciated by audiences of the day.
But the massive production and marketing budget meant it didn’t turn a profit. And its official release on August 25, 1939, deprived it of a broader worldwide distribution as Europe and then Asia turned its gaze elsewhere. At least that made Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer willing to boost its return by licensing it for TV showing starting in the late 1950s and continuing for years.
All interesting facts but, for me, irrelevant to my appreciation … or, should I say, admiration, or obsession. I will admit: The Wizard of Oz is not the best movie I’ve ever seen. Oh, I consider it nearly perfect. The clever dialog, the catchy tunes, the magical journey, the happy ending. Still, I admire many other films even more for many of the same attributes.
Simply put, The Wizard of Oz reminds me vividly of why I’m a movie addict. It’s just pure fun. On each new viewing I recall the scares and corny delights as a kid sprawled on the living room rug, eyes glued to the screen. I too whisper the dialog to myself. I notice some fresh detail each time. When I’m feeling I need a break from the world, I give it a spin. And for about a hundred minutes the world drops away, the homemade popcorn tastes great, and I like Dorothy am grateful to be at home with the family I love.