The Movie
Wow, it really is as good as I remember.
Like most people my age, I grew up with annual airings of The Wizard of Oz, and like most of my blue-collar pals, the family box was black-and-white, and so I simply did not know about the movie's transition to color ("What's that?") at Reel Two until years later. No matter, director Victor Fleming (for the most part), working from an adaptation of L. Frank Baum's wildly popular first book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, crafted a musical adventure sufficiently titillating for the kids yet smart and funny enough for their parents. Every frame, every note resonates with the innocence of youth and the longing of the heart, and the results are irresistible.
After all this time, we might take for granted the exceptional performance of young Judy Garland as displaced farm girl Dorothy, or the three friends she meets on her magical journey home: a brainless Scarecrow (Ray Bolger), a heartless Tin Man (Jack Haley) and a spineless Lion (Bert Lahr). But try to watch The Wizard of Oz with new eyes, and with modern sensibilities, and you'll see that even with seven decades of experience to guide them, no one in Hollywood is making family films as broadly appealing and impossibly enduring as this.
The Picture
For entry into the high-definition domain, The Wizard of Oz has been remastered from the original three-strip Technicolor camera negatives (one each for Cyan, Yellow and Magenta), each scanned at 8K resolution, to produce a 4K 4:3 master with twice the resolution of the 2005 "Ultra-Resolution" DVD. It shows: I was struck by the richness of the blacks, the warmth of the sepia tones before we arrive in the candy-colored utopia of Oz, where familiar shades of yellow, emerald and ruby have never looked quite so vibrant before.
At this level of precision, tiny imperfections of focus are captured, and as happens to older movies in the modern age, the secrets of the special effects are exposed, sometimes miniatures but more obviously the matte paintings. The small checks of Dorothy's famous blue gingham dress are a challenge, but they just pass the HD test without significant breakdown. Backgrounds do show the faintest twitch and, I suppose there's no way around this with a 70-year-old movie, textures are acceptable but not quite as exceptional as I'd hoped for. But there's nothing here to take away from the unbridled joy onscreen.
The Sound
The clarity and fidelity of the soundtrack, delivered in high-resolution Dolby TrueHD 5.1, is breathtaking. There's a newfound fullness yet a definite restraint, a deliberate avoidance of gaudy rechanneling for its own sake. This mix establishes a credible presence around the extended soundfield, displaying a particularly welcome depth to the orchestra. The chirping of a bluebird during "Over the Rainbow" is unmistakable, and we're even given a healthy bass thump as Dorothy's house touches down. It's not "spectacular," but the quality is so high, you'd think it was recorded yesterday.
The Extras
Much of the bonus material here is ported over from the 2005 DVD, which in turn was borrowed from previous discs. Where appropriate, it has been converted to a high-definition format, but I must stress that it doesn't all look like true HD. But with 70 years to prepare, Warner has given us quite the smorgasbord to pick at. The audio commentary is chaired by historian John Fricke and hosted by the late director Sydney Pollack, with archival cast/crew and family member interviews. "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: The Making of a Movie Classic" (51 minutes) is Jack Haley, Jr.'s definitive documentary on the subject, while the trifecta of "The Art of Imagination: A Tribute to Oz" (30 minutes), "Because of the Wonderful Things It Does: The Legacy of Oz" (25 minutes) and "Memories of Oz" (27-and-a-half minutes) provide further context, with recollections from insiders and admirers.
"The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Storybook" (ten-and-a-half minutes) is a simplified version of the tale, read by Angela Lansbury, who narrates much of the material in this set, with illustrations and rudimentary animation. "Prettier Than Ever: The Restoration of Oz" (eleven-and-a-half minutes) details the efforts taken to rejuvenate the film for that 2005 DVD. "We Haven't Really Met Properly" profiles members of the supporting cast, eight in all, plus Toto (21 minutes)." Oz behind-the-scenes footage was fortuitously included in the curious short subject of the era, "Another Romance of Celluloid: Electrical Power" (ten-and-a-half minutes) as well as "Texas Contest Winners" (one-and-a-half minutes) a promotional short which yielded a great "candid" moment during a studio tour with Buddy Ebsen, the original actor portraying the Tin Man. In the two-minute "Cavalcade of the Academy Awards Excerpt," Judy Garland's statue is presented by pal and frequent co-star Mickey Rooney. And the "Off to See the Wizard Excerpts" collect four minutes of rare Chuck Jones cartoons as shown during ABC TV family film broadcasts.
Composer "Harold Arlen's Home Movies" from the set run about five minutes, fourteen minutes of outtakes and deleted scenes are reconstructed, and the curtain blows back for "'It's a Twister! It's a Twister!' The Tornado Tests" (eight minutes). More vintage rarities include the original music-and-effects track, created so that foreign-language dialogue can be dropped in overseas, the movie's original mono soundtrack, radio programs plus a promotional spot, as well as a "Jukebox" feature loaded with 18 obscure original cuts, rehearsals, aborted takes, etc., in mono. Back in the present day, the Sing-Along Audio Feature serves up karaoke-style on-screen lyrics, but no microphone. Pity.
Moving on to Disc Two, "Victor Fleming, Master Craftsman" (34 minutes) is a fascinating biography of the underappreciated director extraordinaire, also credited with helming the massive Gone with the Wind... the same year as Wizard. "L.Frank Baum: The Man Behind the Curtain" (28 minutes) is another bio, this time about the original Oz author, his challenges and inspirations. And in "Hollywood Celebrates Its Biggest Little Stars" (ten minutes), The Munchkins finally receive their star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, complete with individual interviews with the surviving actors.
The Dreamer of Oz is the 93-minute 1990 telefilm starring John Ritter as L. Frank Baum, which then segues to several silent film adaptations of his work, some written, produced or directed by Baum himself. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1910, 13 minutes), His Majesty, The Scarecrow of Oz (1914, 59 minutes), The Magic Cloak of Oz (1914, 43 minutes), The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1914, 51) and the feature-length The Wizard of Oz (1925, 72 minutes) are all accompanied by a stereo musical score. The Wizard of Oz (1933) is an eight-minute Technicolor cartoon in a four-corner windowboxed "postage stamp" presentation. Watching them all, we can see the different influences that helped to shape the most famous version of this story.
The Dreamer of Oz, "Victor Fleming, Master Craftsman," "Hollywood Celebrates Its Biggest Little Stars," The Magic Cloak of Oz, The Patchwork Girl of Oz and the Sing-Along Track are all making their first home video appearance in the Ultimate Collector's Edition. Also exclusive to this numbered boxed set are a host of premium chatchkes: a Wizard of Oz wristwatch in a matching tin; Behind the Curtain, a hardbound book of photos, memos and script pages, some never before seen; and reproductions of archival materials, namely a master copy of the film's budget and the legendary "Campaign Book." Only on Blu-ray is a high-def remastered version of the extended "If I Only Had a Brain" performance by Ray Bolger, and only in the Blu-ray set (not in the DVD edition) is the six-hour-and-six-minute When the Lion Roars documentary hosted by Patrick Stewart, all about the rise and fall of MGM. It's presented on Disc Three, a two-sided standard-def DVD.
Disc Four is a Digital Copy of The Wizard of Oz for iTunes and Windows Media, so we never have to be far from Dot and her posse. Disc One is also BD-Live-enabled.
Final Thoughts
Certain movies never go out of style, charming when we were kids and a treasure we want to share with our own children and beyond, generations later. I could try and explain why The Wizard of Oz is a near-perfect film, but better that you watch it--ideally on Blu-ray--to reacquaint yourself.
Product Details
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