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Avg. Rating: 4.63
An OZ-some DVD Experience
Like most baby boomers, I've watched this film dozens of times in the past on broadcast TV, then VHS tape, then LaserDisc ... but I had never actually SEEN "The Wizard of Oz" until this newly restored DVD came out. It's an amazing transfer. The sepia-tone Kansas sequences are startlingly sharp and clear, and the Technicolored world "Over the Rainbow" is truly dazzling. I found myself fascinated by details I had never noticed before: the glittering corn stalks in the Scarecrow's field; the mirror-like floors of the Emerald City; the polished buttons on the guardsmen's uniforms. Incredibly, even the individual grains of red sand in the Witch's hourglass stood out and glistened! All these minor-but-sumptuous visual details served to heighten the magical spell that the film has always woven, enhancing the performances, the story, and the music. The DVD extras are a mind-boggling embarrassment of riches. The "Making Of" documentary hosted by the incomparable Angela Lansbury is worth the price of the DVD alone, but there's so much more: an international poster gallery, interviews with cast members, deleted scenes, production stills, radio clips, etc, etc. There's enough material to keep even the most casual viewer fascinated for hours, and a true Oz buff will be occupied for days! If you only bought a DVD player to watch this one disc, it would well be worth the expense. Treat yourself, and fall in love with this classic film again ... for the first time.
Best movie from 1939
I love the Wizard of Oz, started watching it when I was a child when CBS used to show it on TV and it was a treasured yearly tradition for many children and their parents, I believe CBS showed it every Easter, they had it on or many years and I was disappointed when they stopped showing it, I bought the movie on video when CBS stopped showing it and now I'm happy to have this classic on DVD which is fantastic and the only complaint I have is that it comes in a flimsy easy to crush cardboard snap case and not a sturdy plastic keep case, I mean doesn't a classsic like The Wizard of Oz deserve a sturdy keep case? I have seen modern day movies that got bashed by the professional critics and did poorly in the box office that have sturdy keep cases and that just makes no sense! The Wizard of OZ in my opinion is the best movie from 1939 and Judy Garland was just amazing as Dorothy and Ray Bolger and the rest of the cast were also great, and Toto, Dorothy's Cairn Terrier dog was adorable! The DVD has some amazing extras and I just very highly recommend this awesome DVD!
The Wonderful Movie of Oz
I have been enchanted as I now watch the movie as an adult. It is not just a story about a girl from Kansas trying to get back home - actually, that was added into the movie: "There's no place like home" wasn't in the book even. I think it was a story of things that we want, and that we imagine these things may be granted by the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The scarecrow wants a brain, the tinman a heart, and the lion courage. On their journey off to see the wizard, they encounter the wicked witch of the west - who is determined to get the ruby slippers off of Dorothy's feet. Now, the thing I am puzzled by is at the beginning, Glinda is the one who reminds the wicked witch about the shoes. Then she is the one who places them on Dorothy's feet: "There they are and there they'll stay." Had she not had the shoes, her journey to the wizard would not have been so troublesome. Not to mention that the "good witch" sent Dorothy on a journey to a phony wizard. I wonder now if there was some kind of irony in that - since she was also the one who in the end tells Dorothy that all she has to do is click her heels together and say "there 's no place like home." While the movie is totally a classic I love and will watch over and over again, I am wondering about the book: Were the "ruby slippers" (which were silver in the novel) as magical - and - if there was no "no place like home" in the novel then I am wondering how Dorothy got back to Kansas. I think that because each time I watch this film I realize something new, it will always remain one of my favorite movies ever.
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