By Travis Mullis
The 85th anniversary of the world premiere of The Wizard of Oz is fast approaching. Join cinephiles of all ages at The Independent Picture House, which will show the classic Aug. 10-15. The first screening, at 10 am on Saturday, Aug. 10, will serve as a substitute for the usual monthly cartoons and is free to attend. Bring the kids and enjoy milk and cookies with a timeless classic that is even better on the big screen. The final screening, at 7 pm on Thursday, Aug. 15, will feature a talkback with Dina Massachi, project director of CharlOz.
As hard as it is to believe, The Wizard of Oz wasn’t exactly well received when it was released into theaters in 1939. In August 1939, critic Russell Maloney wrote in The New Yorker:
I sat cringing before M-G-M’s Technicolor production of “The Wizard of Oz,” which displays no trace of imagination, good taste, or ingenuity. I will rest my case against “The Wizard of Oz” on one line of dialogue…whereupon the wicked witch snarls, “You keep out of this!” Well, there it is. Either you believe witches talk like that, or you don’t. I don’t. Since “The Wizard of Oz” is full of stuff as bad as that, or worse, I say it’s a stinkeroo.
Similarly, here is Otis Ferguson writing about the film in The New Republic:
The Wizard of Oz was intended to hit the same audience as Snow White, and won’t fail for lack of trying. It has dwarfs, music, technicolor, freak characters and Judy Garland. It can’t be expected to have a sense of humor as well — and as for the light touch of fantasy, it weighs like a pound of fruitcake soaking wet.
With reviews like that, it isn’t surprising the film wasn’t a financial success until it was re-released in theaters in 1949. It has since become a staple of American childhood, a rite of passage for most as they grow older and their parents seek to show them the great films that they enjoyed growing up. Ruby slippers, the Wicked Witch, the yellow brick road, those creepy flying monkeys, “there’s no place like home.” It is a rare film that becomes imprinted on the collective psyche of a country. And it wasn’t just America. Author Salman Rushdie, who grew up in India, recalls watching The Wizard of Oz as one of the great artistic experiences of his life, a western, big-budget production equivalent to the Hindu epics so popular in Bollywood.
L. Frank Baum, who wrote the book on which the film is based, had decidedly mixed results as an author, but The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was both a critical and financial hit. He would go on to acquire and subsequently lose several fortunes through risky schemes and bad investments. The first attempt to make the book into a film came in 1925 with Larry Semon’s silent film production that flopped upon release but intriguingly starred Oliver Hardy as the Tin Woodman. It wasn’t until the 1938 release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves that studios once again clamored to get the children’s literature classic back on the big screen in hopes that it would duplicate the success of Walt Disney’s first feature-length animated film.
What made those unenthused critics turn up their noses back in 1939 is why The Wizard of Oz has endured for 85 years. The fantastical vision of a young heroine overcoming obstacles in vivid Technicolor while musical numbers pour forth from the mouths of Judy Garland and company is the stuff of dreams to an 8 year old. Miss Gulch and her Oz equivalent, the Wicked Witch of the West, is every mean adult that kids come to hate from their school days, family reunions or neighborhood streets. All Dorothy Gale wants to do is get home to her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry, again a powerful sentiment for a child and no less appealing to most adults.
I remember being in love simply with the look of it all — Oz, the multicolored Munchkinland, the vivid green modernity of Emerald City. Even the grays and browns of the Winkie Country, the domain of the Wicked Witch of the West, have the surreal feel and energy that only film can impart.
Would it be possible to count the number of children who have been scared witless by the image of those flying monkeys as they wing and march their way through the film at the beck and call of their tyrannical leader? I made sure my windows were locked tight every night for years just to make sure one couldn’t find its way from Oz into my bedroom in South Charlotte to get me as I slept. And all these years later I can still almost instantly conjure up the music. Somewhere over the rainbow is just where most of us would rather be when the days get long, adulthood creeps in and life begins to take a decidedly less whimsical turn.
My son, Guillermo, is about to turn four in a few months and isn’t quite ready for The Wizard of Oz, but in a few years I look forward to showing him the film that has done so much to shape the imagination and sentiments of generations of children before him. I only wish he were a little older, so that I could take him to The Independent Picture House to see it in a theater packed with other children and parents all waiting for that moment when the black and white of Kansas turns to the Technicolor dream that is Oz. As much as Dorothy wants to get home to Kansas, it’s also important to remember just how powerful the pull to get away is to all of us. We all want to escape. Soon you too can escape for 102 minutes to a place where the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.