in LIFE’s special edition on The Wizard of Oz Ask yourself: Who isn’t eager, at any moment, to soar with Dorothy over the rainbow and into the merry land of Oz. Once Dorothy alights in Munchkinland, the film bursts into riotous color and zips along like a Pixar cartoon epic-but with the very best songs. Modern viewers, whose main complaints about old movies are that they are too dark and too slow, needn’t adjust their eyes and clocks to The Wizard of Oz. Of all the estimable movies from Hollywood’s Golden Age, it is the one that has never gone out of fashion. 1, tied with The Godfather.ĭorothy may never escape Kansas, but moviegoers can always return to Oz. For instance: a People magazine poll of the century’s favorite movies rated The Wizard of Oz as No. In its day The Wizard of Oz was nominated for six Academy Awards, winning two, for Original Score and Original Song (yes, “Over the Rainbow.”) But what film needs Oscars when its award shelf keeps filling decades after its original release. We all sing “Over the Rainbow” to ourselves, but also: In England, when former prime minister Margaret Thatcher died in April 2013, her political detractors waged a campaign to propel “Ding-Dong! The Witch is Dead” to No. (Yip) Harburg’s songs have permanently nestled in every fan’s internal juke box. “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore ” “I’ll get you my pretty, and your little dog too ” and “There’s no place like home” were all included on the American Film Institute’s list of Top 100 movie quotes. Multiple generations, from toddler to centenarian, know the film’s dialogue by heart. Yet when most people hear The Wizard of Oz, their minds and hearts leap directly to the 1939 MGM film starring Judy Garland. Stage adaptations have included The Wiz, a black-cast Broadway musical, filmed in 1978 with Diana Ross as Dorothy, and Wicked, a revisionist tribute to the Wicked Witch of the West that has been enthralling audiences for a decade. In 1910 the first movie version of the story appeared, and another in 1925. Baum’s book, published in 1900, was a smash, generating scores of sequels and a traveling show.
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