The Wizard of Oz (1939)

The Wizard of Oz is a fantastical fever dream that deserves its monumental place in our collective cultural conscience. Inspired by the success of Walt Disney's Snow White from 1937, Oz was a critical and box office success upon release. It was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and won Best Original Song for "Over the Rainbow" and Best Original Score. However, the film cost an astronomical $2,777,000 not including marketing and made only $3,017,000. This meant MGM saw a loss on its initial theatrical run. Oz failed to make a profit for MGM until the 1949 re-release, whereby it began its journey into reaching the hearts of every person who found there to be no place like home. According to the Library of Congress, it is the most seen film in movie history.

The film is both beautiful and haunting. The central story of a child lost in a strange world strikes a chord with viewers that will forever be relevant and moving. And not to mention the production side which is almost unbelievable the scale of everything. The costumes, sets, colors, and performances are all amped-up to eleven in a way that makes the film a highly artifical fantasty that forces happiness on you; happiness is not a choice in this movie. Yet because everything is all on this same level it manages to feel comforting rather than disturbing. That is at least untill I started reading the behind the scenes stories about the horrors inflicted on the actors participating in the picture. From hotel orgies and asbestos props to horrible flesh searing scars and possible molestation, this film has its lions share of controversy. Reading these stories definitely turned my enjoyment of the film to a more haunting experience. Suddenly all the color and cheeriness turned into an eerie cover up hiding a sinister truth. I wouldn't say this ruined my enjoyment of the film so much as it provided a second layer to it.

Aside from that, Judy Garland is exceptional as Dorothy, being exactly what you would want in an innocent, fresh faced girl. I was shocked to see one of my favorite songs, Over the Rainbow came from this fricken movie, and the Witch was surprisingly enjoyable to watch as just a characature of the genre. It's also a perfect film to take this website into the beginning of the end of the American Studios' Golden Age, the 1940s.