The Wizard Of Oz

Victor Fleming, USA 1939, 101 minutes

For those of you who have not seen The Wizard Of Oz and did not spend your childhoods skipping around singing that you were "off to see the Wizard" a swift plot recap follows. Dorothy (Judy Garland) lives in and hates boring black-and-white Kansas until one day she and her house and her little dog Toto get swept away in a hurricane and transported to the magical land of Oz (in glorious Technicolor) where Dorothy decides that there's no place like home and she actually wants to be back in Kansas with her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry and therefore has to journey to find the famous Wizard of Oz who will be able to send her back.

About as kitsch as Abba's wardrobe and as sickly as a box of eclairs, The Wizard Of Oz has unmistakably become one of the cult classic films of world cinema ever. Quite why it is so popular is difficult to define. Made in 1939 and shown worldwide during the Second World War many critics have argued that the film's initial success was due to the fact that the theme of longing to go home and be secure struck a chord with many people in a world undergoing traumatic upheaval and mass movements of refugees. However it is still popular today. Perhaps its present revival can be solely seen as part of the whole fashion for kitsch at the moment but maybe The Wizard Of Oz's enduring success should be attributed to its merits. The songs are catchy. The sets are imaginative. The performances are infectiously enthusiastic. The plot keeps moving. And Toto is an inspiration for us all.

"There will never be another movie like The Wizard Of Oz. They can't make 'em like this any more *****" - Virgin

Review by Alicia Forsyth
Taken from EUFS Programme 1996-97