The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musicalfantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and the most well-known and commercially successful adaptation based on the 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Ozby L. Frank Baum. The film stars Judy Garland; Terry the dog, billed as Toto; Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Bert Lahr, Frank Morgan,Billie Burke, Margaret Hamilton, with Charley Grapewin and Clara Blandick, and the Singer Midgets as the Munchkins, with Pat Walsheas leader of the flying monkeys. Notable for its use of Technicolor, fantasy storytelling, musical score and unusual characters, over the years it has become one of the best known of all films and part of American popular culture. It also featured in cinema what may be for the time the most elaborate use of character make-ups and special effects. It was not a box office success on its initial release, earning only $3,017,000 on a $2,777,000 budget, despite receiving largely positive reviews. The film was MGMs most expensive production at that time, and did not recoup much of the studios investment until subsequent re-releases. It was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture but lost to Gone with the Wind. It did win in two other categories including Best Original Song for Over the Rainbow. The song was ranked first in two lists: the AFIs 100 Years...100 Songs and theRecording Industry Association of Americas 365 Songs of the Century. The 1956 Television broadcast of the film re-introduced the film to the public that eventually made it an annual tradition staple and one of the most known films in cinema history. The film was named the most viewed motion picture on television syndication in history by the Library of Congress who also included the film in itsNational Film Registry in its inaugural year in 1989. Designation on the registry calls for efforts to preserve it for being culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant. It is often included in the Top 10 Best Movies of All Time by critics and public polls. It is the source of many quotes referenced in modernpopular culture. It was directed primarily byVictor Fleming (who left production to take over direction on the troubled Gone With the Wind production). Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, but there were uncredited contributions by others. The songs were by Edgar Yip Harburg (lyrics) and Harold Arlen (music). The incidental music, based largely on the songs, was composed by Herbert Stothart, with interspersed renderings from classical composers. The film starts in sepia-tinted Kansas in the early 1900s. Dorothy Gale lives with her dogToto on the farm of her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry. Dorothy and Toto get in trouble with a cruel neighbor, Miss Almira Gulch, when Toto bites her. Dorothys family and the farmhands are all too busy to pay attention to her. Miss Gulch arrives with permission from the sheriff to have Toto be euthanized. He is taken away, but escapes and returns to Dorothy; she decides to run away from home with Toto to escape Miss Gulch. They meet Professor Marvel, a phony fortune teller, who realizes Dorothy has run away and tricks her via his crystal ball into believing that her aunt is ill. She races home as a powerful tornadodevelops. Unable to get into the storm cellar, she seeks safety in her bedroom. A wind-blown window sash hits her head and she falls unconscious on her bed. She wakes to find the house spinning in the air, held aloft by the twister. In the storm outside the window she sees Miss Gulch pedaling her bicycle, who transforms into a cackling witch flying on a broomstick. The farm house crashes in Munchkinland in the world of Oz, where the film changes to Technicolor. Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, and the Munchkins, welcome her as a heroine because the house has landed on and killed the Wicked Witch of the East, leaving only her feet exposed. Her sister, the Wicked Witch of the West, arrives to claim the magic ruby slippers worn on her sisters feet. Glinda transfers them off her feet to Dorothys feet instead. The Witch of the West swears revenge on Dorothy and Toto for her sisters death. Glinda tells Dorothy to follow theyellow brick road to the Emerald City, where the Wizard of Oz might be able to help her get back home. On her way to the Emerald City, Dorothy meets and befriends the Scarecrow who wants a brain, the Tin Woodsman who desires a heart, and the Cowardly Lion who is in need of courage. Their faces resemble the farmhands. They join Dorothy to ask the Wizard for their respective consciously declared quality: brain, heart, and courage. They meet the Wizard (in the form of a flaming head) who agrees to grant their wishes when they bring him the Witch of the Wests broom. On their quest to the Witchs castle, they exhibit what they seek. The Witchs flying monkeys ambush the four and capture Dorothy and Toto. At the castle, the Witch again fails to get the slippers due to a magical barrier, and remembers Dorothy first has to be killed. Toto escapes and leads her friends to the castle. After defeating three Winkie Guards and stealing their uniforms, they march inside and free her, but the Witch and her guards eventually trap them. After she sets fire to the Scarecrow, Dorothy instinctively splashes a bucket of water on the flames; the Witch is also hit by it and melts. The guards unexpectedly rejoice now that she is dead, and they give Dorothy the charred broom in gratitude. Back at the Emerald City, the Wizard refuses to grant their wishes, and Toto exposes the Wizard as a normal middle-aged man (who resembles Professor Marvel) that has been operating and controlling the wizard; he admits to being a humbug. He then grants their wishes by giving the Scarecrow adiploma, the Lion a medal, and the Tin Man a heart-shaped pocket watch, and that is enough to convince themselves that what they sought has been achieved. He then prepares to get Dorothy home in his hot air balloon, and Toto runs away, Dorothy follows, and it leaves without her. Glinda soon arrives and tells her that she can still return home by tapping her heels together three times and repeating, Theres no place like home. She returns home coming to consciousness on her bed surrounded by her family, the farmhands and Professor Marvel, and Toto as well.
Posted on: Tue, 28 Oct 2014 13:24:54 +0000
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