With the holidays upon us, every classic movie fan has their
own favorite seasonal film that they like to watch over and over again—
Miracle on 34th Street (1947),
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946),
The Bishop’s Wife (1947), etc.
Many of the movies will be the focus of a
blogathon
from December 20-22 over at
Family Friendly Reviews,
with
Thrilling Days of Yesteryear
participating with one of my favorites,
The
Lemon Drop Kid (1951) on the 21st.
Meanwhile, at the ClassicFlix page on Facebook, we (I’m using the
editorial we) are currently running a “12 Days of Christmas DVD” contest that
is giving out free swag like copies of
The
Man Who Came to Dinner (1941) and
A
Christmas Carol (1951).
To me, it’s
just not the holiday season without the umpteenth rerun of
Miracle or
Life (both of
which I faithfully watch every year)…or a true feature film classic,
The Wizard of Oz (1939).
I know it’s seems a little odd to include
Wizard of Oz as a Christmas film—the subject
isn’t even addressed during the picture’s running time, and the movie that
would eventually become a family favorite was actually released at the end of
August in 1939 (but then again,
34th
Street premiered in May the year it was released); it was CBS-TV that was
responsible for bestowing holiday tradition status on the film when it repeated
the movie in December 1959 after its initial showing on November 3, 1956.
This year,
Oz is scheduled for back-to-back showings on TNT on December 21 at
7 and 9:15pm, with an encore the next day at 1pm.
A month or two ago, Tracey Hulstein at Chicago Review Press
was kind enough to send me a gratis copy of Aljean Harmetz’s
The
Making of The Wizard of Oz, first
published in 1977 and later updated in 1989.
Its newest printing is to take advantage of
the movie’s 75th anniversary next year (and is being released with the diamond
anniversary re-issue of the movie on DVD), and though I was a little hesitant
about reading the book (I never seem to have enough time to sit down and
actually read all that often) I found Harmetz’s book to be a complete joy.
Aljean covers the history of the movie’s production (#1060)
in meticulous detail: the casting, the scripting, the songwriting, the staging, the
behind-the-scenes assembly of props, costumes, etc.
What I enjoyed most about the book is that
Harmetz demonstrates a nice sense of perspective when discussing how
Oz took shape—how Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, “the
Tiffany’s of film studios,” may have been run like a nightmarish auto assembly
plant but that they nevertheless made motion pictures to be proud of, and the
people employed there were fiercely dedicated to what they were doing.
The author was also fortunate in that a few
of the cast and crew (Margaret Hamilton, Jack Haley and Ray Bolger were still
with us at the time she was assembling the book) were on hand to offer their
unique insights on the making of this one-of-a-kind family favorite (Hamilton,
a.k.a. “The Wicked Witch of the West,” provides a foreword to the book).
Many times Harmetz relates several viewpoints
(a la
Rashomon); for example, till
their dying days both Mervyn LeRoy and Arthur Freed claimed that they were the
one responsible for suggesting L. Frank Baum’s book to L.B. Mayer as a movie.
When the Classic Movie Blog Association made preparations
for their recent
Film Passion 101 blogathon, I seriously considered tackling
Wizard of Oz as my entry—but then I
figured someone else might want to do it, so I went with “the monkey movie”
instead.
But
Oz played a very important role in my love of classic films much
more than a lot of movies I watched at that stage of the game; I always looked
forward to seeing it every year (even though I knew the doggone thing by heart)
and if I’m able to wrest the television away from the ‘rents I’ll gladly sit
through it again—particularly if my niece Rachel is there to watch it with
me.
(The picture on the left is her masquerading as
Dorothy for Halloween in 2009.)
(Actually, I can put the film on any time I
want—I own a big honkin’ Region 2 set that I bought because it was actually
priced lower than the comparable Region 1.)
Danny Peary once posited in
Cult
Movies that just about every U.S. film produced since
Oz’s 1939 release references it in some
way—from A (
Alice Doesn’t Live Here
Anymore) to Z (
Zardoz, of
course)—and I’m not sure he’s completely wrong on that score.
So I’d definitely recommend
The Making
of The Wizard of Oz to both the
casual fan and true Oz devotee, and since it’s become a holiday favorite by
default, putting a copy of the book under someone’s tree would be a nice
gesture on anyone’s part.
(Don’t tell
anyone, but I’m sticking one in Rachel’s stocking this year.)
Thanks again to Tracey and the gang at CRP
for letting me review the book.
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