Wizard of Oz

The following review appeared at a different epinions location which eventually seemed buried--never receiving details, price comparisons, nor other reviews, and finally losing the DVD cover photo. I relocated to this more appropriate URL--and took the opportunity to make a number of revisions. I primarily consider the 2005 "Ultra Resolution" transfer in the two-disc "Special Edition" (UPC 012569675360) pictured here, making essential comparisons with the one-disc 1999 "Special Edition" transfer. The three-disc "Collector's Edition"--to which the prinicipal listed UPC code refers--is the same transfer, the third disc containing more extras. Full data about disc contents of the 2005 sets can be found at the official site: http://thewizardofoz.warnerbros.com

In case the reader has just become acquainted with American culture and hasn't been inculcated with this particular piece of apple pie, the plot of "The Wizard of Oz" goes something like this (the details are from the children's book by L. Frank Baum: changes for the film are discussed below). Dorothy Gale, a young girl living on a poor farm with her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry in rural Kansas, is swept away by a cyclone (properly described as a tornado) with her tiny dog Toto--in her house no less--to the fairy-tale land of Oz, which is presided over by witches--both good and bad, talking animals, flying monkeys, and similar characters. In the process of her arrival, her house lands on, and pulverizes, the Wicked Witch of the East, oppressor of Munchkinland--Munchkins being small, colorful beings. Hailed as their heroine, she receives the magic silver shoes ("ruby slippers" in the film, see below) that were formerly the property of the deceased witch. Wishing to go home, she is counseled by the Good Witch of the North that she should follow the yellow brick road to the Emerald City where she must ask the mysterious Wizard of Oz for help. Along the journey, she meets a living Scarecrow in need of a brain, a Tin Woodman in need of a heart, and a talking Lion in need of courage; they join forces and proceed to the Emerald City. When the Wizard agrees to help them on the condition that they kill the Wicked Witch of the West--even nastier than her deceased east-coast sibling, they warily comply and, almost getting killed themselves in the process, succeed. The Wizard turns out to be a fraud who placates the Oz characters with odd trinkets but is unable to help Dorothy get home. It turns out that, as Glinda the Good Witch of the South informs her, the enchanted silver shoes have the power to transport her back to Kansas. The End.

For a Hollywood enterprise of that era, the film stays remarkably close to the original book, although many details, characters, and subplots are omitted or telescoped, while a few new elements are added. The trip to Oz is now Dorothy's fever-dream after a blow to the head from a window that flies off its hinges during the cyclone. It is part of a framing story filmed in sepia-tinted black and white--a deliberate contrast with the Technicolor Oz--where most of the Oz characters have analogous counterparts in Dorothy's Kansas life: Miss Gulch/the Witch, three farmhands/Dorothy's companions, Professor Marvel/the Wizard. Also added is a revenge subplot in which the Western Witch stalks Dorothy for causing the death of her sister and for taking the magic footwear--which the film changes from silver to ruby because red was more impressive in Technicolor; they are also called "slippers" rather than "shoes" in the film, though they are clearly red-sequined pumps. The Wizard's payment for helping the needy quartet is softened from "killing" the Wicked Witch of the West to "bringing [him] her broomstick," which amounts to the same thing, as is pointed out by the Tin Woodman: "But if we did that, we'd have to kill her to get it." The Good Witch of the North is a kindly old lady in the book who appears only at Dorothy's arrival in Munchkinland; in the movie she is conflated with the young and attractive Glinda, Good Witch of the South. The melding of the two good witches presents a real dilemma when it is the same character who reappears near the end of the film and casually tells Dorothy that she "always had the power to return to Kansas," after Dorothy and her cohorts were nearly liquidated by the Wicked Witch of the West in their attempt to satisfy the terms of the phony Wizard's bargain; she adds the weak excuse that Dorothy wouldn't have believed her earlier. The film's "Glinda the Good Witch of the North" therefore just seems manipulative and irresponsible at that point--in a way, as cruel as the more forthright wicked witches. It sorely taxes one's suspension of disbelief that Dorothy and her beleaguered friends don't assault her bodily at that moment. Moreover, the hackneyed "no place like home" homily that Glinda presents is completely at odds with Dorothy's real need to escape from an unpleasant existence in search of something better. As author Salman Rushdie pointed out in his monograph on Oz, the desire expressed so plaintively in "Over the Rainbow" is far truer and completely outweighs the desire to return to a thankless and oppressive "home," a cliche doubtless added in one of the film's many rewrites. It also negates Baum's idea that fantasy and travel expand the mind and spirit: Baum has Dorothy returning to Oz throughout his series of children's books, eventually even bringing Aunt Em and Uncle Henry with her. It was not intended to be a fever-dream.

"The Wizard of Oz" is a monument to Hollywood's idealization of the American myth; and thanks to strategic annual CBS broadcasts beginning in the 1950s that became a tradition in the 1960s, it is indelibly etched in the psyches of most baby boomers. Judy Garland's legendary Dorothy projects an admirable conviction but her palpable wistfulness, pathos, insight, and size are a little unbelievable for a child--especially in Technicolor lipstick, the customary use of adolescents to play children notwithstanding. Anyway, the book is very clear that Dorothy is a happy kid, contrasted with her aunt and uncle, whose hard lives of poverty on a subsistence farm have made them old prematurely, and who never smile. I find the most energetic and natural performances to be Bert Lahr's priceless vaudevillian Lion, Margaret Hamilton's iconic Witch, and Clara Blandick's high-strung, overworked, yet compassionate Aunt Em, who rings true as a farmer's wife trying to survive during the Great Depression, though the farm depicted, complete with hired hands, is luxurious compared with the plight of Em and Henry in the book.

Margaret Hamilton is not given credit for her *third* part: the Wicked Witch of the *East* into whom the disagreeable Miss Gulch of the framing story metamorphoses outside the sepia-tinted window of the airborne house--*not* into the Western Witch, as most people assume: you can see those ruby shoes sparkling on her feet as she rides her broom. WWW--as Miss Hamilton was fond of signing her autographs--only gets wind of sis' untimely demise fifteen minutes later and arrives in Munchkinland wearing black shoes. It makes sense: a witch traveling so close to an airborne house logically would be the one who ends up under it. Of course, this skews the framing story a bit when it's the admittedly identical-looking WWW (maybe the sisters were twins) with whom Dorothy must contend in Oz rather than Miss Gulch's actual Oz counterpart who was dispatched early on. It does, however, give WWW her revenge motivation that allows us to see a lot more of Margaret Hamilton's delicious performance (WWW has a very small role in Baum's story)--even though a fair amount was cut after the preview (she was too scary for the kids in the audience, including a member of Baum's family), making a few of her lines and actions puzzling in the final cut.

Both the one-disc 1999 "Special Edition"--now discontinued as I indicated, but usually not difficult to find on ebay or from third-party amazon.com sellers--and the 2005 transfer that appears in the two- and three-disc sets are restorations from the best surviving film elements: the camera negative preserved in the George Eastman House. Using cutting-edge digital technology, the three Technicolor strips were aligned for optimal focus and the ravages of time were reversed with great care--twice. Decisions about color, contrast, and framing differed between 1999 and 2005 transfers even though many of the same people worked on both.

The 2005 results are extremely lush, visually striking, and opulent, perhaps to a greater degree than the film makers considered. But there are trade-offs compared with the 1999 transfer. The highly colored and contrasted picture obscures some details compared with the brighter, sharper, if less colorful, 1999 transfer. The sepia-tinted black & white opening and closing scenes have noticeable grain and flicker in the 2005 edition. One shouldn't replace the 1999 DVD under the mistaken assumption that the 2005 version is superior; the 2005 edition should be an addition if desired. The 2005 restoration is more "eye-popping" but the 1999 release reveals more detail. Warner claims that film shrinkage at unequal rates over time caused some color-strip misalignment in the 1999 restoration. In 2005, shrinkage was computer-corrected for purportedly more perfect alignment. However, I see no evidence of the problem in the 1999 transfer, which may only seem a trifle subdued when held up against the glowingly colorful 2005 version, and it is impossible to say which was intended. Warner's claims of problems with the 1999 transfer sounds more like pitching another copy to consumers; after all, they were very proud of it until 2005.

The sepia tinting of the black & white Kansas scenes is too orange in both 1999 and 2005 transfers. The restorers really needed to look no further than the film itself for the proper shade: when Aunt Em is seen in the Witch's crystal ball, we are immediately shown the pale brown intended for the sepia opening and closing scenes. It is dreary and unappetizing, demonstrating with its actual tone and texture, the aridity and isolation of the terrain and Dorothy's Kansas life; it would also have provided the greatest possible contrast with the Technicolor Oz had the transfer colorists noticed the obvious clue. The sepia tones used in the Warner DVDs are quaint rather than drab and depressing. The best sepia choice that I have encountered appears in the unrestored 1989 MGM/UA 50th Anniversary VHS. In addition, compared to the Warner transfers, the long-gone 1998 MGM/UA pre-restoration DVD had a much more subdued orange cast in the sepia of the Kansas scenes and *more* orange in the sepia Aunt Em that we see in WWW's crystal ball, so they match. On the other hand, only *one* video/DVD has ever convincingly matched the genuine Kansas sepia with the sepia-painted, color-photographed door that provides the transition to Technicolor Oz: the 1999 version makes that door, wall, Dorothy's gingham dress and elbow look like sepia-tinted black & white; all other versions, including the 2005 restoration, render an obviously sepia-painted door and wall, a brown-colored gingham dress, and a clearly flesh-colored elbow. The 1999 version is the only one that truly impressed me with an astounding contrast as Dorothy opens the door. "Stencil printing"--each frame tinted sepia by hand at that point in addition to the sepia-colored door, wall, and dress--was the process used to create the effect in 1939; it was revived for the 1999 DVD transfer. It must have made the original audience gasp, as I did when I saw the 1999 edition after viewing this film throughout a lifetime. It is unfortunate that the process was not reused in 2005.

The 5.1 soundtrack for the 2005 transfer was prepared from original elements recorded with microphones placed in different locations during the filming: dialogue, two orchestral angles, and a sound effects track, so nothing has been created from whole cloth. It's the same 5.1 sound created for the 1999 restoration--see article dealing with the restoration for a 1998 theatrical re-release at http://www.seneschal.net/papers/wizrerelease.htm. More importantly, the original monophonic soundtrack is included in the 2005 version, accessed through the "Special Features" menu; it was inexplicably absent from the 1999 transfer despite its listing on the box, with only a newly-created 5.1 track on the disc.

I would also caution that even the mono track on the 2005 version is not entirely original. In 1998, when that re-channeled stereo sound track was created for a Warner theatrical reissue, some small "corrections" to actual content were made: see the same article cited above. Although these changes were intended only for that reissue, a few edits found a permanent home on DVD--both the 1999 and 2005 versions: e.g., Dorothy now only whimpers "Oh Toto" rather than "Oh Toto, Toto" when the dog is placed in Miss Gulch's basket. In this instance, the 1998 engineers perplexingly heard the line as "Oh To, oh Toto" instead of "Oh Toto, Toto" and believed it to be a bad edit, so they deleted the first two syllables--and they have never been restored (nor do I believe they will be). Another fragment of our cultural history is thus sadly chipped away as a distortion replaces a fact. To hear the unedited original sound track, one must find out-of-print pre-Warner versions: the 1998 MGM/UA DVD or earlier VHS tapes.

One last observation, but an important one: TV overscanning crops all images by 5% or more on all sides. If overscanning is overcome on the TV or DVD player (the old Toshiba players like the SD-1800, SD-3950, and SD-4900 had "shrink" features for this purpose), then one would expect to see the entire original image. With the 1999 edition, this was true. But in the 2005 transfer, Warner has zoomed the image very slightly, making everything in the frame minimally larger; the result is that, unlike the 1999 transfer, the edges are slightly cropped even without overscanning. Many companies are remastering old films with this zooming/cropping procedure nowadays, perhaps because they think buyers subliminally prefer larger images on a screen when widescreen is not an option. Yet most people would never notice the difference. Another possible reason for the zooming/cropping is that a larger image spread over a few more scan lines or pixels creates slightly better resolution artificially. It's not worth lost edge information, especially if it means tampering with a classic. Typically, the titles are *reduced* in size to the original frame dimensions so no text is lost. At least the film remains in the same 1.37:1 aspect ratio so nothing needs to be reframed. (An example to the contrary is Universal's recent "75th Anniversary" edition of the famous 1931 DRACULA with Bela Lugosi: filmed in the early-talkie squarer aspect ratio of 1.19:1, it has always been blown-up with its edges severely cropped to fit a 1.33:1 frame, and further new enlargement and cropping brings an otherwise good-looking transfer even farther from what was originally seen.) Still, it is all unnecessary and more than a little historically questionable.

On two or three discs, the 2005 edition has additional extras, some of which bear repeated viewings. The three-disc Collector's Edition is only for the most dedicated, as the third disc consists principally of the early silent Oz films, which are difficult to watch even once, let alone repeatedly. The 1910 and 1914 films are in very poor condition; I am surprised that Warner made no effort at restoration, or even tinting; one can get these films on cheap labels like Brentwood for $3. The least faithful to the Baum books, and the worst, though obviously the most expensive of all the silent versions, is the 1925 film on which Warner/Turner lavished the most attention and restoration, even having a new orchestral score composed for it. The restoration work is brilliant but the film itself is dreadful: not only does it have little to do with Baum, but it is very unpleasant, and it showcases the period's repugnant racist stereotyping. Ted Eshbaugh's 1933 Oz cartoon--the first to present a black & white Kansas and Technicolor Oz--has very inventive, fascinating imagery but the last three minutes of the eight-minute animation stray into generic period cartoon material unrelated to Oz. There are brief clips from these films on the single 1999 DVD that are generally enough for reference in most cases, but everyone has different requirements. The substance of the 27-minute Baum bio, also on the third disc, is covered in the documentaries on the 1999 disc and 2005 two-disc set. The three-disc Collector's Edition is lavishly presented, and comes with reproductions of the program for the premiere, a twelve-page in-house newspaper, excellent-quality color reproductions of lobby photos, and other materials. Because it includes all these "collectibles," it is twice as expensive as the two-disc Special Edition, and has a more limited audience.

The two-disc version contains many of the same extras as the 1999 single-disc edition. Both have: [1] Deleted scenes--fascinating as appendices, but their removal from the final film was wise, as their inclusion would have slowed it down badly. It is interesting that only the 1999 DVD uses a piano-accompanied rehearsal take for the audio of the "Jitterbug" number; all other versions, before and after 1999, have the actual deleted finished audio with orchestra. The video, in every case, is the same home-movie rehearsal footage shot on-set by Harold Arlen from behind a moving tree, as the real footage does not survive. [2] Chronological succession of trailers. Especially appalling is a 1998 reissue trailer with the upper and lower 15% matted out to simulate widescreen: the film was not actually shown like that in 1998, but it was subjected to this kind of vandalism for a 1955 theatrical reissue. [3] "Jukebox": audio clips from recording sessions. [4] a 1990 documentary narrated by Angela Lansbury: cloyingly sentimental in spots, but includes some good interview material in front of an audience with Margaret Hamilton and others. [5] Bits from the animated 1967 ABC-TV series "Off to See the Wizard." [6] Special effects footage about the creation of the cyclone [7] Photo galleries.

The 1999 edition has some extras *not* in the 2005 two-disc version: [1] Brief clips from the silent films and 1933 animated Oz. [2] Excerpts from one-on-one interviews with Margaret Hamilton, Ray Bolger, and Jack Haley from which audio fragments are incorporated into the 2005 commentary track.

New to the 2005 two-disc set are: [1] The monophonic soundtrack. [2] Comprehensive actor bios with clips of their other work, though Judy Garland's bio was too complex for inclusion. [3] A 2001 TCM documentary that uses clips from the 1999 restoration, unintentionally demonstrating how different it is--and preferable to many--from the 2005 transfer. [4] Angela Lansbury reading excerpts from the first Baum Oz book. [5] A history of the film's rise to mythic status as the result of cleverly timed annual CBS airings. [6] "Prettier than Ever": a brief piece of hype in which the restorers congratulate each other on their 2005 transfer. [7] Various film makers' and actors' ruminations on Oz. [8] The best extra: an extraordinarily informative and entertaining commentary track by film historian John Fricke containing material that would otherwise take a massive research effort to assemble. As indicated, it intercuts sound-only clips from the audio-video interviews with Hamilton, Bolger, and Haley on the 1999 disc, and better material with them as well as others, some of it in the 1990 documentary--at the expense, I was told, of considerably more information that Fricke originally recorded.

Incidentally, the film's running time is listed as 103 minutes in the 2005 edition; the 1999 DVD cites 101, but as the film really runs 101.5 minutes in all versions, a listing of 102 minutes would have been the most accurate, and is cited properly on the old MGM/UA DVD.

While I prefer the 1999 single-disc transfer--critics not often sharing my view, the 2005 two-disc set is valuable for the commentary, the mono sound track--even if it is not entirely accurate, and a number of new extras. If you already have the 1999 edition, you should certainly keep it, possibly as your primary version and supplemented by the 2005 version; and only if you are an absolute Oz completist should you consider lavishing over $40 on the three-disc "Collector's Edition." But if you don't have a DVD of this film, and don't want the silent versions or extended Baum biography in the three-DVD "Collector's Edition," the easily available two-disc "Special Edition" will be more than satisfactory.

--Robert E. Seletsky