The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Directed by Victor Fleming
Written by Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, Edgar Allen Woolf
Starring Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Burt Lahr, Jack Haley
Release Date August 25th 1939
Published September 25th, 2023
The Wizard of Oz is a rich template for movie makers past and present. It's a movie that created a dynamic that became the model for thousands of movies that followed it. Movies that you would never assume have a connection to The Wizard of Oz are in many unique ways connected back to Victor Fleming's wildly imaginative, influential and generationally beloved adventure. In 2022, an entire documentary was released that charted the many ways David Lynch movies were influenced by Lynch's unending fascination with The Wizard of Oz. That's how wildly influential and groundbreaking The Wizard of Oz was and is more than 80 years later.
Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland) is a sheltered child living in Kansas on a farm that seems days away from any neighbor or civilized area. It's close enough for her to attend school and for her to cross paths with a vile neighbor named Almira Gulch (Margaret Hamilton). Ms. Gulch claims that Dorothy's beloved Dog Toto chased her cat and bit her. She has talked to the local sheriff and intends to take Toto to be euthanized. Toto manages to escape and return to Dorothy and the two make a run for it, running away from the only life Dorothy has ever known.
Find my full length review at Geeks.Media
