The Wizard of Oz

Watching the original version of The Wizard of Oz, in all of it's Technicolor© glory, is quite a strange experience in your mid-twenties. Sure, I remember the story (wicked witch, crazy chick in a tornado, lots of little munchkins), but the details are both fascinating and kind of disturbing.

Last weekend, one of our first stay-in-London weekends in quite some time, we went to the Prince Charles' Cinema with some friends. In the "Upstairs" part of the theatre, they have new releases, while "Downstairs" they show lots of movies that aren't running elsewhere for super cheap.

There were a few general things that struck me while watching The Wizard of Oz. First, for a movie release in 1939, this film has some fantastic production value and staying power. Second, after having seen Wicked (but not read the book yet), my whole world view of The Wizard of Oz is completely skewed. And finally, a whole lot of this movie is quite campy - the theatre cracked up during the munchkins scene, and just about every time the Cowardly Lion opened his jaws.

The details that I had forgotten, or never saw in the first place, were what really stuck out watching on the big screen.

• After the wizard demands that the group bring back the broomstick of the wicked witch, the scarecrow somehow comes up with a gun. A gun?!? What kind of message is that in a land 'over the rainbow'?
• The Scarecrow - immediately after being granted his Diploma - states "The sum of the square of any two sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square of the remaining side." WRONG! C'mon, we all know that the Pythagorean Theorem only applies to right triangles, not isosceles.
• The cables holding up the Lion's tail, or carrying the flying monkeys, are something you really only see on the big screen. I'm sure the 'digitally remastered' version has photoshopped those out, but it carries a certain spark of realism and grounds the movie into the era in which it was made.
  

In any case, it was a lovely day out and a fun way to spend time on a lazy Saturday afternoon.