Remembrances of The Wizard of Oz, from 1980s telecasts to IMAX 3D

 Next week comes a rerelease of one of the greatest films ever made-- The Wizard of Oz (1939). This film is considered a classic for many, and I think what makes it so wonderful goes far beyond the film, but the individual histories people have with it. A film that has been in living rooms for over 70 years in the form of broadcast and home video, I am sure that if 30 strangers sat in a circle and were asked to share their favorite memories of the film, everyone would be able to do it. This film and I go back to one of my first memories, honestly, and continued into adulthood. There are so many stories I could tell about this film, but I will only share some in the interest of trying not to bore readers. 

My first introduction to the Wizard of Oz wasn't the film at all, it was a teasing audio preview. A memory I have from when I was four was my sister and I having a collection of children's' audiocassettes and records. One of these was an audiocassette of a Disney Records storytelling of The Wizard of Oz, with songs from the film added in. I don't know how Disney and MGM came to an agreement to mix their worlds and release this, but I do vividly remember it. Last night I was doing a little eBay search for the item, and came across a picture of it. Here is an illegally ripped off photo of the item.

I don't know how I put it together as a four year old that this was a movie, but I really was invested in seeing it. Now the thing you have to know about me as a four year old was I was....a crier. I was the kid who cried at everything. So when my 17 year old cousin from Illinois brought over his VHS at my insistence, you can guess how well it went. I cried because the beginning of the movie was cut off and we were starting it after the opening titles (to be fair, watching a movie when it's already started still drives me nuts). I cried because I didn't understand why the beginning of the film was in black and white. I cried when the witch came on and with a loud puff of red smoke. Then I thought I was okay for a while, but started up again when the monkeys kidnapped Dorothy. And finally, when everything seemed normal, the movie was about to wrap up, and my cousin had taped over the end with a WWF wrestling match, which had led to, you guessed it, more crying. Can you imagine the patience of a 16 year old boy dealing with a chronic sobbing 4 year old boy? Wow, that is some love and dedication to be a good male role model to someone.

I doubt my parents would have let me watch the film again if they had seen the amount of meltdowns that had occurred, but for this I consider myself very grateful to the powers of the universe, because I truly did enjoy the film a lot. The colors, the songs, the special effects, the story, it was all too much to move on from. I also had a funny babysitter around this time who used to sing the Lollipop Guild in the voices of the actors to crack me up during bath time.

A few months later, I mustered up the courage-- I was going to watch this movie again and not cry. My friend from preschool and I were scheduled for a playdate and his mom took us to the video store to pick out movies. This was the title I requested, and I was filled with joy when it was granted without question. We went back to his house to watch, and the minute the Munchkin song came on, I plugged my ears, because I was not going to be freaked out by the evil witch this time. I made it through the rest of the film calmly and had become friends with what I viewed as one of the best films ever made (to be fair, at four, I only had seen about 30 movies, but I think I can stand by this choice).

Surreptitiously there was a big broadcast of the film in February 1990 on CBS. This would be the first time the film had been presented uncut on TV in many years, and would be preceded by an all-new documentary featuring Angela Lansbury. It was also the first time in many years the film would be presented with the opening and closing sequences in their original sepia tone, which had been in black and white for about 35 years. But to a five year old, this meant nothing. All I knew was my dad's stern warning that little boys who didn't take a bath didn't get to watch the Wizard of Oz! In all honesty, probably made it an hour and fell asleep.

In April 1992, I had an awful flu which led to being hospitalized for a week. Growing up in a strict Indian household, I actually really enjoyed being in a hospital where I could eat nothing but American food, watch cable television, and stay in a bed all day and night without anyone to bother me. I was seven years old. My mom, a physician at the hospital, would check in on me in between seeing patients and the staff pampered me knowing I was her son. But still there was only so much of it I could take before I just wanted to go home. Easter Sunday my uncle from Illinois came to visit the hospital with a large basket of candies and a stuffed rabbit and my mood bounced. My mom had arranged for a special treat for me; the hospital had a copy of The Wizard of Oz and I was going to be able to watch it. Wouldn't you know, though, that I'd have to wait my turn because some other sick kid was watching it first, two rooms down. I paced the hallways, a quiet but jealous and enraged child that I'd have to wait to hear Over the Rainbow blaring from the TV set in my hospital room (I was encouraged to take short walks in the hallways at this time in order to get some light exercise).

As the years went on, watching the Wizard of Oz on TV became a strong tradition, as it once was for many Americans. Through the 1990s, the film was broadcast annually on CBS. In fact, I don't remember yearning for my own copy for several years because I knew I could be sated watching it annually in November, although the film would have several VHS releases throughout the 80s and 90s, each one featuring a little something extra, be it digital cleanup, stereo sound, etc. Finally, at the age of 10, I broke down and realized I did need my own copy and set the VCR timer to record the film so I could watch it whenever I needed to fill my soul with its glory. I remember my mom once telling me that Judy Garland had had a very rough life after the film, with divorces and drugs. I think Mom was trying to give me a D.A.R.E. talk and use her as an example. 

In 1998, The Wizard of Oz received a theatrical re-release, and I remember going to see it with my mom and sister. The Marcus Theater chain had installed a new Ultrascreen for big movie events, and I was very excited to see my favorite film on a large screen-- only to find that it wasn't as big as I had thought. You see, I had just always assumed that movies in a theater were rectangular, and square on your TV. I didn't know that up through the 1950s, movies were the shape of a square as well! I may have left that screening a little disappointed, but it had a huge impact on my brain which was already starting to become invested in film history. Things such as aspect ratio, sound mix, etc. were playing a large part in my life. So looking back now, 13 year old Shiraz had absolutely no reason to be resentful, it was a blessing in disguise! A quick sidenote, there is a rumor going around that the film was released widescreen for this re-release, but that is simply not true. Special prints were made to accommodate modern projectors and show the film in its original format.

Come high school, I was obsessed with used VHS shopping, especially the covers. For a short window of time, people were dumping their entire VHS collections to replace them with the new DVD format. For VHS collectors like myself this was a heyday. I loved looking at the many different Wizard of Oz VHS covers, specifically because the film had been released so many times on home video and every time was a little different. All in all though, I think we can unanimously agree this cover, also illegally ripped off of eBay, is the best VHS cover ever created in the history of the format, for any film.

In 2004, I got my first apartment and fell into a crowd of people who, well, let's just say for legal purposes enjoyed watching movies as much as I did with alternative substances that elevated that experience. At that time, there was a bootleg file of the film being synced to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon floating around and some goon brought it over and insisted we watch it. We did and I was mildly impressed by things such as alarm clocks going off when Miss Gulch rides her bike, but I would be lying if I said that it was a life changing psychedelic experience for me. What I did find more interesting though was the investments people were making into creating the most perfect syncing of the album and film to make it work. Some said you had to go with a specific VHS pressing of the film because the later issues, specifically the DVD, were timed out slightly differently. Others claimed that you needed to use the record and not the CD, or a Japanese pressing of the CD to make it work, because the silent gaps between the songs had been timed out on the different issues of the album had changed. Who knows? It's a stupid project that people have been obsessed with over time, but it's worth a revisit as an older adult now for a good giggle. Coincidentally, I still have that bootleg and in case you are wondering, it was synced with the 1988 VHS of Wizard of Oz and the 1994 CD of Dark Side of the Moon.

Another part of me was starting to blossom during this time though, and that was my love for Judy Garland as an adult. I no longer could watch this film without knowing the abuse she faced at the hands of the studio system, the turmoil of her marriages and drug dependency. As I began watching things like the TV Movie about her life Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows or saw TV appearances that popped up on the new website YouTube, I began to relate to this woman in new ways. Her delivery of Over the Rainbow in 1939 would be drastically different 10 years later, when she sang it as an adult, more lost in her life than at the age of 17. The pain that she put into singing this number in her concerts would resonate with me as a gay man, searching for a life of peace for myself and my community in a world where we did not feel welcome to express who we were. And there was always a bit of guilt watching the film from then on in too. Garland was only paid $500 a week while filming The Wizard of Oz, and while the film did well in theaters three times in her lifetime, a lot of money was made from the television broadcasts over the years. Due to how contracts were negotiated over the years, Garland never saw a penny. Take a second and think about that-- millions of people tuned in on an annual basis from the first broadcast in 1956 to her death in 1969, and she wasn't given a single cent. Garland died penniless in a London flat, trying to work off her debt in cabaret type concerts.

I'd see the film several times over the years, in theaters, on TV, on home video, my fondness of it never dying. I remember in 2014 the film got a special release in IMAX 3D. Why? No one knows. Rereleasing films in 3D was a new thing, and it was a very stupid thing to do. Top Gun, Jurassic Park, and other older movies should not have gotten this treatment because you'd end up with out of focus digital blobs just shooting out at you in the multiplex. But when I went to go see The Wizard of Oz in IMAX 3D for a podcast I was working on, my thoughts were different. The opening and closing sepia tone sequences didn't look that great, but the color sections were fantastic.

The reason is  because of the technology of the film going back to 1939. The color sequences of The Wizard of Oz were shot on 3-strip Technicolor, meaning three rolls of film were run through a camera capturing the blues, reds, and greens separately and then printed on top of each other onto one single piece of film for release. With digital software being able to digitally align these more accurately than in years past, you're given an image that is so sharp that recent restorations needed to digitally remove things such as wires worn by the flying monkeys. Throw that into an IMAX 3D image, and the result was very pleasing to the eye. It was a short release and controversial, but I was very happy watching this new iteration of the film and knew that this would be an experience that would only live in my memory. Today that release is all but forgotten.

My husband and I will still revisit this film, at home on DVD or on TV if we come across it in a hotel on vacation. I was a little irked to see the cable channel TBS running the film recently and lopping off parts, such as when the Wicked Witch tries to take the shoes off of Dorothy. I kept thinking to myself, isn't this why the film is on the National Registry?! To prevent things like this?! It also occurred to me that, while the film is being rereleased in theaters in the next week, I don't know what turnout will look like. I hope this blog doesn't age well and I'm proven wrong, but it seems that a film that everyone knew all the words to and grew up with is now becoming more and more forgotten. Not having well advertised home video releases every few years and the lack of annual broadcasts is partly the reason, but the other reason that I fear more is maybe the film has just become unappealing to youngsters. 

Isn't that a depressing thought? I can't bear to venture into that rabbit hole, and will end my post there but include one final note. This film has been a part of my life story, and I hope this post has proven that. I wonder how many other people have had a personal relationship with the film and what it means to them. Maybe the answer is to get 30 strangers together and have them all share their stories. As you lay in bed tonight, before you drift to sleep, I invite you to ponder if you have any good stories about your life that involve The Wizard of Oz...

Movie Media Fan's Top Five "Rock That Small Town" Movies

It's no secret that movies recycle plotlines and disguise them with different settings, accents, character traits, and genres. One plotline that comes to mind is the "unlikely person that doesn't fit into this town comes in and changes everything." Suddenly, when our character enters this community, old curmudgeons become warm loving elders, someone learns to confront whomever they are living with to tell them that they want to follow their passion in life of making a career out of something that won't make money (like paint), and two shy people who weren't supposed to fall in love end up falling in love. I had a hard time narrowing down this month's top five list because it's been a such an overused plotline, but here are my top choices.

5) Pollyanna

Based on the 1913 novel, this live action Disney film was Haley Mills' first at the studio. It's more of the 'traditional' version of this storyline, similar to the books Anne of Green Gables and Heidi. Pollyanna's parents die, so she lives with her grumpy spinster aunt in a small town. She's cheerful, prattles a lot, is annoyingly optimistic, and spreads her positivity to everyone in the town. Eventually, all the grumpy citizens of the town fall in love with her, and become happy people because of her presence. An agoraphobic spinster (Agnes Moorehead) makes quilts for the church picnic, a reverend who only preaches sermons about damnation (Karl Malden) uplifts the town to be more joyous, and Pollyanna's strict aunt (Jane Wyman) faces her demons about why she's hated and feared by everyone in the town because she controls it with her money. It's a sappy touching story that's great for family movie night, and every time I see it, I end up equally rolling my eyes and feeling my heartstrings being pulled. I also get very jealous at this huge slice of cake that Pollyanna is eating-- first because I know I could never bake a cake that tastes as good as that looks, and also because I want to take it away from this child and eat it!

4) Tammy and the Batchelor

Same story, but a little more Baptist and silly. Bumpkin Tammy's grandfather is arrested for selling 'corn liquor' (let's just call it what it is: moonshine), so she moves off her house boat and in with the sophisticated family of a man named Peter (Leslie Nielson), whom she had rescued from a plane crash earlier in the movie. While living with them, she preaches the lessons she's learned from the Bible in her 'simple' rural Southern ways, and makes them all see the gratitude for things they have in their lives. Her lack of boundaries as she calls things as she sees them is endured by everyone there, and while she loves Peter, he is engaged to someone else. Debbie Reynolds plays Tammy and sings the hit song "Tammy's in Love", which became a pop hit after the movie was released. 

3) Pleasantville

A brother and sister (Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon) fight over the new remote control they just got for their TV while watching a fictional Leave It to Beaver type show, entitled Pleasantville, and get stuck in its black and white world. This 1998 film was known for its special effects of mixing the world of black and white and color. As the characters, David and Jennifer, try to live a typical 1950s TV show life and keep things as normal as possible, 1998 behaviors and world views slip out. Every time something changes in Pleasantville, it turns from black and white to color. And soon, as David and Jennifer teach the town about new ideas and challenge the way they think, the world of Pleasantville becomes less black and white. This film is very 90s, and oozes with its concepts of idealistic world views, preaching these views on others, and urging people to help change the world. I recommend trying to find a VHS of the film, where the home video company had test stills before the film so that one could calibrate their TV set properly to the movie.

2) Chocolat

Do yourself a favor and buy yourself a big box of chocolate when you throw this movie on. Chocolat should be seen while eating chocolate. This film is everything. Vianne (Juliette Binoche) and her daughter come to a provincial French town in the 1950s, and open a chocolate shop during its lent season. The town's mayor (Alfred Molina) is a reinvention of Pollyanna's strict aunt, writing sermons every week for the priest as she does, and micromanaging the town trying to control its moral fiber. Vianne's shop is a success as patrons secretly go there and she soon wins over the hearts of everyone in the village, making it a battle of control between herself and the mayor over her sharing love and fun through her chocolate, which the mayor finds to be inappropriate and decadent, specifically during the lent season. She also welcomes a gypsy in her shop (Johnny Depp) which pisses him off to high heaven, before understanding the true meaning of Catholicism. 

1) To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar

Saddle up; it's Pollyanna, but the main character is split between three drag queens! Wesley Snipes, Patrick Swayze, and Dan Leguizamo play drag queens on their way to a pageant on a cross country road trip when they have car trouble and are forced to settle in a small dusty town and take a room with Carol Ann (Stockard Channing) while waiting for their car to get fixed. In the meantime, Noxeema (Snipes) befriends an old woman who has been the town mute for years (Alice Drummond), Vida (Swayze) teaches Carol Ann to confront her fears and stand up to her abusive husband (Arlis Howard), and Chi-Chi (Leguizamo) must choose between tricking the straight man she loves (Jason London) into believing she is a woman or set him up with the girl who adores him (Jennifer Milmore). This movie is a gay classic, and portrays its message just as effectively as Pollyanna.