The Wizard Of Oz

The Wizard Of Oz hits Blu Ray with a brand new transfer.

Warner Bros used computer technology and the best surviving prints to restore the film to it's original look.

The film was scanned at 8k using Warner's Ultra Resolution process.

Film restoration experts have pointed out the film probably only has around 2.5k to 3k of actual resolution.

By scanning at such a high number Warner have ensured every last bit of picture information is being preserved and using current technology this is the best the film will look.

I have the 70th Anniversary boxset which comes with a nice large book full of original colour and sepia tone pictures from the film and interesting information about the production of this classic.

The boxset also has a number of other collectable pieces including your very own Wizard Of Oz watch.  You can buy a cheaper edition of the film if owning collectable boxsets is not your thing.

Film Plot

Dorothy is bored with life on the farm in Kansas and dreams of adventure and faraway lands and when a Tornado hit’s the farm she is knocked unconscious and wakes up in the land of Oz.

The Good Witch Glinda tells Dorothy she must wear the ruby slippers to protect her from the Wicked Witch and she must travel to Oz where the Wizard will send her home again.

So Dorothy begins her journey and with her dog Toto she follows the yellow brick road and meets the scarecrow, tin man and cowardly lion but all the while the Wicked Witch watches waiting for a chance to steal the ruby slippers.

Positives

This is the perfect family film which everyone can enjoy no matter their age and the acting and singing of Judy Garland is mesmerizing.  

The  musical numbers are fabulous and never grow old, Somewhere Over The Rainbow is the highlight and can be heard early on in the film.

The cinematography by Harold Rosson is excellent and he was nominated for an Oscar for this film although he never won the award.  Rosson shot the burning of Atlanta sequence in Gone With The Wind.

A film like this needs a superb director and Victor Fleming was in my opinion the best director alive in 1939. Fleming manages to get great performances from his cast and brings a sense of fun to this film that other lesser directors would not have achieved.

The decision to start the film in sepia tone was a wise decision and helps ground the opening and ending scenes in some sort of reality with the Oz scenes being the colourful adventure that Dorothy seeks in her humdrum existence.

Negatives

The decision to cut out the Jitterbug dance sequence was wrong.  The song is great and should have remained in the film.

The footage was unfortunately cut and is now lost forever although you can still hear the Jitterbug song in full set to some old home movies on the Blu Ray disc.

Image Quality

Image quality is mostly superb and i felt i was watching a film print.

During the early sepia toned scenes there was a small problem with some of the grain structure of the film but it has been confirmed this was not an encoding error and was on the film print and picked up when the 8k scan of the movie was done and therefore i do not see it as an issue.

The colours now leap off the screen at you and detail levels are consistently above average.

Warner get criticized and rightly so for encoding some of their movies using too low a bitrate to retain the grain structure properly but that is not a problem with this release and Warner as is so often the case with their back catalog titles have delivered an above average transfer.  

Having mentioned the above i must now point out a scene where there is a problem. The scene at 46 minutes and 40 seconds which lasts around 20 seconds where the image appeared very soft and the grain was totally wiped and missing and i thought there was some blocking going on in the background and i can only imagine what went wrong there.  

I felt the compression job on this disc was very good except for the scene mentioned above and there was no edge enhancement or other nasty issues which i can complain about.

Sound Quality

You are offered the original mono 1 channel mix or a new 5.1 channel mix. Normally i am a purist and will listen to the original mix but after watching the extra features and hearing how the new mix was made i decided to listen to the 5.1 track.  I felt the new mix was atmospheric and subtle and that they have carefully mixed this track.  The surrounds are mostly used for ambience but occasionally you do get a nice surround sound moment and indeed the subwoofer actually kicks in during the opening Tornado although it is not deep bass.

Musical numbers sound very good and in my opinion the new mix is every bit as good as some of the films and musicals from the fifties and sixties which had magnetic six channel soundtracks.

I was pleased with the sound quality on offer and recommend the 5.1 mix as an option for viewing this film. The original mono mix is a welcome addition.

 Final Thoughts

The Wizard Of Oz is one of my favourite films and the care and effort that has gone into making this Blu Ray disc deserves to be rewarded with large sales and i hope this happens as i really enjoy buying classic films in high definition but they need to sell so more get released.

Many people mistakenly think older films cannot benefit from being released in high definition but they forget that 35mm film if preserved correctly has more resolution and detail than HD camera's that are currently used on some films. 

Many older classics might need restoration work carried out on them and some loving care and attention but they would benefit from being released on Blu Ray high definition.

As far as this film goes i would say the extra's alone make the Blu Ray disc worthwhile but to also own such an amazing piece of cinema history in gorgeous high definition makes it an absolutely essential purchase for all film fans.

Twenty years ago we could but dream of the quality that is on offer on this disc as VHS was the dominant format although Laserdisc was around for those that wanted better quality.

I look forward to more classic releases with such high quality as this one and i hope anyone who reads this will buy The Wizard Of Oz on Blu Ray.  I would even go so far as to say you should buy a Blu Ray player just for this movie especially now that players are so cheap.

This film is on The Reference List which you can view by clicking here.

Read trivia about the film below. This disc will play on any player and in any region in the world.

Click here for screencaps taken directly off the Blu Ray disc.

Trivia

The Wizard Of Oz originally ran around two hours long but after previews the studio cut out several sequences from the movie until it finally ran just 101 minutes long.

Deleted or shortened scenes include:

• If I Only Had A Brain musical number.
• The Wicked Witch of the West turning the tin man into a beehive.
• The Lions, Tigers and Bears scene was shortened down.
• The Jitterbug scene which involved a pink and blue bug. When the Jitterbug bites someone they can’t help but dance. A great musical number.
  
• Dorothy is captured by the Wicked Witch and held captive in the castle and sings Over The Rainbow again only this time she is crying and trying to hold back her tears. Probably considered too powerful in 1939.

Victor Fleming replaced George Cukor as the director of The Wizard Of Oz. Fleming also replaced Cukor as the director of Gone With The Wind which was also released in 1939.

The film cost $2.8m to make and made around $3m dollars in return. The studio felt this was not enough and did not consider the film a big hit until 1949 when it made another $1.5m dollars.

Studio heads originally wanted to remove the musical number Over The Rainbow but Victor Fleming fought for it’s inclusion and won and the song went on to win the Academy Award for best song.

King Vidor who was Fleming's friend was responsible for directing the Kansas sequences including the song "Over The Rainbow."

Rumours suggest that Shirley Temple was originally in negotiation to play Dorothy.  This is even mentioned in Temple's autobiography.

The Oz sequences were filmed in three strip Technicolor.

In 1955 the film was released to cinema's in a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio. This version cut off portions of the top and bottom of the frame and was obviously not correct.  The films real aspect ratio is 1.37:1.

The 1925 silent version of The Wizard Of Oz features a young Oliver Hardy of Laurel and Hardy fame. The writer of the novels L. Frank Baum wrote this version of the movie.  This version is an extra on the Blu Ray disc.

L. Frank Baum also wrote and directed the 1914 silent film His Majesty, The Scarecrow Of Oz. This short movie is an extra on the Blu Ray disc.

Judy Garland's dress and blouse were not white but actually pale pink as true white did not photograph properly in Technicolor at that time and the blue parts of the checkered white dress appeared too bright.

A sequel called Return To Oz was released in 1985 and starred Fairuza Balk.  This was a much darker film than the musical original.

Many scenes featuring the Wicked Witch were deleted and shortened as the studio thought the scenes too frightening for audiences at that time.

Toto the dog was female and called Terry and had a successful film career before her death in 1945. She was buried in her trainer's yard.

The Munchkins were paid $50 a week while Toto ( Terry ) received $150 a week. The poor dog was stepped on by one of the extra's and had to take two weeks off from shooting the movie.

A study suggests this is the most watched movie in history.