If I only had a brain...

The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Wow. The restoration Warner Brothers did for the DVD of this movie is just remarkable. This movie looks gorgeous.

I had forgotten how many iconic lines are in this movie. There were also a ton of great lines that aren't famous but should be.

I like the Scarecrow even more today than when I was a kid. The actor who played him was extremely charming, and he had many of the best lines.

While I've been going through these DVDs, I haven't had the time to really take a look at most of the special features. I think I will try and look through the ones for this DVD later, though. Angela Lansbury, who I adore, does the voice-over for a lot of them. That's incentive enough for me.

Judy Garland had one of the best voices I've ever had the pleasure to hear. She was only 17 when this movie came out, but she sang like she was aged beyond her years.

There are a lot more songs in this movie than I remembered, though the ones I had forgotten about are perhaps best forgotten.

Overall, despite its age and inherent corniness, I found The Wizard of Oz to be a wonderful, charming movie; I had a great time watching it.

On an interesting side note, this film was made in 1939. For film buffs, that year holds a vaunted place in film history. Besides Judy Garland's movie, Gone With the Wind, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Stagecoach, and Goodbye, Mr. Chips all came out that year. Vivien Leigh, Bette Davis, James Stewart, Laurence Olivier, Clark Gable, Greta Garbo and Mickey Rooney were just some of the many great actors nominated for Oscars that year. Sadly, The Wizard of Oz was completely shut out of even the Oscar nominations, with the exception of best film and best special effects; it won neither. Ironically, though the guy who directed The Wizard of Oz, Irving Fleming, did not win anything for directing that movie, he did win an Oscar that year for directing another movie: Gone With the Wind.

1939 must have been a great year to go to the movies.