By far, my favorite movie has been The Wizard of Oz from 1939. It would come on once a year on CBS -- I think around spring, and I never missed a showing until I grew older. My parents got me a set of LP records that played the whole movie soundtrack, and also a book with movie stills and the entire script.
It got to where I had whole scenes memorized.
I also noticed when they showed scenes not usually shown. Here my memory is fuzzy, but I think sometimes they skipped the horses of different colors. Sometimes they skipped one of the monkey raids, and supposedly there's an extended Munchkin scene I saw only once.
I've also watched other derivative movies, animations, parodies, and retellings. The animations are only a faint memory. I loved Deschanel in the Tin Man. I hated the retelling on -- was it NBC -- a couple of years ago?
With all this in mind, would you believe it took me 50 years to get around to reading the book that started it all? Since it's so old, you can download a free copy from the Gutenberg Project, so I put a copy on my Kindle, and enjoyed every minute of reading it.
It was a different kind of style at the turn of the century. Baum claimed that he wanted to create something different from the usual Grimm stories where every story had a moral. Rather, he wanted to create a story that was pure fun, not scary, and no lessons.
Well ... he almost succeeded.
I suppose 1900 was much different than today -- at least in the types of books children read. Baum is definitely a good story teller, but his style is different -- usually getting right to the point.
And for a non-scary book, it definitely had some items that most likely would not be published today for our sheltered kids. One of the funniest and most gruesome parts was the story of the Tin Man and his curse ... how he chopped off one arm, and then another, ... and ... you get the picture.
Much of the dialogue is exactly what you hear in the movies, so many of the great one-liners appear to have come from Baum himself.
Most of the book is a journey, with a lot of world building. Dorothy gets sucked up by a cyclone (actually kind of scary in the book), lands in Oz, starts to walk toward the Emerald City, picks up some friends, overcomes different obstacles, and so on.
I was surprised to learn that one major character in the movie had only ONE CHAPTER in the book. And I do have to say that the writers of the movie certainly made one of the best decisions ever made -- to elevate this character and provide an image that can never be forgotten.
I was also surprised to learn that this book was banned in the past. What could it have possibly been? The witches? The gruesome and scary scenes (in a not-scary book)? No ... but rather it turned out to be because it featured females as strong characters not afraid to take charge and grow on their own.
So, yeah, my favorite movie/story is one of the earliest feminist stories written! (But wait till I get to book #2!)
If you haven't already done so, I recommend reading this blast from the past. Compare it with the movie -- have fun and enjoy.
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