The Wizard of Oz (1939)

I thought seeing The Wizard of Oz at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater would be a perfect end to the Bloomington chapter of my life. I love seeing movies at the B-C. I love movies from the 30s. I was a card-carrying member of the International Wizard of Oz Club in 1995. I love the fact that the theater has started showing old movies on Sunday afternoons, instead of Tuesday afternoons (I had to skip work to see Rear Window a few months ago). So I was very excited to take a few hours out of my busy stuffing-things-into-boxes schedule last Sunday, buy some tea and chocolate at Farm, find a seat in the familiar back right corner of the house. But I forgot one thing.

I HATE The Wizard of Oz. It's just awful.

To begin with, Judy Garland is way too old to play Dorothy. It's weird to see her stuffed into that little pinafore and bobby socks, pouting through the songs like the grotesque grown-up Baby Jane Hudson.

I don't even like the music that much. I know, "Over the Rainbow" is a classic, one of the greatest songs in the history of the movies, etc. It is impossible for me to evaluate whether I think it's a good song because it is so overplayed. I suspect its resonance is strongly tied to the creepiness of Judy Garland, tragic woman-child.

The main thing I hate is the movie's sense of humor, the way Burt Lahr makes these cringe-inducingly weird faces, the way Frank Morgan is this understated straight man by comparison. It's not like I don't like physical comedy - I do. But I don't think Ray Bolger is particularly good at falling down.(There is exactly one joke in the entire movie, which is when the Tinman repeats "Oil can" and the Scarecrow says "Oil can what?" That's pretty funny.)

But it's not just bad in a vacuum; The Wizard of Oz is hurting my movies. I am almost sure it's the most widely watched movie from the 1930s . So I'm afraid that when people think of Old Movies, nobody remembers the breath-taking glamor of an Astaire/Rogers dance number, nobody thinks of Eric Blore's comic face-making. Instead, they think of this shiny mess. Which is depressing.

Now, if you want to see Frank Morgan overact, please go watch The Shop Around the Corner.