'The Wizard of Oz' (Victor Fleming, 1939)

Title: 'The Wizard of Oz'

Release Year: 1939

Director: Victor Fleming

Cast: Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Bert Lahr, Billie Burke, Margaret Hamilton.

Plot: Dorothy dreams of travelling to 'somewhere over the rainbow', and that's exactly what she does when, after a big tornado, she finds herself very far away from her native Kansas.

Review: I simply LOVED this movie. What a beautiful surprise! I expected it to be just a children's tale, but it exceeded every expectation.

To start with, the transition between real world and Oz using technicolor is nothing but remarkable. The difference between both places and the magic that spreads the second one are in part thanks to that detail. In Kansas, everything is sad for Dorothy and the environment is gloomier, while a pinch of hopelessness is seen in her eyes when her dog is going to be killed. A way to restore that lost hope in the viewer: her magnificent voice.

'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' performed by Judy Garland in the movie

Seriously, what a voice! Every time I'm sad and I listen to that song, I close my eyes and everything looks better. It's like it had a healing power. I still wonder why they wanted to cut it off...

Anyway, once in Oz, everything reaches a dreamy pitch. In a world populated by real faces transformed in scarecrows and witches, everytime I heard the famous 'We're off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz' sung in the characters way through the yellow brick road, I couldn't help but start singing. It was like if I was a kid again, but who wouldn't? With much less technology facilities than nowadays, Fleming and Garland created a dreamy world that spreads so much magic that it is impossible not to lose yourself in it.

Follow the Yellow Brick Road: We're off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz! We've heard he is a Wiz of a Wiz...

Speaking of Garland. 'The Wizard of Oz' is her. From the tip of its toes to the bottom of its head. Garland gives here a magnificent performance that, together with her voice and her heart-breaking crying scenes, makes of her the perfect and only Dorothy.

What else can be said of such an endearing story apart that it's now one of my favourite films? Well, just as and ending question; all the way to the wizard just to discover that he has no powers? And then Dorothy could have returned to Kansas at the very beginning! It's true that it was necessary for her to stay in Oz to see how much she missed home, but still... Well, as Dorothy would say, There's no place like home.