"OIL CAN WHAT?"

It's movie night here at the Miller Collective and the boys have chosen THE WIZARD OF OZ. I have to say, it's a fine choice indeed; absolutely one of my favorite movies despite so many things said and heard about it. A classic piece of film that totally holds up to today's Burton-esque bits like CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY or even BEETLEJUICE. It's amazing how, for back in the thirties, the outstanding cast and crew labored and struggled so feverishly to create Baum's masterpiece and it turned out the way that it did. Right now they've just arrived at Emerald City and it features not only one of my favorite lines in the movie, but also the finest singing number ever put to film performed by a lion (screw you, LION KING!). "Who rang that bell?!" Starts the whole scene off with the fella sporting the humongous mustache who also happens to play half a dozen rolls throughout including Mr. Marvel and the Wizard. I'm too lazy to get up or else I'd check his name. Anyway, right now it's the Lion's glorious soliloquy put to tune. "The chipmunks genuflect to me..." Yup, If I Were King is just about the silliest song ever. But I have to say my absolute favorite, pure-gold line in the movie is the title to this Blog: "Oil can what?" It's asked just after Dorothy and the Scarecrow discover the Tin Man and realize he's saying, "Oil can!", then Dorothy tells the Scarecrow and he says, "Oil can what?" I bust a damn gut every time. So, while the quartet plus pooch visit the Wizard for the first time, let's go over a few little obscurities and idiosyncrasies that this film boasts, shall we? I'm sure you've heard of the supposed Munchkin suicide during production? I'm sure you've heard that you can see it somewhere around when they find the Lion and it looks like he dangles from a tree in the background? Yeah, well you're idiots. Never happened. The wife and I saw it on the big screen when it was re-released a few years ago and it is so blatantly a crane's neck and wing that it isn't even funny. Not even remotely a swinging midget. In fact, if you don't believe me, head over to Snopes.com and they'll tell you the same thing. So there! What about the original Tin Man portrayed by Buddy Ebsen? Yup, he was seriously allergic to the silver make-up they used for his face and ended up going into anaphylactic shock! This brought in the immortal Jack Haley who ended up stealing the show with his ridiculous accent and heavily gay undertones. Oh like you didn't see it! Obviously this perpetuates (along with Judy Garland being big in that particular community) the rumor that this movie is the gay anthem. The scene just passed where the Witch sends her monkeys out to get the annoying trio and capture Dorothy. She says something like, "Send that little bug to take the fight out of them." This speaks of the 'Jitterbug' scene that was ultimately left out. After seeing it in the extras on the disc, it's pretty obvious why: It's really dark, really crazy, and really different. It just doesn't flow with the rest of the narrative and adds nothing to the story only to stall it further. It is pretty clever and kinda wacky though, almost psychedelic before such things were even thought of! So I really have no idea why Burt Lahr, Jack Haley, and Ray Bolger were never brought together again (or if they were) in such capacity. They had such screen chemistry together. Oh, and this, "When the scarecrow is given his honorary diploma from the wizard, he attempts to recite Pythagorean's Theorom concerning the length of sides of a triangle. His recitation is wrong for two reasons. He says it applies to isosceles triangles, when actually it applies to right triangles. Also, he says "any two sides", when actually it should be the "shortest two sides". Yeah, though taken from IMDB.com (occasionally wrong) this is true. Stupid Scarecrow, it's a good thing you're funny! Oh well, all things considered, as the film draws to a close, it's still amazing as to just how awesome and well done it is. It's got some great camera angles, superior acting, and beautiful black and white to color transformations. No wonder it remains in the top twenty films of all time, and likely always will. I love movie night... Stew