The Allegorical Elements In Wizard Of Oz

The 1939 musical “The Wizard Of Oz” directed by Victor Fleming is a really great film. This musical was one of the first films to ever be in color. The actress Judy Garland was the perfect fit for the role “Dorothy”. The Wizard Of Oz was originally a book written by L. Frank Baum about a young girl named Dorothy and her dog Toto that have been swept away in their house in a huge tornado called a cyclone. The Library Of Congress has declared this book “America’s greatest and best-loved homegrown fairytale”. The musical picked up on the book and made a great elaboration of the characters in The Wizard Of Oz. Judy garland sang all her songs and provided a great deal of music to this musical.

One of the most noticeable parts of the musical is the costumes. Since they couldn’t actually make a scarecrow walk around, sing, dance and talk due to their lack of CGI, they dressed up the actor Ray Bolger. The next character was the tin man, again lacking CGI they dressed up Jack haley and he played his role amazingly, acting rusty and incapable of movement without oil. The fourth and final character added to their crew was a lion. They obviously couldn’t grab some lion and teach it how to dance and talk so they dressed up Bert Lahr as the cowardly lion. This made the film a lot more entertaining to watch, considering you’re watching four grown adults dancing around and singing on a quest to see the wizard. Each and every character had a quest, Dorothy wanted to go home, Scarecrow wanted to have a brain, Tin man wanted to have a heart, and the cowardly lion wanted courage. In my opinion, I think the most scary and best costume in this musical was the Wicked Witch Of The West. Watching the movie as a child I despised her, her cackle always scared me.

What made this a great film/musical is the amount of effort, money and plotting put into it. The background was all painted walls, making it seem as if they were actually venturing to the emerald city while following the yellow brick road. The actors and actresses all did their part into making this musical be considered one of the greatest of all time. Judy Garland had a great singing voice, making the musical a musical. One of my favorite parts is when the Wizard scammed all of them and made them believe he was some big ghostly head. That was the best CGI they had in 1939, a big ghostly head that looked fake, but it probably scared people back when it was made. If I pretended I watched this in theaters, I would ask and be surprised on how they made it seem like there was a huge tornado and how they made it seem like the wizard was a big head. In conclusion, I really liked this musical, after watching this great film the songs are left stuck in my head and have me singing along throughout the movie.