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They’ve hit us with three remakes of this one, one about another actress and two about music stars — maybe the next will be about a TikTok star. Thanks to an unexpected full digital restoration from original Technicolor elements, this 1937 original once again plays like a winner. Silent legend Janet Gaynor is Esther Blodgett, soon to become the famous Vicki Lester. Fredric March gives one of his best performances as a matinee idol running his career into the ground with drink. David O. Selznick’s classy production takes some cynical jabs at The Biz yet characterizes Adolph Menjou’s producer as an all-wise, all-forgiving saint. The Wac adds great extras in full HD — a swing musical short and a sarcastic Merrie Melodie cartoon that spoofs the main feature.

A Star is Born (1937)

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1937 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 111 min. / Available at Amazon.com / Street Date March 29, 2022 / 21.99

Starring: Janet Gaynor, Fredric March,...

It was 80 years ago today that a cyclone whisked Dorothy from her drab, sepia tone life in Kansas to the Technicolor land of little people, bewitched poppy fields and flying monkeys.

You may know the story well, but here are a few things about “The Wizard of Oz” that might take you by surprise.

Judy Garland had a difficult time shaking the giggles after the Lion burst into tears when Dorothy smacked him for scaring Toto. After numerous takes, you can spot her holding back a grin in what made it to the big screen.

Continuity issues arose during filming, including one that slipped through the cracks and made it into the final film. We’re talking about Dorothy’s hair length in the scene where she first encounters the Scarecrow. It’s short, it’s long, it’s short again.

The purple, red and yellow Horse of a Different...

Burbank, CA, August 22, 2019 – Warner Bros. Home Entertainment announced today that 1939’s acclaimed and beloved classic The Wizard of Oz will be released on Ultra HD Blu-ray Combo Pack and Digital on October 29th. Directed by Victor Fleming (Gone With the Wind) and starring Judy Garland as Dorothy Gayle, The Wizard of Oz is widely considered to be one of the most influential films in cinematic history.

Adapted from L. Frank Baum’s timeless children’s tale about a Kansas girl’s journey over the rainbow, The Wizard of Oz officially premiered at Grauman’s Chinese Theater on August 15, 1939. The film was directed by Victor Fleming (who that same year directed Gone With the Wind), produced by Mervyn LeRoy, and scored by Herbert Stothart, with music and lyrics by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg. Ray Bolger appeared as the Scarecrow; Bert Lahr as the Cowardly Lion, Jack Haley as the Tin Woodman.

'The Merry Widow' with Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald and Minna Gombell under the direction of Ernst Lubitsch. Ernst Lubitsch movies: 'The Merry Widow,' 'Ninotchka' (See previous post: “Ernst Lubitsch Best Films: Passé Subtle 'Touch' in Age of Sledgehammer Filmmaking.”) Initially a project for Ramon Novarro – who for quite some time aspired to become an opera singer and who had a pleasant singing voice – The Merry Widow ultimately starred Maurice Chevalier, the hammiest film performer this side of Bob Hope, Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler – the list goes on and on. Generally speaking, “hammy” isn't my idea of effective film acting. For that reason, I usually find Chevalier a major handicap to his movies, especially during the early talkie era; he upsets their dramatic (or comedic) balance much like Jack Nicholson in Martin Scorsese's The Departed or Jerry Lewis in anything (excepting Scorsese's The King of Comedy...

Adolphe Menjou movies today (This article is currently being revised.) Despite countless stories to the contrary, numerous silent film performers managed to survive the coming of sound. Adolphe Menjou, however, is a special case in that he not only remained a leading man in the early sound era, but smoothly made the transition to top supporting player in mid-decade, a position he would continue to hold for the quarter of a century. Menjou is Turner Classic Movies' Star of the Day today, Aug. 3, as part of TCM's "Summer Under the Stars" 2015 series. Right now, TCM is showing William A. Wellman's A Star Is Born, the "original" version of the story about a small-town girl (Janet Gaynor) who becomes a Hollywood star, while her husband (Fredric March) boozes his way into oblivion. In typical Hollywood originality (not that things are any different elsewhere), this 1937 version of the story – produced by...

This summer marked the 75th anniversary of The Wizard of Oz, and it was a big enough occasion that Warner Bros. not only retrofitted the classic fantasy film for a one-week IMAX 3D re-release but also spent $25m on marketing its brief return to theaters. Meanwhile, there’s absolutely no fanfare at all for the movie’s sequel, which also has a special birthday this year. No, I’m not referring to Return to Oz (which likely also won’t get much notice for its 30th anniversary next summer). There is another “Oz” movie that was more directly intended to be an official follow-up to the 1939 version, an animated feature titled Journey Back to Oz, which hit theaters on this day back in 1974. Aside from taking place soon after The Wizard of Oz and being mostly yet loosely adapted from L. Frank Baum’s second Oz book, “The Marvelous Land of Oz,” the...

Mary Boland movies: Scene-stealing actress has her ‘Summer Under the Stars’ day on TCM Turner Classic Movies will dedicate the next 24 hours, Sunday, August 4, 2013, not to Lana Turner, Lauren Bacall, Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Esther Williams, or Bette Davis — TCM’s frequent Warner Bros., MGM, and/or Rko stars — but to the marvelous scene-stealer Mary Boland. A stage actress who was featured in a handful of movies in the 1910s, Boland came into her own as a stellar film supporting player in the early ’30s, initially at Paramount and later at most other Hollywood studios. First, the bad news: TCM’s "Summer Under the Stars" Mary Boland Day will feature only two movies from Boland’s Paramount period: the 1935 Best Picture Academy Award nominee Ruggles of Red Gap, which TCM has shown before, and one TCM premiere. So, no rarities like Secrets of a Secretary, Mama Loves Papa, Melody in Spring,...

Photo: MGM

Movie: The Wizard of Oz Release Year: 1939 Studio: MGM Director: Victor Fleming, George Cukor (uncredited), Mervyn LeRoy (uncredited), Norman Taurog (uncredited) and King Vidor (uncredited director of the Kansas scenes) Starring: Judy Garland as Dorothy, Frank Morgan as Professor Marvel, The Wizard of Oz, The Gatekeeper, The Carriage Driver and The Guard, Ray Bolger as 'Hunk' and The Scarecrow, Bert Lahr as 'Zeke' and The Cowardly Lion, Jack Haley as 'Hickory' and The Tin Man, Billie Burke as Glinda, Margaret Hamilton as Miss Gulch and The Wicked Witch of the West, Charley Grapewin as Uncle Henry, Pat Walshe as Nikko, Clara Blandick as Auntie Em, Terry as Toto and The Singer Midgets as The Munchkins Cinematographer: Harold Rosson (Singin' in the Rain, The Asphalt Jungle) Note: Today's entry is running as a contribution to Nathaniel's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" series at TheFilmExperience where several others have...

If I hear “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” one more time, I’m gonna send Dorothy “way up high”—with a kick from my friggin’ boot! Now, before you Oz enthusiasts jump all over me for being such a surly, curmudgeonly son of a witch, I want to profess my love for The Wizard Of Oz and this four-disc DVD set (Warner, $69.92). Allow me to explain my castigatory opening remark. “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” is a beautiful, seminal, touching song—the first 50 Times you hear it during the Same week. That’s how long it took me to review this exceptional box set, because The Wizard Of Oz: 70Th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’S Edition has more extras than a Cecil B. DeMille picture.

That’s why I’m fed up with “Over the Rainbow”—between the movie and the main menus and the endless documentaries and the featurettes, etc., etc.