NIXPIX - BLU-RAY, 4K and DVD Reviews

There is much to be said about a film that reports on the basic human need to rediscover our hearts desires in our own backyards. What Frank L. Baum’s turn-of-the-last-century series of children's books did for the imagination, director Victor Fleming's The Wizard of Oz (1939) has since recreated on a much broader canvas and for both the young and young in heart. Even by Hollywood’s colossal standards, the production of Oz was a mammoth undertaking; compounded by the added expense of shooting almost the entire movie in the newly improved 3-strip Technicolor process. Arthur Freed’s assist on this Mervyn LeRoy-produced glossy children’s fantasy/epic would elevate his stature also to full-fledged producer at MGM – the purveyor of nearly three decades of the studio’s most memorable musicals. But Oz is more than the pluperfect example of MGM’s craftsmanship, and this in a year of such titanic achievements as Goodbye Mr. Chips, The Women, The Rains Came, The Hunchback of Notre Dam