The Wizard of Oz (1939 Box Office Champ)

Awesome Movie Year

The first episode of our season on the awesome movie year of 1939 features one of the highest-grossing films at the box office, fantasy musical The Wizard of Oz. Directed by Victor Fleming, based on the novel by L. Frank Baum, and starring Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Burt Lahr, Jack Haley, Margaret Hamilton and Frank Morgan, The Wizard of Oz was nominated for six Oscars and is considered one of the greatest movies ever made.

The contemporary reviews quoted in this episode come from Frank S. Nugent in The New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/1939/08/18/archives/the-screen-in-review-the-wizard-of-oz-produced-by-the-wizards-of.html), John C. Flinn in Variety (https://variety.com/1939/film/reviews/the-wizard-of-oz-3-1200412289/), and Russell Maloney in The New Yorker (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1939/08/19/the-wizard-of-hollywood).

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Please like, share, rate and comment on the show and this episode, and tune in for the next 1939 installment, featuring our pick for a notable movie from a major filmmaker, John Ford’s Stagecoach.