Blu-ray Movie Reviews

With every Oz anniversary, the dream factory manufactures a few more documentaries and other extras. If your budget requires, you can opt for the two-disc Special Edition Blu-ray release (list price: $25), but the four-disc Ultimate Collector's Edition under review here ($85) has a grand total of 20 hours of extras - 4 of them brand-new. The high-def bonuses on Disc 1 are joined by tons more on Disc 2 plus a DVD of standard-def (though no less nostalgic) treasures. Most of them have been created with the attention and intelligence you'd expect from the important reissue of such a universally beloved movie, and all of the extras are well worth a watch.

The best new addition is an excellent documentary on director Victor Fleming, with insightful Hollywood tidbits and many thrilling clips from his other films, including Red Dust, Captains Courageous, Test Pilot, and of course, Gone With the Wind (which is getting its own 70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Edition on Blu-ray in November). All of the materials on the Blu-ray Discs have been given high-def transfers, but sadly (though understandably) the footage is often from standard-def sources.

Other new pleasures include a sing-along track (which, based on the response I got from fellow viewers, I intend to use for one or two parties this holiday season), a featurette on the Munchkin actors, and two restored 1914 silent films (unfortunately, with no musical accompaniment) produced by L. Frank Baum and based on his other Oz stories. Fans of the author can find his adventurous life described, rather too dryly, in a 30-minute featurette or fleshed out with unashamed artistic license in a 1990 TV movie starring John Ritter.

If you're not too Baumed out by this point, there are oodles of DVD carryovers, including 1910 (short) and 1925 (feature-length) versions of The Wizard of Oz plus the hourlong His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz from 1914 (all three with stereo musical accompaniment) as well as a 1933 Technicolor animated version with sound. My favorite is the 1910 short, which makes up for its technological and financial shortcomings with artistry, imagination, and dancing girls.

A 50-minute making-of documentary narrated by Angela Lansbury (who hosts several of the items in this set) and a 30-minute featurette with Sydney Pollack have many wonderful behind-the-scenes pleasures, lots of Hollywood history, and neat dope from the cast. Meanwhile, a 25-minute look at the legacy of Oz charts its place in our culture. An informative commentary by historian John Fricke is interspersed with droll, archival cast-and-crew interviews. You also get Arlen's home movies, some surprisingly enthralling trailers (using alternate takes and tryout costumes), delightful deleted scenes, anecdotes from surviving cast members, and a featurette on the 2005 restoration. Need Oz on the go? The fourth disc holds a digital copy for downloading. Audioonly items include a jukebox of recording sessions, a radio version of Oz with Garland, two long radio promo shows, and Lansbury reading the Oz book aloud.

If you have time left to dream even more, there's the DVD's in-depth 6-hour documentary series on MGM Studios, narrated by Patrick Stewart as if he were telling of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. Supported by Louis B. Mayer, Irving Thalberg, and as many stars as there are in the heavens, it makes for an engrossingly melodramatic story.

And since this is an Ultimate Collector's Edition, the set comes in a collectible case with such physical extras as a 50-page book (filled with rare stills and production elements), reproductions of archival materials, and a crystal-studded Oz watch. Oh, my!