jbhiller

I saw Sweethearts (1938) on TCM and I found it striking how much it looked like The Wizard of Oz. The biggest similarity was exaggerated color.

The first production number was straight of Munchkin Land. Then, Ray Bolger came out and did a Scarecrow dance. Jeanette MacDonald was dressed like Good Witch Glenda (before Wicked.) Frank Morgan was the humbug theater Wizard. They even had a Yellow Brick Road. There is a dress up scene that could have taken place in the Emeral City.

Though Victor Herbert wrote the music in 1913 it sounded a lot like the songs in The Wizard of Oz. The "Dutch" villagers looked and sounded like Munchkins. When Nelson Eddy showed up with a military contingent, I thought I heard them sing "O-EE-O".

The plot had nothing to do with The Wizard of Oz, but there was no Wicked Witch. After all, there was no romance in The Wizard of Oz. The music is pleasant but not too memorable. What Sweethearts is missing is a "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" song.

The Broadway plot is as much of a fantasy as The Wizard of Oz.

I just watched Meet Me in St. Louis on TCM. Besides being one of the greatest movie musicals plus a luminous Judy Garland, realize that 1944 was the middle of WW II. Millions of American soldiers where spread out over the world, missing home. The movie takes them back to an idiolized simpler time.

This was Judy Garland at her peak after the Wizard of Oz. She would be the ideal "Girl Next Door" for the young GI's. Margaret O'Brien was almost too cute to be real.

Every time Judy Garland sings "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" it brings a tear to my eye. Soldiers sitting in a foxhole would have loved to be home for Christmas. They all felt "Someday soon, we all will be together If the fates allow" They knew what they were fighting for.

Salvatore Dali was one of the great artists of the 20th Century but you would never know it from this movie. He was also one of the greatest eccentrics of the 20th Century but that's not what made him important. Almost none of his art was shown in this movie.

My favorite movie is Amadeus. The thing that makes it great is the combination of great story combined with the greatest music. Even if the movie was not a historically accurate biograpy of Mozart, the story shows what inspired him.

I saw nothing of Dali's inspiration in this movie. There was brimstone but no fire. It could have used more flashbacks.