Almost There: Judy Garland in "The Wizard of Oz"

by Cláudio Alves

On a stressful day such as this, cinema can be a comfort. The movies are often prized for their escapist properties, so why not escape into their celluloid dreams once one's civil duty's done? I propose a trip to Oz before the first Wicked movie redefines what future generations will picture when they think of that magical land with emerald cities and yellow brick roads. But we're not here to talk fairytale architecture, good or bad witches. Instead, our focus shall be on the little girl who adventures into that world, swept by a Kansas tornado, from sepia-toned monochrome into three-strip Technicolor. It's time to talk about Judy Garland's Dorothy, a performance on the cusp of an Oscar nomination once upon a time. She was almost there…

The Wizard of Oz is such a beloved classic that I'm not sure a summary is needed in any way, shape or form. Hell, multiple Team Experience members have written about it, including Judy Garland's performance specifically. Jason Adams looked at it through the prism of horror actressing. Anne Marie considered Garland's rendition of "Over the Rainbow" for her Judy by the Numbers series. Chris Feil also reflected on the musical components of the actress's work in his Soundtracking column, while Brent Calderwood wrote about the picture's merits, historical context, and lasting legacy for the star's centennial a couple of years ago. I can only hope I'm bringing something new to the table. Well, here goes nothing. 

Dorothy Gale enters the movie in a tizzy, irate at Miss Gulch's hatred for the girl's dog, Toto. As it happens, the pup has had enough and bit the pesky neighbor, leading his owner to despair and complain to her kind uncle and aunt. There's something disarming about Garland's portrayal of innocence, a natural ease with the material that stops it from being an affected pantomime of childishness like so many precocious kid star turns in Old Hollywood. Legend says Mickey Rooney told his regular screen partner to act the way she sang, which certainly seems present in her approach to Dorothy's emotional crisis. Her hurt is no joke, nor is it a projection of feeling meant to suggest interiority rather than embody it.

Still, there's a balletic precision to her movement, poses and exaggerated expressions that never fall into a register that could betray The Wizard of Oz's radical earnestness. That particular facet comes to its early culmination in Garland's "Over the Rainbow," a shot of depurated yearning, injected straight into the audience's bloodstream through the songstress' musical stylings. Consider the vulnerability that Garland delineates, mixed with the kind of self-assured confidence you can only find in young people – young movie heroes most of all. But that strength never overrides the melancholy in Garland's delivery, a cloudy sky through which golden hope has found a way, shining down on this little girl.

It's a wistful masterpiece of a scene, a literal calm before the storm. It takes little time before Miss Gulch shows up to take Toto away, provoking Dorothy into running away before a tornado hits the Gales' farm. In just a couple of scenes, Garland has to go from a child's overwhelming heartbreak to defiance, touching on the pains of regret before the world goes upside down, twisted out of sorts by the twisting wind. When all is said and done, the mundane has evanesced, lost to another dimension, and Dorothy walks into the Land of Oz, curiosity glittering in her eyes. She's cautious but not necessarily apprehensive. Dorothy is awe personified, and why shouldn't she be?

Despite its obvious artifice, few movie places have as much wonderment baked into them as this MGM Oz. And yet, for all the filmmaking miracles at hand, Garland's open childlike wonder is the most powerful spell of all. Through her reactions, we are led to believe in the spectacle, never questioning the painted backdrops or the odd brutality of the story. After all, Dorothy enters this wonderland by falling on top of the Wicked Witch of the East, killing her through assault with a deadly house. The emotional whiplash is dizzying, only assuaged, if not outright denied, by Garland's ability to keep up with her movie's tonal transformations. Who else could have made the morbidity of the Munchkin's celebration taste so sweet?

Balancing Dorothy's humanity and the narrative's demand for dream logic, Judy Garland finds the perfect medium point, varying from scene to scene without calling too much attention to her efforts. In this respect, some of the young actress' roughness, the inelegant technique that hadn't yet been buffed out by the MGM machine, helps ground the fantasy. Her terror is ugly when the Wicked Witch of the West makes her entrance, not the varnished facsimile of a fright. And in that ugliness, there's truth. For those who know about The Wizard of Oz's troubled production, some of Garland's behind-the-scenes nightmare almost seems to seep through into the finished film. But instead of dispelling the magic, it fortifies it.

The potential for tragedy is always there, dormant yet powerful beneath a frothy surface. It's true of the movie and Garland's performance, which, like all her best work, seems to float by like a soap bubble. It's iridescent, a rainbow reflection that brings joy but is immensely fragile. So much so that one feels as if a mere breath could pop it. The same could be said about the heroine's credulity and courage, which seem constantly under threat but always right themselves by the end of every interaction. Rinse and repeat, surprise, shock, acceptance, doubt and a resolution to brave the unknown. These chains and equilibriums follow Dorothy along the yellow brick road, as she makes new friends and keeps being threatened by the Wicked Witch.

But through it all and into the Emerald City, fear never obscures joy, nor does the melancholy introduced with "Over the Rainbow" sour into misery. The bubble keeps afloat through Garland's foundational star turn. Critically, it seldom feels forced or as if she's trying too hard to feign innocence or the character's great youth. Mayhap, there's a hint of strain in her poses when falling under the poppy field's sleep spell, but it's not detrimental to the overall effect. If anything, it helps give the performance a touch of humor, reminding us of Garland's comedienne skills. They are most emphasized when Dorothy confronts the titular Oz, all insecure in a way reminiscent of a cartoon mouse. Look at Garland's big eyes – she puts Disney animation to shame.

Besides the actress' lachrymose pleas to the Witch, her performance of a little girl's deepest despair, it's easy to dismiss Garland's work as light fare that doesn't ask much in terms of acting ingenuity. That's the conundrum of playing uncomplicated goodness, a difficult feat often taken for granted when it's actually pretty tough to make compelling on screen. Don't presume that what Judy Garland is doing as Dorothy is effortless, though, at times, it might seem so. As has been said many times before, take the star turn out of The Wizard of Oz and the whole thing falls apart, a house of cards laid flat. She's why it works, one of the essential reasons for its classic status, and why it remains one of the great masterpieces of American film. There's no place like home and nobody else like Garland, the world's greatest entertainer.

At the 12th Academy Awards, The Wizard of Oz was nominated in five competitive categories – Picture, Art Direction, Special Effects, Original Score and Song. It won the latter two, but that wasn't all. That year, AMPAS also honored Judy Garland with their Academy Juvenile Award, citing her for this particular performance. She was the third young actor to get such a prize, after Shirley Temple, Deanna Durbin, and Mickey Rooney, with the award retiring after 1960 when Hayley Mills became the 12th and last winner. This tells us that the Academy did consider Garland's work awards-worthy, even if she didn't manage to crack the Best Actress lineup. 

Instead, the Oscar nominees were Bette Davis in Dark Victory, Irene Dunne in Love Affair, Greta Garbo in Ninotchka, Greer Garson in Goodbye, Mr. Chips, and Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind. The English thespian won for the most iconic southern belle in movie history. Garland would finally be nominated in 1954 for A Star Is Born. At the time, many thought she'd take it, but that was Grace Kelly's year. Later, Garland was honored in Best Supporting Actress with Judgment at Nuremberg, but lost to Rita Moreno in West Side Story. Though many of her movies over the years received multiple Oscar nominations, those were Garland's only nods.

The Wizard of Oz is streaming on Max, TNT, TBS, and Tru TV. You can also rent it from Apple TV, Amazon, the Microsoft Store, and Spectrum On Demand.

Comments

[par]

"She was the third young actor to get such a prize, after Shirley Temple, Deanna Durbin, and Mickey Rooney"

i'm no mathematician but that doesn't add up