The Wizard of Oz

[JonathanLB]

Does anyone understand if this actually was the first feature length color film that is non-animated? I know Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 was fully colorized because I wrote an insanely long, unfinished review of that (haven't done the second disc of the DVD), but I am not finding what I want here about the color aspect of The Wizard of Oz.

The film opened WELL before Gone With the Wind, which is color, but I don't know if GWTW was color in 1939, if it was colorized later, or what, because I haven't even reviewed that film yet (seen it before, though).

My Wizard of Oz review is now the 2nd longest in the 450+ I have for JLBMovies.com. It's more than 12 pages, grr, STUPID DVD has more extra features than I have hairs on my head. I'm still not done with the movie review, but finished the DVD review in a day here.

So what gives, is Wizard of Oz the first significant color feature? I thought so...

CMJ?

[JonathanLB]

Ok I retract my question, but I contend that The Wizard of Oz was THE FIRST significant color movie -- the rest of the crap before it wasn't even remembered by people 10 years later, let alone now.

I read some FAQs here that I found finally and it mentions a few earlier films with Technicolor, but jesus, nobody has ever heard of these movies and they don't make any top lists, so it seems to me that Wizard of Oz is at least the film that made color a huge deal.

[CMJ]

Definitely "Oz" was the first big time color production. To answer your other question, GWTW was color from the beginning as well.

[Jedi Master Carr]

Gone With The Wind came out in the same year right?

[CMJ]

Sure did...

[JonathanLB]

Well CMJ, on Wednesday when I post my review, you'll have another 14 pager to read, haha, j/k. There is no way I would expect anyone to finish reading this review. The DVD notes section just becomes boring after a while, but oh well, I like to be thorough.

I wrote a little history of color film in my review, too, which I felt was appropriate given the importance of The Wizard of Oz. GWTW was shot using a new Technicolor technology, different from Oz, which was 50% cheaper and 3 times as fast. It didn't require as much lighting or as big of lighting units, which is one reason for that.

[GraNi NaColu]

I have still yet to see GWTW. I think I remember reading the first few chapters of the book, but I lost it.

[Mu Satach]

Mu stands on a hill with the sun setting behind her in a pair of ruby red slippers...
"And as God is my witness,"
*shakes fist at the air*
"I shall never travel to OZ again!"

*sweeping music score begins*

INTERMISSION!

[JonathanLB]

I just finished editing my 14+ page Wizard of Oz review. I will post it tomorrow along with my other new reviews. Darnit I hope someone reads that sucker, like my Citizen Kane review, because it took FOREVER to write.

I put 20 hours into my review of Citizen Kane, about 10 into my Wizard of Oz review, but still that is quite a lot.

143 people have found the Citizen Kane review through search engines, though I am not sure how many people have read it (considering they could come from my own site, from other sites, etc. rather than just through engines). I doubt more than maybe 10 of those people really read my entire review, but hey, at least the information was there for them if they needed it.

The last three days have been remarkable for JLB Movies!

Three record-breaking days consecutively. My previous record was 482 visitors to my site, set on January 15, but I had 639 visitors Monday, 671 on Tuesday, and 691 today with a few minutes left to go...

I never reached 500, just blew past it and went right to 600, and the funniest thing is that I have been unable to pinpoint the reason. Generally I can figure it out, but there has been no extra source of traffic through a URL that my hit counters have tracked, i.e. no one site has just posted a link temporarily, for instance, and no one new search term has crept into my rankings (45 visitors or more for one search term would appear on the hit counter currently), so it seems just a broad increase in traffic site-wide that, for whatever reason, begun Monday and does not appear to be turning back to where it was before, so it is likely a permanent increase.

Back in September, my average traffic was ~114 people per day average for the month.

By December it was ~269.

For January it was ~396.

For February it is ~564.

I am still awaiting my pending application to the Online Film Critics Society. They take some time to deliberate, I guess. I very much look forward to hearing from them. I hope they accept me, at least, it would certainly be nice and I feel at this point that my site deserves it, even though it is very underdeveloped compared to what I'd like :D

[JonathanLB]

Glance it over if you want, just to see how much suffering went into this thing so you can pity me, lol:

http://www.jlbmovies.com/WizardOfOz.shtml