It came out three years after a major Surrealism exhibition opened at New YorkвЂ™s Museum of Modern Art, and the way its scenario spirals into a frantic fever dream of flying monkeys and green-faced guards is nothing if not surreal. ItвЂ™s a subversive message in 2019, and it was even more pointed in 1939, when fascist dictators were stomping across Europe.Д«aumвЂ™s novel may have been published at the turn of the century, but the film directed by Victor Fleming (along with two uncredited colleagues) is very much a product of the 1930s. The message is that people will march behind any authority figure who makes a splash, however undeserving they may be. (Any water-soluble witch who leaves buckets of the stuff sitting around her castle is asking for trouble.) But in both cases, Dorothy is instantly hailed as a conquering heroine, just as the Wizard was when he touched down in Oz. In both cases, the killings are accidents, the results of pure chance rather than DorothyвЂ™s bravery or virtue. She kills one Wicked Witch by crash-landing a house on her, and kills another (Margaret Hamilton) by splashing her with water. The script scoffs at the idea that power and prosperity come to those who merit them, even when it is dealing with Dorothy herself. True, we canвЂ™t take anything the вЂњhumbugвЂќ Wizard says too seriously, but these are radical sentiments to hear in any Hollywood film, let alone a Hollywood film aimed at children. War veterans are mocked as people who вЂњtake their fortitude out of mothballs and parade it down the main street of the cityвЂќ once a year, but вЂњhave no more courage than you haveвЂќ.

Academics and philanthropists are derided. I donвЂ™t know how it works!вЂќ There arenвЂ™t many films that show politicians being quite as brazenly incompetent as that.Д«efore the Wizard disappears, he hands the Scarecrow (Ray Bolger), the Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr) and the Tin Man (Jack Haley) their suitably gimcrack prizes вЂ“ a scroll, a medal and a clock вЂ“ while assuring them that they are as accomplished as anyone вЂњback where I come fromвЂќ. In a gloriously gonzo final flourish, he floats off into the sky with a cheerful cry of: вЂњI canвЂ™t come back. He admits that he ended up in the land of Oz when his hot air balloon was blown there вЂ“ and even that balloon is beyond his control. Another film might have contrasted this earthbound huckster with the genuine marvels performed by the wonderful Wizard of Oz, but in this one the wizard is played by the same actor as Professor Marvel, and he turns out to be much the same character: a fast-talking fairground showman who hides behind a curtain, waggling levers, and using mechanical trickery to keep his subjects loyal and afraid. As kindly as he is, the professor is a con artist who pretends to be psychic by peeking at a photo Dorothy is carrying. Having run away from her home in Kansas to stop her pet dog Toto being put down, Dorothy meets a travelling clairvoyant named Professor Marvel (Frank Morgan) вЂ“ a character who isnвЂ™t in L Frank BaumвЂ™s source novel, but was created by screenwriters Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf. In the sepia opening scenes, we are warned that the magic weвЂ™re about to see might not be wholly magical.

But it upends the conventions of good-v-evil storytelling in ways that would have had Walt Disney fuming. The pig-tailed Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland) is so wholesome, the Harburg and Arlen songs are so delightful, and the Technicolor adventures are so exciting that itвЂ™s still easy to mistake The Wizard of Oz for traditional family entertainment, 80 years on from its release in August 1939. In the trioвЂ™s moaning and blubbing as they prepare to sneak into the witchвЂ™s castle, you can see a foreshadowing of Westley, Inigo and Fezzik invading HumperdinckвЂ™s castle in The Princess Bride. In the clanking of the Tin ManвЂ™s rusty limbs, you can hear echoes of Don QuixoteвЂ™s home-made armour.

None of them is what youвЂ™d call a handsome prince. Just look at the trio of frightened and feeble misfits that accompanies its heroine along the yellow brick road. Is When Harry met Sally the greatest romcom ever?Д«ut for all of its similarities to the Disney film, MGMвЂ™s version was more of an anti-fairy tale than a fairy tale. It went on to be cinemaвЂ™s biggest hit of 1938, a success that not only encouraged Disney to make other fairy-tale cartoons for decades to come, but also encouraged another studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, to try its own fantasy musical about an orphaned girl and a wicked witch: The Wizard of Oz. In December 1937, Walt Disney Productions released its first feature-length cartoon, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

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