The Wizard of Oz (1939) DVD/Blu-ray commentary track review

The Wizard of Oz (1939)

NOTE: This commentary is only available on the October 2005 releases, both the 2-disc Special Edition and the 3-disc Collector's Edition. Previous DVD releases did not have commentaries. A different commentary track was available on the Criterion Collection "Wizard of Oz" 50th Anniversary laserdisc.

Commentaries on this disc:

Commentary 1: Film historian John Fricke, plus archival audio comments by Barbara Freed-Saltzman (daughter of Arthur Freed), Margaret Hamilton, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Ken Darby (orchestral and vocal arranger), John Lahr (son of Bert Lahr), Jane Lahr (daughter of Bert Lahr), Hamilton Meserve (son of Margaret Hamilton), William Tuttle (make-up artist), Buddy Ebsen, Mervyn LeRoy, John Lee Mahin and Jerry Maren	Rating:8.0/10 (5 votes) [graph]	Login to vote or review
Reviewed by MonkeeJuice on December 10th, 2007:		Find all reviews by MonkeeJuice
John Fricke gives a great commentary for The Wizard Of Oz, but the audio clips do get in a way of it.
Reviewed by Uniblab on September 27th, 2009:		Find all reviews by Uniblab
There's not very much to say here after MonkeeJuice above pretty much nailed it: John Fricke rocks (plus, it's great to see Sydney Pollack as the track's host); interview audio clips stitched together as a commentary (some of them featured on the various featurettes of the DVD), no matter how good they are, suck.
Reviewed by Bob Curtin on December 1st, 2022:		Find all reviews by Bob Curtin
I can appreciate what is said by the posters above about "stitched together audio clips" killing a commentary as I have experienced that with other dvd tracks. But with Oz, I found that the contributions of Margaret Hamilton et al were used sparingly and added to my appreciation of the classic. It may have caught me in the right nostalgic mood but I thoroughly enjoyed the commentary.