The Wizard of Oz has probably seen more home video releases than any other film. The new release, called The Wizard of Oz: 85th Anniversary Theater Edition (4K UHD + BD + DIG/Steelbook) [Blu-ray] retails for $75 but is currently on sale at Amazon for $68 vs the 2019 stand-alone 4K Blu-ray which retails for $42 but is currently on sale at Amazon for $15.

If all you want is the film presented as good as it is ever likely to be plus the extras that have been around seemingly forever, go with the stand-alone 4K release. The new release is not an upgrade, it’s the same 4K release with an extra Bu-ray and lots of photographs in a steel container that you don’t need and probably don’t want.

The film itself remains a favorite of almost everyone who has seen it. With the upcoming release of the film version of Stephen Schwartz’s Wicked, the long-running Broadway musical based on Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel about the lives of the witches in The Wizard of Oz, there’s sure to be renewed interest in the classic 1939 film.

Contrary to legend, The Wizard of Oz was not a flop in its original release. It cost so much money to make that it did not make a profit in 1939 despite large audience support but eventually did so with its 1949 re-release. It was re-introduced to the public with its 1956 TV broadcast that reached 40 million viewers. It later became an annual TV event from 1959 through 1998. In 1989, it was one of the first twenty-five films selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” Its total viewership long ago reached into the billions.

Based on L. Frank Baum’s 1903 novel, MGM’s film had three credited writers and ten uncredited writers. It also had four directors. Initial director Richard Thorpe was fired for rushing the actors. George Cukor, already committed to Gone with the Wind, was brought in temporarily to work with the actors before filming began. His main contribution was to throw out star Judy Garland’s blonde wig and tell her to play herself. Victor Fleming, who was given sole credit for the film was replaced by King Vidor when Fleming replaced Cukor on Gone with the Wind for which he also received sole credit.

The title character was written with W.C. Fields in mind, but Fields wanted too much money, so they next offered the part to Ed Wynn who turned it down as being too small a part. Producer Mervyn LeRoy then asked his MGM bosses for Wallace Beery, but his schedule was too busy, so they gave him fellow contract player Frank Morgan instead.

Shirley Temple had been MGM’s choice for the role of Dorothy, the Kansas girl who is transported to Oz along with her little dog after being hit in the head in a tornado, but a deal couldn’t be reached with 20th Century-Fox for her services. That was good news for LeRoy who wanted Garland for the part all along.

LeRoy wanted Gale Sondergaard, who had won an Oscar for Warner Bros.’ 1936 film, Anthony Adverse, which he directed for the role of the Wicked Witch. He had wanted her to play a glamorous witch, which MGM overruled him on. Sondergaard refused to play an ugly witch and was replaced by Margaret Hamilton in what would become her signature role.

The other key roles in the film were played by Ray Bolger as the Scarecrow, Jack Haley as the Tin Man, Bert Lahr as the Lion, Billie Burke as Glinda, the good witch, and the Singer Midgets as the Munchkins.

Interestingly, Margaret Hamilton revealed her approach to the character of the Wicked Witch in a 1968 interview with Fred Rogers for Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. She said she saw the Witch as a person who relished everything she did, but who ultimately was a sad, lonely figure – a woman who lived in constant frustration, as she never got what she wanted which is the basis of Wicked, in which the Wicked Witch of the West is portrayed as an unfortunate protagonist.

In the same interview, Hamilton also famously donned the original Witch costume to explain that the witches were only make-believe, and that children shouldn’t be afraid of them.

Released for the first time on 4K UHD are the classic ghost stories that bookended moviegoing in the 1990s, both of which were nominated for Best Picture Oscars.

The biggest box-office hit of 1990 and the best-selling videotape of 1991, Ghost is a fantasy, a drama, and a comedy rolled into one, but is primarily a love story about a young man (Patrick Swayze) who is murdered and whose ghost stays around to help his lover (Demi Moore) avoid danger from his killer.

Swayze and Moore are terrific as are Tony Goldwyn as their friend and Whoopi Goldberg in her Oscar-winning portrayal of a supposed fake medium who turns out to have unsuspected powers that allow her to help Swayze and Moore. Vincent Schiavelli also impresses as a subway hopping ghost.

One of the actors who turned down the role that Swayze eventually won was Bruce Willis who was married to Moore from 1987-2000. He got to star in the decade’s other Oscar-nominated smash hit ghost story, 1999’s The Sixth Sense.

Classified as both a drama and a mystery rather than a fantasy which it is, Willis plays a child psychologist treating a boy with a disturbing secret. He is played by Oscar-nominated Haley Joel Osment in one of the best child performances of all time. He allegedly got the role by impressing Oscar-nominated director M. Night Shyamalan that given the script the night before his audition, had read the entire script three times.

Toni Collette, who was also nominated for an Oscar as Osment’s mother, auditioned for the film while she was in New York to audition for something else. Her audition scene was the climactic scene in the car with Osment’s character.

Released for the first time on Blu-ray, Michael Curtiz’s 1958 film, The Proud Rebel finally looks on home video the way it was meant to look. One of Alan Ladd’s best films, many like it even better than George Stevens’ 1953 film, Shane, which is Ladd’s most critically acclaimed film. The Proud Rebel features him as a no-nonsense Confederate veteran of the Civil War in Yankee country whose son (Ladd’s real-life son David) suffers from a traumatic inability to speak. An equally superb Olivia de Havilland plays the senior Ladd’s love interest and the younger Ladd’s protector.

Happy viewing.