Horror Actressing: Judy In Oz
Monday, September 23, 2019 at 3:00PM by Jason Adams
Consider this just a half entry in our "Great Moments in Horror Actressing" canon as I'm somewhat waylaid with New York Film Festival screenings at the moment. But I wanted to mark the release of the "Renee Zellweger as Judy Garland!" bio-pic this week with a quick thought. No The Wizard of Oz is not a horror movie. As far as I can suss out Judy Garland never starred in a proper horror movie. (Feel free to set me straight, as I'm not a Judy expert.) But I don't think we really give her enough credit for how fully she sells Dorothy's many many moments of sheer unadulterated terror in The Wizard of Oz, all the same...
Oz is a movie that, for all its childish checkered dresses and ruby slippers, has been emotionally scarring generation after generation of children, giving them nightmares to spend a lifetime grappling with. Flying monkeys tearing her friends to itty bits, her precious little dog being snatched away time and time and time again -- if Judy wasn't selling those scenes as well as she did, if her tears hadn't seemed wholly authentic every time up to bat, would those moments have retained half their power?
It really does make me wonder what Judy might have done with a proper horror movie. She was so good at displaying heart-rending vulnerability to an audience. What would she have done with a Wait Until Dark or a What Ever Happened to Baby Jane all her own? If she'd lived longer would she have made one of the so-called "Hagsploitation" films that were both a boon and a burden to "actresses of a certain age" in the 1970s? Imagine that!
Reader Comments (12)
Judy would have been good for Who Slew Auntie Roo.
Judy as Blanche, right? I could see that!
And she would’ve been great in WAIT UNTIL DARK, though that movie is already perfect.
But what about Margaret Hamilton, the platinum standard by which all witches will forever be measured?
I read this as Horror Actressing: Renée as Judy. ;-)
She would have been great in Sudden Fear, which delivered one of the great Joan Crawford performances and her final Oscar nomination.
I just want to applaud your insight regarding the strength of Garland's acting in Wizard of Oz. I was so scared of the flying monkeys I had to sit on the stairs, (facing away from the tv) at that point.
Wizard of Oz was a really scary film for me. Credit should go to the ingenious set decoration, cinematography, and vulnerability of Dorothy. Garland would have been extremely good at selling a horror film.
Even though she was nominated for an Oscar for Judgement at Nuremberg, her talent for dramatic acting was never fully explored because of health/insurance issues.
Margaret Hamilton Deserved a BSA nomination for TWofOz. Her Witch made the perfect terror for Dorothy. Meryl gets a Witch nomination for Into The Woods?!?
Margaret Hamilton as the The Wicked Witch is my favorite vilain in movies and any other media.(Quite different physically from the book that made me a book reader, but perfect for the film.) Like Gone With The Wind a movie with a thousand directors - each one with his contribution.
Judy would have been incredible in Wait Until Dark, but of course Hepburn was too. I wonder what Judy in Rosemary's Baby or a young Judy in The Exorcist might have looked like.
You appreciate Judy even more when you think about how these scenes would NOT have worked with the studio's first choice (shudder), Shirley Temple.
The Wizard of Oz is a cornucopia of terror, literally one of the scariest movies I've ever seen. Everyone talks about the flying monkeys but when you're a little kid there's also the twister, the talking trees, the spooks in the woods, the firey head of Oz bellowing at everyone and most of all, that hourglass that's running out of sand and when it does the Witch is going TO KILL DOROTHY. Just *how* she's going to do it is left to your fearful imagination. Omg that whole sequence had me in knots! At any rate It's a great, great movie and Garland and Hamilton and everyone else are all just wonderful, they should all have gotten Oscars.
Garland in "What's the Matter With Helen"