The score by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy van Heusen contains some gems Liza Minnelli sings 'There's a Faraway Land' and 'That Feeling for Home', whilst Ethel Merman camps it up with 'Be a Witch' and Rise Stevens delivers Glinda's 'You Have Only You' to perfection.Īnother cute twist is Margaret Hamilton (who played the Wicked Witch and Miss Gulch in the original Judy Garland classic) voicing the role of Aunt Em! With new friends Jack Pumpkinhead (Paul Lynde) and Woodenhead the carousel horse (Herschel Bernardi), and some guidance from Glinda (Rise Stevens) Dorothy sets out to thwart Mombi and save her old friends from destruction.

Instead, Dorothy discovers to her horror that an evil witch called Mombi (Ethel Merman) is plotting to invade the Emerald City with a hoard of enchanted green elephants. For what it sets out to achieve, JOURNEY BACK TO OZ delivers handsomely.ĭorothy (Liza Minnelli) gets swept back to Oz via another cyclone, and quickly sets about finding her old friends the Scarecrow (Mickey Rooney), Tin Man (Danny Thomas) and Cowardly Lion (Milton Berle). Of course, no animated film could ever replicate the magic and scope of the 1939 masterpiece, but let's not carp.

'JOURNEY BACK TO OZ is a thoroughly delightful animated musical-sequel to THE WIZARD OF OZ, the big highlight being that Liza Minnelli voices the role of Dorothy (the role that catapulted her mother Judy Garland into the annals of film history).

The journey back to oz