Forty-one years – half our life-time – ago we packed up our bags and the family and said goodbye to our home, leaving for two years in England to begin making ‘Return to Oz’ for Disney studios. In our inexperience and naiveté we didn’t know what was ahead for us or the film, and it was an intense two years full of more adventures than we had bargained for. We returned bruised but not broken though the film had a harder time of it. Abandoned by the studio whose revolving doors had spun executives in and out approximately every six months ‘Return to Oz’ was not given a good send-off as it was threaded up in cinemas around the country. Many years later Sydney Pollack, a film director, producer and friend, when battling the same issues with ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’ said that “you can take an audience to hell and back, but you have to let them know where they are going.” Disney was not prepared to do that with Oz and neither was Paramount with Ripley. Both films felt the force of those non-decisions. But eventually both found their audiences and have a strong following to this day,

On Saturday morning we were driven across London – never a smart thing to do on a Saturday morning – to the British Film Institute – on the South Bank of the Thames River. The driver dropped us off – as they do – somewhere in the back of the vast South Bank complex – and it took us awhile to find our way to the BFI entrance. We were late. ‘Return to Oz’ had already started, Dorothy had just found the key to Oz, showed it to Aunt Em and was about to be taken off to Dr. Worley’s. My friend Tansy as Toto was putting in a star performance. We were ushered to our seats in the back and as we slowly got used to the dark we saw that this large theatre was almost completely full of families and fans glued to the screen. They were laughing at the jokes, and following along, even staying silent and alert when the film froze as the projectionist missed the final breath-holding reel changeover. As the lights came up the audience of some film makers, film buffs. and children settling in for the Q and A. A young girl who had participated in the fun children’s hour hosted before the film asked Walter “Is Oz real?” and he answered, “Well that is the question isn’t it?” 

Eventually we left the BFI, going out into the bright sunlight and joined the weekend folks along the South Bank of the river. The tide was in, the wind was up and the tourists were thick, walking and pausing to see the street artists with their puppets, music, youthful energy and hope. Strolling along we were bemused and touched that the work of 41 years ago still lives in the minds and hearts of these families. Crossing the Westminster Bridge I thought of the Nome King’s destruction by a plucky girl, her Army, the Gump, a squishy pumpkin, a chicken and an egg. For this afternoon moment we were relieved of thinking of the current Nome King who is destroying the Oz of Frank Baum’s world and dreams, the new age of invention as it was then in America and continued to be – until this time.

It’s pretty steady, each and every day a new decree is published from the Emperor who – although despite falling asleep while wearing a blue suit at the Popes Funeral – seems not to have any other clothes. He is moving on, already bored with the finer details of making a deal with Ukraine’s President Zelensky – gouging out huge mineral reserves in exchange for a paper-thin promise of more weapons, a cease-fire with Russia and some small print saying which countriy’s mayors, Russia or the Ukraine, gets to sit on which city council. President Zelensky has signed away half of his countries mineral wealth to this US President, betting that he won’t last his full term and hoping that eventually some calmer heads might prevail. For the moment the word from one of many Ukrainian women who have sheltered in Europe, finding work where they can is that ‘We are running out of men’.

It is as if the US president is no longer content with the swing of his golfing driver but has taken to fishing, wading in over his knees as he casts his rod and line out into the waters. He is moving on from the river bank of Gaza – leaving his pal Benjamin Netanyahu to finish mopping up the remains of that invasion. Hamas will burrow deeper into the sands of the desert that will indeed become deadly.  

He is even more dangerous with a fishing rod, spinning it back and then out with too heavy a lure on the end. While we watch, Vice President Mike Pence received a Kennedy Medal of Honor and pause to take in the meaning of that award, for him and the country. 

Last week Public Broadcasting was threatened and ‘Films not made in America’ are on this week’s hit list as he called them a “security threat”, saying that “Other nations have stolen our Movie industry” The thought that art forms of any kind are like cats not owned by anyone but casting their lot with whoever gives them the best deal has not crossed the minds of the minions in the White House. Or maybe it has? Is the film industry to be reeled in with all the creators of all art to be marinated with the a new sauce before being tossed into the scorching barbecue pit of Great America. 

Spring has balked at heralding summer. The clouds are heavy with gun smoke as Israel attacks Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Gaza all in one day. The blame lies elsewhere they say. And so far there are no children with a magical army of peace to stop this.

Here in Great Britain council seats were contested across the country splitting the United Kingdom into disarray. The Reform party led by Nigel Farage has taken a bold lead, sending the Conservatives tumbling to sit below the Lib Dems, whose leader, Ed Davey, MP for Kingston and Surbiton, is busy celebrating by playing village cricket and serving up just-out-of-the oven warm scones smothered in cream and strawberry jam at the tea break. Sir Keir Starmer looks rather shell-shocked and is almost pleading with the people to ‘give him more time.’ before he, too, dutifully served tea at the long table laid out along Downing Street for the 80th VE celebrations for the end of WW II.   

Monday was the beginning of England’s week long celebrations. The Royal family were dutifully out on display, paying tribute to the soldiers, sea and airmen who fought then, and those who continue to serve. As in other countries that celebrate this day, there are fewer and fewer active service personal alive to be wheeled out and thanked, while each country continues to prepare for war.

This has been a letter from A Broad written and read for you by Muriel Murch. 

Supported by murch studio.com