November 7 | 5 movies
TCM takes a deep dive into objects of desire on November 7, when Ben Mankiewicz hosts a night featuring five classic films—The Wizard of Oz (1939), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Romancing the Stone (1984), Jason and the Argonauts (1963) and The Maltese Falcon (1941)—that revolve around iconic objects of desire. Most times, these objects have a dark side where the desire for them turns into an often-deadly obsession, and the bad guys will stop at nothing to acquire what they covet from the protagonist on their hero’s journey. It usually doesn’t end well for the bad guys, like the Wicked Witch of the West.
Kicking off the evening is the beloved Technicolor musical The Wizard of Oz, based on the 1900 children’s novel “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.” In fact, it’s hard to find anyone who is not in love with this innovative, clever and endearing movie about Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland) from Kansas who finds herself and her little dog Toto in the magical world of Oz. When Glinda (Billie Burke), the Good Witch of the North, gives her the powerful Ruby Slippers, Dorothy’s life is in danger. The evil Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton) wants the shoes to build her power in Oz, but the only way she can get them is to kill Dorothy.
Following the Yellow Brick Road on her way to Oz in hopes of convincing the Wizard (Frank Morgan) to send her back home, Dorothy meets and befriends the Scarecrow (Ray Bolger), the Tin Man (Jack Haley) and the Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr), who also hope the Wizard can help them. Meanwhile, the Wicked Witch of the West and her Flying Monkeys have other ideas.
The Wizard of Oz is a perfect everything-comes-together film. It boasts eye-popping Technicolor, sumptuous sets and costume design, cutting-edge special effects and legacy-enduring songs, including the Oscar-winning “Over the Rainbow.” But it’s the glorious performances that really make the film a masterpiece. Garland became a major star as Dorothy, even winning a juvenile Oscar for her performances in The Wizard of Oz and Babes in Arms. In 2013, The Wizard of Oz was given the 3-D treatment, and the movie became an immersive attraction at the Sphere in Las Vegas.
Props and costumes have become treasured and expensive collectibles, especially the Ruby Red Slippers. Seven to 10 pairs of the slippers were made, with five known to have survived. The shoes are silver in Baum’s book but were transformed to ruby red to take full advantage of the three-strip Technicolor. One pair was even stolen from the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, in 2005, and wasn’t recovered until 2018. That pair sold for a staggering $28 million through Heritage Auctions in December 2024, making it the most expensive movie memorabilia item ever sold.
And here’s a great bit of trivia. When Liza Minnelli married Jack Haley Jr. in 1974, she wore a replica of the Ruby Red Slippers.
Around the same time Minnelli and Haley were married, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg were the hot, young commodities in Hollywood. Lucas had scored a hit with his nostalgic 1973 American Graffiti, as well as the 1977 blockbuster sci-fi fantasy Star Wars. And Spielberg had enormous critical and commercial success with his 1975 shark thriller Jaws and his 1977 sci-fi adventure Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
As kids, both filmmakers fell in love with watching vintage Republic serials and their 1981 rip-roaring, rousing action-adventure Raiders of the Lost Ark harkens back to the serials of yore. Lucas came up with the concept—he even named the hero Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) after his beloved Alaskan Malamute. Because he was so busy with the Star Wars universe, Spielberg took the directing reins for the film.
Raiders of the Lost Ark is making its premiere on TCM. Forty-four years after its release, Raiders of the Lost Ark is still a marvelous thrill ride, and, just as with The Wizard of Oz, it is addictive, beckoning a rewatch. Ford, who would play the heroic, albeit wisecracking world-weary archeologist and college professor four more times, is asked by Army Intelligence in 1936 to find one of history’s most famous objects of desire—the all-powerful Ark of the Covenant, the chest that supposedly contains the Ten Commandments—before the Nazis.
Spielberg’s excitement behind the camera is evident in Raiders of the Lost Ark, which features breath-taking, death-defying stunts; John Williams’ pulsating score; and a charismatic Ford, who was the embodiment of Indiana and certainly knew his way around a whip. As for the Ark of the Covenant, legend has it that it was eventually taken to Jerusalem by King David, and then King Solomon placed it in the Temple of Jerusalem. And after that? Britannica states: “The final fate of the Ark is unknown.”
Following the adventures of Indiana Jones is the hit 1984 action-adventure-comedy Romancing the Stone. A real charmer, the film was a game changer for its stars Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas, who also produced, and director Robert Zemeckis. In fact, their stock rose tenfold in Hollywood. The only filmed screenplay of Diane Thomas, who tragically died in a car crash in 1985, finds Turner in a real break from her Body Heat (1981) femme fatale persona. She plays a plain Jane who writes romance novels revolving around a gutsy heroine and a handsome adventurer. She soon finds herself in the steamy jungles of Colombia after she receives a terrifying call from her sister telling her she has been kidnapped by antiquity smugglers. The object of the thieves’ desire? A map that will lead them to a huge heart-shaped emerald called El Corazon.
Enter Douglas’s exotic bird smuggler Jack Colton, who also has his sights on the emerald. But soon Joan also becomes an object of his desire, and she realizes he’s the real-life embodiment of her bodice rippers’ leading man. The film spawned a sequel, The Jewel of the Nile, which opened in late 1985.
In 1992, Tom Hanks gave pioneering stop-motion special effects legend Ray Harryhausen an honorary Oscar, telling the crowd: “Some people say Casablanca [1942] or Citizen Kane [1941]. I say Jason and the Argonauts (1968) is the greatest film ever made.” Harryhausen was also of like mind. And maybe you’ll feel the same after watching it. The highlight is Jason and his crew’s battle with the skeleton army. It took Harryhausen four months to do the three-minute sequence. Even in the era of picture-perfect digital effects, Harryhausen’s work is still a visual marvel.
Todd Armstrong stars as Jason, who is sent by his murderous half-brother on a dangerous journey to find and bring home his bad bro’s object of desire—the Golden Fleece. Sailing on the Argo with his close friends, a.k.a. the Argonauts, they encounter numerous dangerous obstacles, including the enormous bronze Talos. Jason even vanquishes the seven-headed hydra that guards the Golden Fleece. The powerful wool originally belonged to a ram who had saved two children marked for sacrifice to Zeus by their wicked stepmother.
The evening of desire ends with the delicious 1941 film noir The Maltese Falcon, which marked the feature directorial debut of screenwriter John Huston and helped Humphrey Bogart turn into a viable star and leading man. Based on the 1930 detective novel by Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon finds Bogey as an acerbic San Francisco detective named Sam Spade, who finds himself wrapped up in a case involving a Maltese Falcon, the object of desire of a femme fatale (Mary Astor), a mysterious little man (Peter Lorre), a large, dangerous man (Oscar-nominated Sydney Greenstreet making his film debut at 61) and his henchman (Elisha Cook Jr.).
Just as the Ruby Red Slippers, the Maltese Falcon has become a much-desired collectible. In fact, back in 2013, the 45-pound, 12-inch prop sold for a then-staggering $4,085,000. Bonhams’ auction house stated that it was the only one that appeared on screen. It even has a bent right tail feather that was caused when actress Lee Patrick, who played Spade’s secretary, dropped it while handing it to Bogart.
The Maltese Falcon’s final lines, suggested by Bogart, who was inspired by Shakespeare’s The Tempest, are priceless. When a detective (Ward Bond) asks Spade what the black bird is, he responds, “The stuff that dreams are made of.”
