Wicked Witch of the West the Witch" (Compare the character Mombi from "The Marvelous Land of Oz"). In the film, Momba has an unspecified hold over the Wizard, who promises his crown to anyone who can release him from Momba's power. Momba captures Dorothy and her companions, evoking the events in Baum's original novel, and is destroyed when Dorothy throws a bucket of water over her. Mombi's likeness and costume in the 1914 silent film, "His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz" is based on Denslow's illustrations of the Wicked Witch of the West. In the 1939 version of "The Wizard of Oz", Margaret Hamilton plays
The Wizard of Oz (1939 film) best films of 1939. Roger Ebert chose it as one of his Great Films, writing that ""The Wizard of Oz" has a wonderful surface of comedy and music, special effects and excitement, but we still watch it six decades later because its underlying story penetrates straight to the deepest insecurities of childhood, stirs them and then reassures them." Writer Salman Rushdie acknowledged ""The Wizard of Oz" was my very first literary influence" in his 2002 musings about the film. He has written: "When I first saw "The Wizard of Oz", it made a writer of me." His first short story,