Java's Journey: Wizard of Oz Homage in Knight and Day (2010)

Many newer filmmakers are classic movie fans. At times their love of what has come before will show up in their films. Such is the case for James Mangold's Knight and Day (2010), an action film starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz.

This film has been compared to two different Cary Grant thrillers - Hitchcock's North by Northwest and Charade. Though the similarities with those two films are vaguely noticeable, the patterns from another classic movie are unmistakable. Knight and Day is chock full of references to the perennial classic The Wizard of Oz (1939).

Both films are about a female who is taken against her will on adventures far away from home.

KANSAS

Our protagonist in Oz, Dorothy (Judy Garland), lives in Kansas and dreams of an adventure somewhere else. Most of the film is about being away from her home state.

Knight and Day begins the movie with June (Cameron Diaz), a vintage car restorer, in a Kansas airport. She has found car parts in this state. She's on the plane going home when her life changes forever. From then on, she's taken everywhere - uncharted islands, Spain, Austria, you name it.

BLUE GINGHAM

Dorothy's signature dress (the one that sold for nearly half a million dollars at auction fairly recently ) is in blue gingham and so is June's blouse when we first meet her. She spends a good 30 minutes of the film in that blouse.

Blue gingham in Kansas. How much more iconic can you get?

WHIRLING AROUND IN THE AIR

A tornado carries Dorothy's house from Kansas to the fantasy world of Oz, where her adventure begins.

In Knight and Day, a strange guy that June meets in the airport, Roy (Tom Cruise), has hijacked the plane which twists and turns as they rapidly descend. Her adventure begins.

DEAD BODIES

Dorothy's house lands on and kills a villain.

By the time the plane lands in Knight and Day, there are corpses of several assassins in it. Roy has killed everyone except June.

SCARECROW IN THE CORNFIELD

One of Dorothy's friends in the land of Oz is a talking scarecrow in a cornfield.

To avoid the authorities, Roy needs to land the plane anywhere but at an airport. He chooses a cornfield. During the skidding, we get a gratuitous shot of a scarecrow flying into the plane's window.

TIN MAN/ KNIGHT IN SUIT OF ARMOR

Dorothy's second friend in Oz is a man made of tin.

The MacGuffin, the item that drives the plot in Knight and Day, is a perpetual battery which is housed inside a miniature replica of a knight in a suit of armor.

[I know what you're thinking. Is Dorothy's third friend, the cowardly lion, referenced in Knight and Day? He isn't. There are hairy men, but not one of them is a coward.]

WIZ/WHIZ KID

The bulk of the plot centers around Dorothy and her new friends going to see the wonderful Wizard of Oz who can grant their every wish.

In Knight and Day, June and her new FBI/assassin "friends" are after a whiz kid who has made a potentially world-changing item - a perpetual battery.

THE LAIR

In both films, once the leads initially reach the wizard's/whiz kid's lair, they do not see the actual guy behind it all face-to-face. Instead, there are instructions to send them on another wild goose chase.

YELLOW

Dorothy must follow the yellow brick road to get to the Wiz and return home.

June wears a yellow bridesmaid's dress as she is taken from her sister and other people that symbolize home.

FLYING MONKEYS/ ANONYMOUS SUSPENDED ASSASSINS

Both films make a point to send a group of anonymous henchman, darkly-clad and suspended in mid-air, to capture the lead characters. Oz sends flying monkeys; Knight sends trained assassins who rappel down into a New York warehouse.

DRUGGED OUT

The villain of Oz creates a poppy field in Dorothy's path to make her sleepy and zonk out before reaching her destination.

It's a running gag that the hero (or antihero) of Knight, Roy, continually drugs June so that's she'll stop panicking and zonk out. He can deal with assassins and abduct June a lot easier when she isn't screaming.

WAKING UP

Both lead females awaken at home in bed wondering if their adventure was just a dream.

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Knight and Day is not a full-on remake of Oz, but there are plenty of references to the latter film. Don't you just love discovering the work of other quirky, obsessive classic movie fans?

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