Facts > Films > The Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz (1939) Facts
| Director(s) | Victor Fleming, Mervyn LeRoy (uncredited), King Vidor (uncredited) |
| Producer(s) | Mervyn LeRoy, Arthur Freed (uncredited) |
| Featured Cast | Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Jack Haley |
| Total Facts | 132 |
In the earlier drafts of the script, the writers often created new incidents to liven up the story. The original idea was to turn the story into a slapstick musical comedy, so there were a few deviations from what was written in the book. Some of the earlier scripts included a son for the Wicked Witch of the West whom she wanted to put on the throne of Oz, a stuck-up niece for Miss Gulch, a rescue from the Wizard's balloon by the Munchkin fire department, a singing princess and her cowardly suitor who gets transformed into a lion, a rainbow bridge that the witch constructs as a trap for Dorothy, and a romance between Dorothy and one of the farmhands. When the script got too bogged down, however, writers Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf would turn to L. Frank Baum's book for inspiration, and the result was closer to the whimsical fantasy Baum had written.
In the first take of the scene when the Wicked Witch of the West leaves Munchkinland, the smoke that was supposed to go up around her came early, and started forming before she stepped on the platform she was supposed to be on. On the second take, part of Margaret Hamilton's cape became caught in the platform when the burst of fire appeared. Her make-up heated up causing second- and third-degree burns on her hands and face, and it was later discovered that one of the key components in her make-up was copper. The producers used the first take. You'll notice the early appearance of the red smoke.
In the song "If I Only Had A Heart", the girl who says, "Wherefore art thou, Romeo?" is Adriana Caselotti, the voice of Snow White in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Many of the Wicked Witch of the West's scenes were either trimmed or deleted entirely, as Margaret Hamilton's performance was thought too frightening for audiences.
MGM had originally planned to incorporate a "stencil printing" process when Dorothy runs to open the farmhouse door before the film switches to Technicolor; each frame was to be hand-tinted to keep the inside of the door in sepia tone. This process-cumbersome, expensive, and ineffective-was abandoned in favor of a simpler and more clever alternative (a variation of this process was used, however, in 1939 release prints of The Women). The inside of the farmhouse was painted sepia, and the Dorothy who opens the door from the inside is not Judy Garland but her stand-in wearing a sepia-rinsed version of the famous gingham dress. Once the door is opened and the camera advances through it, Garland (wearing her bright blue dress) walks through the door and the audience is none the wiser. This effect does not work on older video/TV prints where the Kansas scenes appear in true black and white, as the changeover to color is all too apparent. With the Kansas scenes returned to their original sepia tints, however, they closely match the magical opening door and the effect is powerful.
MGM paid $75,000 for the film rights to L. Frank Baum's book, a towering sum at the time.
Multiple styles of ruby slippers were tested by the MGM wardrobe department before they settled on the low schoolgirl-style pumps with bows. One proposed style had curled up toes, known as the "Arabian" slippers (created by designer Adrian), which now belong to Debbie Reynolds. Another proposed style, the "Bugle Bead" shoes, are without bows and have yet to publicly surface. An entire book was published with trivia and history of the numerous test styles: "The Ruby Slippers of Oz" by Rhys Thomas (Tale Weaver Publishers, 1989) Thomas speculates that there were seven pairs, and the whereabouts of five are known. Each has an estimated value of $1.5 million, making them the most expensive Hollywood memorabilia. They have been dubbed by some as "The Holy Grail" of all Hollywood nostalgia. One pair was sold to Hollywood memorabilia collector David Elkouby for $666,000.00 in a May 2000 auction. The pair in the Smithsonian are mismatched.
Nikko, the name of the head winged monkey, is the name of the Japanese town which houses the shrine featuring the famous Hear No Evil/See No Evil/Speak No Evil monkeys.
On March 18, 2010, on Celebrity Jeopardy (_"Jeopardy!" (1984)_), the contestants were Cheech Marin, Aisha Tyler, and Anderson Cooper. The final category was Authors, and the clue was: In 1890, he witnessed a mild cyclone in Aberdeen, South Dakota, fodder for his most famous novel. The answer was L. Frank Baum (which none of the contestants got right.) While revealing the answer, Alex Trebek also revealed that that film had been "filmed right in this studio lot."
Originally contracted for six weeks, Margaret Hamilton ended up working for 23.
Pictured on one of four 25¢ US commemorative postage stamps issued 23 March 1990 honoring classic films released in 1939. The stamps featured Stagecoach, Beau Geste, The Wizard of Oz, and Gone with the Wind.
Producer Mervyn LeRoy had originally intended to use MGM's Leo the Lion in the role of the Cowardly Lion and dub an actor's voice in for the dialogue. However, that idea was dropped when Bert Lahr came up for consideration for the part.
Professor Marvel never returns Dorothy's picture of Aunt Em.
Ranked #1 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Fantasy" in June 2008.
Rick Polito of the Marin Independent Journal printed in Northern California is locally famous for his droll, single-sentence summations of television programs and movies which the newspaper reports will be broadcast. For the Wizard of Oz, he wrote, "Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again."
Some see L. Frank Baum's story containing political and social satire. The little girl from the Midwest (typical American) meets up with a brainless scarecrow (farmers), a tin man with no heart (industry), a cowardly lion (politicians, in particular William Jennings Bryan) and a flashy but ultimately powerless wizard (technology). Although the little people keep telling her to follow the yellow brick road (gold standard), in the end it's her silver (in the original story) slippers (silver standard) that help her get back to the good old days.
The "tornado" was a 35-foot-long muslin stocking, spun around among miniatures of a Kansas farm and fields in a dusty atmosphere.
The chant of the Wicked Witch of the West's Palace Guards was later incorporated into the song "Jungle Love" by Morris Day and The Time.
The color of the yellow brick road first showed up as green in early Technicolor tests. It was adjusted so that it would read properly as yellow in the early 3-strip color process, which in 1938-39, was still in its experimental stage.
The Cowardly Lion's facial makeup included a brown paper bag. Actor Bert Lahr couldn't eat without ruining his makeup. Tired of eating soup and milkshakes, he decided to eat lunch and have his makeup redone.
The Cowardly Lion's speech about courage contains the line "What makes the dawn come up like thunder?" This is a reference to a line in the poem "Mandalay" by Rudyard Kipling: "An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!"
The famed Jitterbug number was in actuality a leftover of an abandoned subplot that was discarded in early rewrites of the script. In the original Oz movie there was to be a large subplot involving characters named Princess Betty and the Grand Duke of Oz, to be played by MGM contract players Betty Jaynes and Kenny Baker. Jaynes, known for her refined operatic style of singing, was supposed to offset Judy Garland's jazz type of singing and a number was devised highlighting the differences. The Jitterbug number was devised by Harold Arlen and 'E.Y Harburg' to showcase Garland's talents. Both Jaynes' and Baker's characters were deemed unnecessary in early script rewrites and were removed from the picture, as well as their subplot. However, the Jitterbug number survived in the script and was filmed for the movie, although it too was cut from the picture in early previews. A reference to the Jitterbug number survives in the Wicked Witch's orders to Nikko, when she tells him to "send the insects on ahead to take the fight out of them" before the Flying Monkeys take off.
The film began its legendary run on network television on 3 November 1956, as an the series finale of the CBS anthology series Ford Star Jubilee. The broadcast was a smash, but the film was not shown on TV again until 1959. In a programming stroke of genius, it was decided to air it at an earlier hour (6:00 P.M., E.S.T.) as a Christmas season special - independent of any anthology packaging. This broadcast attracted an even wider audience, because children were able to watch, and from this moment on the film began airing annually on television. It was aired first on CBS (primarily in late winter), then on NBC (usually in mid-Spring, often on Easter Sunday), and then again on CBS, where it finished its network run of nearly 40 years in 1998, after which it was officially integrated into the Turner vault of motion pictures. (It now airs only on Turner-owned networks: WB, TNT, and most prominently Turner Classic Movies.)
The film came out on VHS for the first time in 1980.
The film had five different directors. Richard Thorpe shot several weeks of material, none of which appears in the final film. The studio found his work unsatisfactory and appointed George Cukor temporarily. Cukor did not actually film any scenes; he merely modified Judy Garland's and Ray Bolger's makeup. Victor Fleming took over from him and filmed the bulk of the movie, until he was assigned to Gone with the Wind. King Vidor filmed the remaining sequences, mainly the black and white parts of the film set in Kansas. Producer Mervyn LeRoy also directed some transitional scenes.
The film received a mention in the Guiness Book of World Records as the film to which a live-action sequel was produced after the longest period of time (Return to Oz was released 46 years after The Wizard of Oz).
The film rights of L. Frank Baum's book were initially sold to Samuel Goldwyn in 1933. Goldwyn hoped to have Eddie Cantor star as the Scarecrow with Ed Wynn supporting as the Wizard. Cantor was busy filming Roman Scandals and Wynn wouldn't accept a mere "cameo role", so the property was sold to MGM the following year, where producer Irving Thalberg hoped to get W.C. Fields to play the Wizard (he was about to begin filming The Personal History, Adventures, Experience, & Observation of David Copperfield the Younger) and Charlotte Henry for Dorothy. But neither were available and the project was shelved until 1937, when Edens and Arthur Freed began crafting 'Oz' as a project for Judy Garland.
The film started shooting on 13 October 1938 and was completed on 16 March 1939 at a then-unheard-of cost of $2,777,000. It earned only $3,000,000 on its initial release.
The film, while run on network television, used to be packaged as a special event and as such, was initially introduced by on-camera hosts (including Red Skelton, Dick Van Dyke, and Danny Kaye). This practice ended after CBS's first contract with the film ended in 1967. From 1968 on the film was aired host-less, save the 1970 broadcast which was the first to air following the death of star Judy Garland. Gregory Peck gave a short tribute to her before the film aired that year on NBC. (Ironically, when the film went into the Turner vault and began airing on cable it returned to hosted introductions, usually by TCM's Robert Osborne.)
The film's running time was originally 120 minutes. Producer Mervyn LeRoy realized that at least 20 minutes of the film needed to be deleted to get it down to a manageable running time. Three sneak previews aided LeRoy in his decision in what to cut. The original film in its entirety was only seen once by an audience in either San Bernadino or Santa Barbara and it was the only time the famed Jitterbug number was seen by the public. After this preview LeRoy cut the aforementioned Jitterbug number and the Scarecrow's extended dance sequence to "If I Only Had a Brain". A second preview was held in Pomona, California, where the film ran 112 minutes. After the preview, LeRoy cut Dorothy's "Over The Rainbow" reprise and a scene in which the Tin Man turned into a human beehive, and the Emerald City reprise of "Ding Dong The Witch is Dead", as well as a few smaller scenes and dialog, notably two Kansas scenes in which the Hickory character was building a machine to ward off tornadoes, as well as dozens of threatening lines by the Wicked Witch of the West. By the third preview, held in San Luis Obispo, the film finally was down to its 101-minute running time, where it has remained ever since.
The first (and for several years, the only) MGM film to be televised on an entire network, rather than just a local station.
The first album of songs from the film, issued by Decca in 1940, featured only Judy Garland from the cast. Her only vocal tracks on that album, "Over The Rainbow" and "The Jitterbug" (which featured "Oz" composer Harold Arlen as the Scarecrow, Bud Lyons as the Tin Man and Gurney Bell as the Cowardly Lion), had already been recorded in 1939 and released that year as a 78-RPM single, but they were later included as part of the 1940 album. This was not really a soundtrack recording at all, despite what some websites say, although it did contain the film's songs. It was, instead, a sort of "cover version" featuring Garland (this procedure was common practice at a time when there really was no such thing as a record album made directly from a movie soundtrack). The other songs on this 1940 Decca album were all sung by the Ken Darby Singers, and in some songs in which Dorothy is featured another vocalist substituted for Garland. It was not until 1956 that an official soundtrack album (featuring the film's cast, of course) was issued. This 1956 MGM Records album featured extensive dialogue from the film (enough for listeners to follow the story), and was take
The gown that Glinda the Good Witch wears was originally worn by Jeanette MacDonald in San Francisco.
The gray circle and zig-zag pattern interrupting the yellow brick road outside the main entrance of Emerald City spell out OZ.
The horses in Emerald City palace were colored with Jell-O crystals. The relevant scenes had to be shot quickly, before the horses started to lick it off.
The House of Winston made a pair of real ruby slippers to celebrate the film's 50th anniversary in 1989. These are valued at $3 million.
The location of the Munchkins' star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is 6915 Hollywood Blvd.
The movie garnered two more achievements when it was reissued in 1949 (first in a limited release in April, then expanded to a wide release in June). The picture made more money on this release than on its original one, and reassessments by film critics were near-universally adoring. Enthused TIME magazine in its May 9, 1949 edition: "The whimsical gaiety, the lighthearted song and dance, the lavish Hollywood sets and costumes are as fresh and beguiling today as they were ten years ago when the picture was first released. Oldsters over ten who have seen it once will want to see it again. Youngsters not old enough to be frightened out of their wits by the Wicked Witch (Margaret Hamilton) will have the thrill of some first-rate make-believe ('We're off to see the Wizard, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz...')."
The movie was named as one of "The 20 Most Overrated Movies Of All Time" by Premiere.
The movie's line "I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too!" was voted as the #99 movie quote by the American Film Institute (out of 100). "Toto, I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore" was #4. "There's no place like home." was #23.
The movie's line "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain." was voted as the #24 of "The 100 Greatest Movie Lines" by Premiere in 2007. "There's no place like home." was voted #11 in the same. "Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore." was 62.
The much quoted line "Fly my pretties, fly" doesn't actually appear in the movie. The Wicked Witch of the West actually says, "Fly, Fly, Fly."
The Munchkins are portrayed by the Singer Midgets, named not for their musical abilities, but rather for Leo Singer, their manager. The troupe came from Europe, and a number of the Munchkins took advantage of the trip to immigrate and escape the Nazis. Professional singers dubbed most of their voices as many of the Midgets couldn't speak English and/or sing well. Only two are heard speaking with their real-life voices - the ones who give Dorothy flowers after she has climbed into the carriage.
The Munchkins were awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in November, 2007. Seven of them attended the ceremony: Mickey Carroll, Ruth L. Robinson, Margaret Pellegrini, Meinhardt Raabe, Karl 'Karchy' Kosiczky, and August Clarence Swenson.
The music and vocal tracks for all the deleted sequences have survived and can all be heard on Rhino Records' Deluxe 2-CD soundtrack edition of the film's songs and score. Every track on that album is heard in the exact order in which it would have appeared in the film had the movie never been edited to its final release length.
The name for Oz was thought up when the creator, Frank Baum, looked at his filing cabinet and saw A-N, and O-Z, hence "Oz."
The only location footage in the entire film are the clouds over the opening titles.
The original concept for the Wicked Witch of the West was to have her resemble a strikingly beautiful woman much in the same way the Evil Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was conceived. Producer Mervyn LeRoy originally cast MGM beauty Gale Sondergaard in the role as a sleek, sexy Wicked Witch of the West. However, the presence of a sexy Wicked Witch left a large plot hole within the script, for it played against the idea that bad witches were ugly. Convinced that the point was important, LeRoy retested Sondergaard as an ugly witch. Looking hideous in the make-up, she immediately declined the role and was replaced with Margaret Hamilton.
The paint used that was finally used on the bricks for the "Yellow Brick Road" was standard industrial yellow paint that was obtained from a hardware store several blocks away from the studio.
The pre-release 112 minute version was only seen once, while the film was in test showings before its official release.