When I was four years old I decided to go as the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz for Halloween. I wobbled around my room spinning and leaping, pretending my legs were made of straw. I convinced my babysitter to teach me and my brothers how to do the iconic foursome skip from the film. As we ran outside eager to collect buckets of candy from our neighborhood homes, we linked arms, stepped one foot in front of the other, and we were off to get some candy. The Wizard of Oz was the first movie musical I saw. I was captivated by the singing, dancing, and visual world created within Oz. The film acted as a catalyst in my pursuit of the performing arts. Soon after I saw the film, I was enrolled in dance lessons and the after-school drama club. As I’ve grown older, I’ve learned to appreciate the film on a much greater level. I’ve been in multiple productions of Oz, I’ve studied the performers from the film, and I understand the impact it has made on both our culture and the entertainment industry.
The iconic cinema classic is based on L. Frank Baum’s book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, illustrated by W.W. Denslow. This children’s book was published in 1900 and became a massive success. Baum's novel was first adapted into a live production in a regional theater in Chicago, Illinois. The musical was written by Baum, composed by Paul Tietjens, and produced by Julian Mitchell. The show was well-received, and in January of 1903, The Wizard of Oz opened on Broadway at the Majestic Theater. After its successful run both on Broadway and on tour, The Selig Polyscope Company produced a ten-minute-long silent film version of Baum's musical. Baum had filed for personal bankruptcy due to a failed film adaptation of Oz called The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays. The film experienced early budgetary problems and quickly closed. In 1925 another silent version of Oz was produced by Chadwick Pictures, however, this was also a massive commercial failure. In 1938 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer bought the rights to Baum’s novel and unfortunately the cycle continued.
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Similar to every other aspect of the creation of Oz, the creative process was arduous. The original producers thought that a 1939 audience wouldn’t accept a fantasy-world plotline; therefore, the story was remade into an elaborate dream. In the ’30s, fantasy films hadn’t become a successful trend within the movie industry. The idea of cinematic entertainment with a non-realistic narrative was new, and many people weren’t interested in this idea. In 1937, Walt Disney created Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which grossed $3.5 million and by May 1939 it's gross internationally amounted to $6.5 million. The success of Snow White inspired Mervyn LeRoy, the head of the production at MGM into buying the rights to The Wizard of Oz. Unfortunately, Oz did not see the same amount of success as Snow White.
The version of Oz that made it to the big screen was a mixture of many different creative minds. It took 14 screenwriters to formulate the final script for MGM, and five different directors. The majority of the film's script was adapted by Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, and Edgar Allan Woolf, however, there were several people who assisted without ever receiving official credit: Irving Brecher, William H. Cannon, Herbert Fields, Arthur Freed, Jack Haley, E.Y. Harburg, Samuel Hoffenstein, Bert Lahr, John Lee Mahin, Herman J. Mankiewicz, Jack Mintz, Ogden Nash, and Sid Silvers. The original director of the project was Norman Taurog, who had a great reputation for working alongside child actors, but he quit to direct The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin. Taurog was replaced by Richard Thorpe, in who the producers hoped would help with the budgetary problems on the project. After the initial screen tests came back, Mervyn Leroy was extremely disappointed by Thorpe's work and fired him from the project. Following Thorpe, four different men were asked to help salvage the previous directors' wrongdoings. Victor Fleming, the fourth director, was the only director to receive onscreen credit. Fleming contributed the most to the film's final version, however, it was his predecessor, George Cukor, who helped established the film aesthetic. Initially, in an attempt to make the star of the film Judy Garland seem younger, the studio insisted that she wear a blond wig and heavy makeup to make her appear younger. When Cukor came onto the project he immediately adjusted Judy Garland's costume and told her to stop hiding underneath her costume and just “be herself.” When Cukor left the project to join David O. Selznick in Gone With The Wind, he knew that Victor Fleming would be able to fix many of the film's ongoing problems. Just before filming was completed, Clarke Gable, asked Fleming to also join Gone With The Wind, as they were experiencing similar difficulties in production. The last few weeks of Oz were directed under the leadership of King Vidor, who lead Judy Garland through the sequence of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”, and demanded to remain anonymous credit on the project.
Although Fleming was able to solve a few of the bigger issues, the problems continued behind the scenes. While casting the film, many different actors shifted roles. Initially, Dorothy was to be played by Shirley Temple, who at the time was under contract to Twentieth Century-Fox, and was not able to be a part of the MGM production. The Tin Man was original to have been portrayed by Ray Bolger, and Buddy Ebsen was to play the Scarecrow. Bolger was a dancer first and felt very strongly about the quality of movement he would bring to the scarecrow’s boneless body. Bolger convinced producer Mervyn LeRoy to recast him in the role of the Scarecrow. Although Ebsen did not object to the change, nine days after filming began, Ebsen suffered a reaction to the aluminum powder makeup he wore and was quietly removed from the project. Jack Haley was hired to replace Ebsen and to re-shoot all of his scenes. Gale Sondergaard was originally cast as the Wicked Witch but was replaced by Margaret Hamilton. However, Hamilton was severely burned in the Munchkinland scene when she disappears behind a puff of red smoke. Hamilton’s makeup caught fire along with her broom and hat. She suffered second-degree burns and spent six weeks recovering before returning to production, however, the actors and actresses weren’t the only things that suffered.
The film was budgeted at around $2 million, which was higher than the average MGM movie normally costing around $1.5 million, and the final cost of Oz was $2,777,000 (around $55 million today). MGM originally bought the rights to L. Frank Baum’s story for $75,000, which at the time was more than the studio had paid for Gone With the Wind. The movie made just $3 million, which wasn’t enough to cover its $2.7 million price tag along with its associated marketing and distribution. MGM took a $1.1 million loss due to the primitive Technicolor process.
The Technicolor Effect is created by a specially modified motion picture camera in which the same scene is captured and colored through filters on three different strips of film. These strips are then processed separately and used to print colors onto each finished print of the film. Essentially, the scene is shot three times in black and white, and then processed through a red, green, and blue filter. This was not only extremely technologically complex for the time, but it was extremely expensive. The Technicolor process ultimately cost MGM around $225,000 in electric bills. The film's transition from black and white to Technicolor is arguably one of the most beautiful moments of the film. The Wizard of Oz was only the seventh full-length film to be done in 3-strip technicolor. Harold Rossen, the cinematographer of Oz, was a master of the Era. He shot Singing In the Rain and Gone With The Wind. Rossen struggled to bring fluidity to the film, as the Technicolor cameras were massive machines weighing up to 300 pounds. At the beginning of the story, Dorothy is stuck in a world of monochromatic sepia tones longing to find a place where she belongs. When the cyclone transports Dorothy into a new realm, we watch as she opens the door into the vibrant world of OZ, exploding in gorgeous color, allowing for one of the most visually stimulating moments in movie history.
When The Wizard of Oz was released, America was suffering from the Great Depression and a devastating international crisis—World War II. Movies were an escape from the harsh realities of day-to-day life. Hollywood became a utopia in which everyday citizens could dream and create fantastic fantasies. The year 1939 in the film is considered the most outstanding one ever. Films, such as: Gone with the Wind, Jesse James, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Rains Came, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Goodbye, Mr. Chips, all of which became cultural phenomenons. The dreamlike quality of The Wizard of Oz represented an escape, an illusion that could take audiences, over the rainbow, away from their greatest worries. Despite all the movie’s troubles and underwhelming financial return, the film was well-received. Although many film critics were hard on the film, it received Oscar nominations for Best Picture and won Best Original Score, and Best Song. It wasn’t until 1956, when The Wizard of Oz, became a household film. The film was shown as the last installment of the CBS anthology series Ford Star Jubilee. Every holiday season, The Wizard of Oz, entered homes across America, and it became an entertainment phenomenon. When the CBS network reintroduced the film to the public; according to the Library of Congress, it became the most-seen film in movie history. In the late 1960s, the film was bought for annual TV showings by NBC, but by 1976, it had reverted to CBS. It is now shown several times a year, on the Turner Classic Movies cable channel, Turner Network Television, and on the TBS Superstation. It was also one of the first films MGM ever released on VHS.
We live in a world with access to an unlimited amount of movies and television. With so much media all around us, it’s easy to forget the time when binge-watching didn’t exist and going to the movies was a special occasion. How we watch movies nowadays is so different from how they were viewed in the Golden Age of Hollywood. The Wizard of Oz remains a true cinema classic, one that resonates with hope and love every time Dorothy Gale sings “Over the Rainbow”. I was introduced to the film by my mother who grew up in the generation of kids who anxiously awaited
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