The Wizard of Oz

Released: August 25, 1939

Studio: MGM

Genre: fantasy/musical

Box Office (numbers in millions):

Domestic: 24.67 Worldwide: 25.64

Adjusted for Inflation:

Domestic: 225.40 Worldwide: ?

Directing: Victor Fleming, George Cukor, Mervyn LeRoy, Norman Taurog, Richard Thorpe, King Vidor

Screenwriting: Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, Edgar Allan Woolf

Starring: Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Jack Haley, Margaret Hamilton, Billie Burke

About the Movie:

“A legend of the cinema,” ^TV The Wizard of Oz is “the ultimate fantasy, the perennial musical adventure,” ^FS and “the mother of all family films.” ^VD It is “ironic that a kiddie favorite so effectively exposes the dark roots of fantasy (‘Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain’)” ^RS and it “might not be the most sophisticated of the MGM musicals, but it’s certainly the sentimental favorite.” ^TV “Flawless.” ^ML

The story follows Dorothy (Garland), a Kansas farm girl, and her dog Toto when she is transported by a tornado to the land of Oz. To get back home, she’ll have to follow the Yellow Brick Road to see the Wizard (Morgan). She is joined on her journey by a Scarecrow (Bolger) who wants a brain, a Tin Man (Haley) who wants a heart, and a Cowardly Lion (Lahr) who wants courage. Shen encounters Munchkins, Glinda – the Good Witch of the North (Burke), and the Wicked Witch of the West (Hamilton).

The movie is marked by the black and white scenes of Kansas and the technicolor world of Oz, “the spectacle of the Emerald City, the performances of a perfect cast and a tornado worth more than all the hot air in Twister.” ^TV There are “classic scenes like the army of flying monkeys and the trees that come alive.” ^VD

There’s also the Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg’s score highlighted by “a national treasure trove of songs” ^TV like “Ding Dong, the Witch Is Dead,” “If I Only Had a Brain,” and Garland’s “career-making performance” ^TV of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Astonishingly, the iconic song was almost dropped from the movie because studio heads thought it slowed down the picture and opposed its barnyard setting. ^EJ

Filming for the movie took over a year. ^FV The average feature of the day took 22 days to shoot; Oz spent 86 days in production and 22 days in retakes. ^SS-252 It was so costly it didn’t make a profit until it was rereleased ten years later. ^FV However, it has since become the most seen film in movie history, according to the Library of Congress, ^W-M thanks in large part to being shown annually on American television from 1959 to 1998, ^W-B

The Book:

The movie is based on L. Frank Baum’s children’s book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, published in 1900. As of 1956, when it entered the public domain, it had sold 3 million copies. ^W-B It was inspired in part by Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, which Baum found “incoherent.” ^W-B It has been translated into more than 50 languages. ^W-B Thirteen sequels and a half dozen short stories followed.

Other Adaptations:

The original book was adapted for Broadway in 1902 and ran for 293 performances. ^SS-11 It was adapted as a silent film in 1910 ^SS-19 and again in 1924 when producer Larry Semon acquired the motion picture rights. While his version maintained the principal characters, it made significant changes to the story, such as opening in a toymaker’s workshop instead of a farm in Kansas. ^SS-25 A radio serialization was broadcast in Cleveland, Ohio from 1931 to 1932 ^SS-32 and again in 1933 by NBC. ^SS-37 The latter “comprised liberal adaptations of The Wizard and five of its sequels as a continuous narrative.” ^SS-38 That same year a cartoon short was made from the book ^SS-48SS-46

Producer Samuel Goldwyn bought the screen rights in 1933. Among suggestions to play Dorothy were child star Shirley Temple, ^SS-55 stage actress Helen Hayes or actress Mary Pickford, who was then 41 years old, play Dorothy. ^SS-51 Goldwyn wanted singer/comedian Eddie Cantor to play the wizard ^SS-53 and tapped Irving Berlin and Moss Hart to write the music and lyrics. ^SS-52 He planned to create “a star-studded musical…filmed entirely in color – a costly and ambitious undertaking as the average Technicolor film of the era had a minimum million-dollar budget.” ^SS-53 It was speculated that Norman Z. McLeod, who directed Paramount’s Alice in Wonderland in 1933, would helm the project ^SS-54 but when that project failed, it doomed Goldwyn’s hopes of creating “a similar film fantasy with live actors.” ^SS-56

In 1937, the brother and sister team of Fanchon Simon and Marco Wolff acquired the marionette and radio show rights to The Wizard of Oz. ^SS-57 Their radio serialization made changes to the story which became part of the classic film version as well. Dorothy is greeted by an entire party of male and female Munchkins instead of three male Munchkins. The Good Witch of the North was no longer an elderly sorceress as in the book and the Cowardly Lion speaks, often dropping humorous one-liners. ^SS-59

MGM Acquires the Rights:

The success of Disney’s animated Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs showed that the public did still have an appetite for movie versions of children’s classics. ^SS-61 In 1937, it was rated one of the top 20 “most called for…yet unfilmed” classics. ^SS-76 Walt Disney himself expressed interested in The Wizard of Oz, ^SS-62 but Goldwyn sold the rights to MGM in 1938. Mervyn LeRoy, hailed as “the genius of Warner Bros.,” ^SS-63 had come on board as the successor to the late Irving Thalbert, MGM’s head of production, was interested in The Wizard of Oz. ^SS-66 He’d loved the book as a boy and memories of seeing it as a road show theatrical production inspired him to want to create “a lavish, full-color musical.” ^SS-70 It was given the largest budget in MGM’s history with three million dollars. ^SS-80

The book had some major fans. Supposedly Bette Davis’ two Oscars sat on the same shelf as her childhood Oz books. ^SS-129 One story has it that Jimmy Stewart was a dinner guest at Henry Fonda’s house and overheard him reading The Wizard of Oz to his stepdaughter. Fonda stopped reading when she fell asleep and Stewart said, “Hey! What’s the idea of stopping? Read a couple more chapters – it was just gettin’ good!” ^SS-129

Casting:

Arthur Freed, an MGM lyricist who’d co-written “Singin’ in the Rain” and other songs with Nacio Herb Brown, was interested in the project. Among his preliminary cast list were Garland, Bolger, and Buddy Ebsen. ^{SS: 66-7} He originally considered Bolger as the Tin Man and Ebsen as the Scarecrow, ^SS-90 but those roles were eventually reversed. Of course, Ebsen was also replaced after his near-fatal reaction to aluminum dust in the paint of his costume and suffered breathing problems the rest of his life. ^FV Jack Haley was brought in to replace Ebsen. He was a vaudevillian trouper who knew Bolger and Lahr from the vaudeville circuit and legitimate theater. ^SS-226 He claimed to have never read the Oz book. ^SS-224

LeRoy championed the teenage Garland, even though the book suggested Dorothy was 6-8 years old. The studio wanted Shirley Temple, who’d proven she could carry a picture, whereas Garland had only been a support player in ensembles at that point. ^SS-80 After an audition, however, it was determined that Temple “lacked the robust vocal chops required for the extravaganza” ^SS-80 and the part remained Garland’s.

Sadly, although she was a perfectly healthy teenager, the studio was insistent that she conform to the ‘30s standards of a “wasp waist and…pencil-thin silhouette.” ^SS-178 She endured a rigorous exercise routine which included badminton, swimming, hiking, and tennis ^SS-179 but was also given the addictive Dexedrine and sleeping pills to first keep her up and then get her to sleep. ^SS-180 Her death at 47 due to drug dependency can, at least in part, be traced to her treatment on Oz. ^FV

There was some debate about whether Dorothy’s dog Toto should be played by a real dog or an actor in a costume. LeRoy received hundreds of letters, many from schoolchildren, insisting that a real dog be cast. ^SS-85 After testing hundreds of dogs, they went with a terrier named Terry who resembled the illustrations of Toto in the book and had appeared in MGM movies with Spencer Tracy and Bing Crosby. ^SS-87

Similarly, there was discussion about the Cowardly Lion being played by a real lion, but the part went to Bert Lahr, who was reportedly the highest-paid musical-show comedian in New York. ^SS-94 In prepping for the part, he imitated the voice of Leo the Lion, the mascot who roared to open MGM pictures from 1928 on. ^SS-95

The Wicked Witch of the West was not as prominent a character in the book. At one point, she was conceived as a “malevolent black-widow type with a hint of evil beauty,” comparable to the Evil Queen in Snow White. ^SS-97 Gale Sondergaard was cast, but popular opinion favored a hag-like witch more in keeping with Baum’s original conception and the less glamourous Margaret Hamilton was cast instead.

Freed wanted W.C. Fields to play the wizard and LeRoy was interested in “fussbudget comedian” Ed Wynn. ^SS-103 Both passed on the role, though, and Frank Morgan was cast. The decision was also made to use him in multiple roles, including the gateman, horse driver, and chamber guard. ^SS-105

Among other casting decisions was to hire the 4’ 9” Henry Lewis Stone, who’d been a stunt double for Tarzan’s chimpanzee, as the commander of the wicked witch’s monkey army. ^SS-114 More than 100 midgets and children were hired to play munchkins. ^SS-120 It was the first time time so many little people had been gathered in such great numbers.

Screenwriting:

An early decision was made to modernize Baum’s book. William Cannon, LeRoy’s assistant director on Anthony Adverse, wrote a four-page memo about how Oz should be done and said the “background should be a Fairyland of 1938 and not of 1900.” ^SS-118

Irving Brecher was briefly tasked with writing the screenplay before being reassigned to the Marx Brothers’ At the Circus. Herman Mankiewicz worked on the project for three weeks, creating the new characters of Princess Betty and Grand Duke Allan, who were eventually dropped. ^SS-131 At the same time, Noel Langley and Ogden Nash were working on the script. Langley changed the original sliver shoes worn by Dorothy into ruby slippers to “appear more mysterious and mystical in Technicolor.” ^SS-135 He also developed the idea that the principal characters from Oz in the original prologue set in Kansas and that Dorothy’s trip to Oz all be a dream. ^SS-136

Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf were hired to “finesse” Langley’s script, ^SS-139 making suggestions like merging the two good witches into a single character. ^SS-143 Langley was so incensed by their revisions to his script that he said, “To hell with it. Forget the whole thing. Take my name off it.” ^SS-145 In the end, all three of them are credited as screenwriters.

Directing:

The movie went through five directors. LeRoy wanted Busby Berkeley because of the intricate musical numbers, but he fell ill while working on another picture. Norman Taurog was brought in because of his experience working with young actors, including an Academy Award for directing Skippy, although his methods were questionable. In Boys Town, he told child actor Martin Spellman his mom had died in order to evoke tears. ^SS-201

Taurog was replaced by Richard Thorpe because LeRoy felt Taurog didn’t understand the film. ^SS-202 Thorpe had a reputation for bringing pictures in on schedule and within budget. ^SS-203 When he didn’t last either, George Cukor was brought in. ^SS-211 Although he was only considered an interim director, he did contribute the major change of making Dorothy a simple farm girl instead of a glamorous blonde. ^EJ

Victor Fleming then came on board, apparently at the request of actor Clark Gable, ^EJ who he directed in Gone with the Wind. He had a reputation for handling megastars, including Gable, Spencer Tracy, and Jean Harlow ^SS-215 as well as rehabilitating floundering productions. ^SS-216

Finally, King Vidor was brought into finish the film, which included the Kansas farm scene. He’d helmed The Big Parade in 1925, which became MGM’s greatest commercial success at that time. ^SS-220

The Music:

As with Disney’s animated films, the decision was made “that Oz’s onscreen action would be fitted to the songs.” ^SS-147 Among those considered for writing the songs were Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern (Show Boat), Dorothy Fields (“The Way You Look Tonight,” “On the Sunny Side of the Street”), and stage and film composer Mack Gordon and partner Harry Revel, who’d written for Shirley Temple movies. Also considered were Al Dubin and Nacio Herb Brown, who had scored LeRoy’s Gold Diggers of 1933. ^SS-147 They were set to take on the task until E.Y. “Yip” Harburg and Harold Arlen, who’d done Broadway shows The Show Is On, Hooray for What!, and Life Begins at 8:40, ran into LeRoy at a dinner party and convinced him they should do the picture. ^SS-148

Snow White had been “hailed as much for its artistic achievements as for its great music” ^SS-149 so its no surprise that Harburg and Arlen’s songs emulated Disney music to a degree. “Over the Rainbow” is a ballad of longing similar to Snow White’s “I’m Wishing;” “We’re Off to See the Wizard” was likely inspired by “Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho;” and “Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead” has the same “rousing spirt as Disney’s anti-depression anthem ‘Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf.’” ^{SS: 149-50}

Of course, “Over the Rainbow” became the most memorable song. It became Garland’s signature theme, was named #1 in a Recording Industry Association of America “Song of the Century” poll in 2001, and ranked the greatest movie song of all time by the American Film Institute in 2004. ^SS-150 Harburg came up with the idea that a rainbow would be “the only thing of significant color in Dorothy’s otherwise arid Kansas existence” and “could be a bridge from one place to another.” ^SS-151

Makeup and Costuming:

As a ranch hand, Jack Dawn befriended a movie cowboy who got him into pictures – first as a stuntman, then an extra, and then an actor, before becoming the head of MGM’s makeup department in 1937. MGM makeup artist Jack Young said he was “a big man and a rough man” and one “would not guess he was in the makeup end of the business.” ^SS-171

Dawn was determined to transform actors into their characters through the use of foam rubber applied to their faces as subtly as possible instead of masks, so as to preserve and exaggerate their facial features. ^SS-187

Gilbert Adrian, who was born Adrian Adolph Greenberg and preferred to be simply called “Adrian,” was the lead wardrobe designer. As a kid he read the Oz books and sketched costume ideas for the characters. ^SS-175 For the movie, he only designed wardrobe as he had an aversion to handling fabric, measuring, cutting, and sewing. ^SS-176

The costume for the Cowardly Lion was made of actual lion pelts ^SS-190 and was said to have weighed as much as 90 pounds ^EJ and, according to Lahr, took and an hour and a half to get into. ^SS-189 Haley’s makeup took two hours, although it was honed down to 75 minutes. His costume, which was made of leather, wouldn’t let him sit down. ^SS-224

In a bizarre coincidence, the coat for Professor Marvel, the wizard’s Kansas counterpart, was once owned by the Oz author. It was purchased from a secondhand dealer. Inside there was a label in faded ink reading “L. Frank Baum.” ^SS-193

Sources:

^FS Filmsite.org “100 Greatest Films”
^FV Facts Verse (2020). “Horrors Behind the Scenes of the Wizard of Oz”
^EJ Ebony Jade (2012). “Wizard of Oz – Behind the Scenes”
^ML Movieline (Dec. 1995). “100 Best Movies Ever Made” by Virginia Campbell and Edward Margulies
^RS Rolling Stone (12/30/1999). “100 Maverick Movies of the Last 100 Years”
^SS Jay Scarfone and William Stillman (2019). The Road to Oz. Lyons Press: Lanham, MD.
^TV TV Guide (August 8-14, 1998 issue). “50 Greatest Movies on TV and Video”
^VD Video Detective (1997). “Top 100 Films of All Time”
^W-B Wikipedia: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (the book)
^W-M Wikipedia: The Wizard of Oz (the movie)