The Making of The Wizard of Oz

This year the film The Wizard of Oz is celebrating its 70th anniversary. Few films have captured its enduring quality and appeal. While full of fantastical elements like talking scarecrows, dancing munchkins and flying monkeys, the film has a universal appeal. Each character, from the wide-eyed Dorothy to her friends, Scarecrow, Tin Woodman and Cowardly Lion, has a trait to which we can relate. There's a part of us in each of those characters. It's hard to find someone who hasn't seen the movie about a Kansas farm girl who gets whisked to another land by a cyclone and battles a wicked witch. It's also hard to believe that TheWizard of Oz almost didn't get made. After cast and director changes and other stalls in production, the film eventually got finished and is an indelible part of American culture.

The MGM Technicolor musical we know best was not the first production of the Wizard of Oz. L. Frank Baum published The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900. In 1902 the author collaborated with Julian Mitchell and wrote the original stage show, naming it "a musical extravaganza." It was an adultized version of the novel from his Oz children's series. They cast vaudevillians David C. Montgomery as the Tin Woodman and Fred E. Stone as the Scarecrow. The musical enjoyed a successful Broadway run from 1902 through 1911. Baum started the Oz Film Manufacturing Company to produce films based on his Oz series of books. He eventually sold the production company to Universal.

In 1925 Larry Semon made a feature length film of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Semon played the Scarecrow and his wife, Dorothy Dwan, played Dorothy Gale. Oliver Hardy was cast as the Tin Woodman before he would ever be known for his Laurel and Hardy features.

In 1933 Sam Goldwyn entered negotiation for the film rights of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. He was planning to cast Eddie Cantor as the Scarecrow. He planned to film a musical in a then-new process called Technicolor. He bought the rights for $40,000. After Eddie Cantor refused to renew his contract with MGM, Goldwyn lost interest in the project. He sat on it for years without doing anything.

Arthur Freed, an assistant producer at MGM had been a fan of the Oz books since boyhood. When he rediscovered The Wonderful Wizard of Oz he thought the role of Dorothy would be perfect for Judy Garland. In the book Baum described the Dorothy character: "She was loving and usually sweet-tempered and had a round rosy face and earnest eyes. Life was a serious thing to Dorothy, and a wonderful thing, too, for she had encountered more strange adventures in her short life than many girls her age." No one but Judy Garland could play that role, Freed thought. Since Goldwyn didn't seem to have any interest in the project, Freed had Louis B. Mayer's agent, Frank Orsatti, buy the rights to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz from Sam Goldwyn. Goldwyn made a profit, selling it in 1938 for $75,000. MGM truncated the name to Wizard of Oz.

The project met a lot of resistance at first. How would they accomplish special effects like the house being lifted off in a cyclone, or the Good Witch arriving in a bubble? How would they make monkeys fly? There were casting complications as well. Where would they find enough Munchkins? Others to whom they offered parts had scheduling conflicts.

The title role was originally offered to Fred Wynn, but he turned down the role for being too small a part. He would play a dual role, Professor Marvel as well as the Wizard of Oz. They approached W.C. Fields. He was offered $75,000 for the part. But Fields had a scheduling conflict. Because filming kept being post-poned due to other problems, Fields was eventually available, but by that time, he had out-priced himself at $100,000. The role went to Frank Morgan.

While Arthur Freed had taken the credit for bringing Wizard of Oz to MGM and Judy Garland to the film, she was not MGM's first choice to play Dorothy. They wanted Shirley Temple to play the role. At the time she was under contract with Fox and was one of the top ten box office stars. In 1937 she was earning $300 a week. However, by 1940, when she was twelve years old, her career was starting to wane. The producers decided that though Temple could sing and dance, she did not have much range. Lucky for them, Fox would not release Temple.

Judy Garland was nicknamed "My Little Hunchback" by her own studio, and MGM considered her too frumpy for the role of Dorothy. She was also too old, being sixteen. Rumors were also circulating about Judy being considered to play one of the sisters in another color feature, Gone With the Wind. Producers Arthur Freed and Mervyn LeRoy eventually convinced Mayer to cast Judy Garland as Dorothy. To disguise her figure, she had to wear figure flattening corsets and have her breasts bound. Garland was already on a chicken broth-only diet and appetite suppressants, because the studio considered her too fat. Dorothy was originally a blonde. George Cukor, one of the five directors who would work on the film, demanded they get rid of the blonde wig and heavy makeup which made her look artificial. He recommended braiding Judy's natural auburn hair and fitting her with a simpler, not so fancy dress. Originally, Cukor was reluctant to take the director's seat. He said Baum's Wonderful Wizard of Oz was a "minor book with fourth-rate imagery." He worked on the film for only a week, but he was able to get the film moving in the right direction.

Victor Fleming would eventually be the final director. Word got around that Judy had a crush on the director. She openly flirted with him, and Fleming pretended to ignore it. He was intolerant of anything that could interrupt the project. Judy was known for having uncontrollable giggle attacks which would sometimes interrupt filming. While first filming the scene where the Cowardly Lion approaches Dorothy and tries to scare her, she erupted into a fit of giggles instead of hitting him, as the script instructed. Fleming took control immediately. He slapped her on the face and ordered her to her dressing room. When she returned, they finished the scene in one take. If you look closely, you can see Judy trying to suppress a smile as the lion says, "Ya didn't hafta go and hit me did ya?"

Speaking of looking closely, there's an urban legend about a midget supposedly hanging himself during one of the scenes. In the background of the scene where Dorothy and her friends start singing, "We're off to see the wizard," before they turn and go down the yellow brick road, you can see a dark figure swinging. The Munchkin suicide is actually a crane that had escaped from one of the sound stages. You can see various clips of this on YouTube. Here's one link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r89z_-1by6U

Casting the role of Dorothy was not the only casting complication. Ray Bolger was originally cast to play the Tin Man and Buddy Ebsen as the Scarecrow. A 1937 Daily Variety article announced that Bolger would play the Tin Man. Bolder was furious. He claimed that when he signed his contract with MGM in 1936, he and the studio had made a verbal agreement that he would play the Scarecrow if Wizard of Oz ever went to production. At the time the studio was paying him $3000 a week. He was mostly known for what the studio called his "eccentric dancing" which was perfect for the role of Scarecrow. He was able to convince Mayer to switch the roles.

Buddy Ebsen was cast as the Tin Man but had to be replaced. He had developed a toxic reaction to the aluminum powder in his silver makeup. He was inhaling his makeup which coated his lungs. He was hospitalized, spending weeks in an iron lung. To cover up Ebsen's near-death experience, the studio circulated rumors saying Victor Fleming had fired Ebsen. The makeup was redesigned, and Jack Haley replaced Ebsen.

Another setback occurred with the filming of the Tin Man scenes. After spending three days of shooting, the director realized that the Tin Woodman looked too polished and shiny, not rusted and weather-beaten fore someone who had stood outside for months. They had to reshoot the scenes. It set back the studio $60,000.

Several actresses were considered for the role of the Wicked Witch. Edna May Oliver and Gale Sondergaard were the first to be tested. Sondergaard's reason for turning down the role was that she did not want to appear ugly and grotesque. Margaret Hamilton, a former elementary school teacher, was chosen. For her makeup she had a nose and chin fastened to her face and a wart with a single hair sticking out of it. Every exposed part of her body was covered in green makeup. Her makeup dripped and had to be replaced often.

Hamilton was also hospitalized during production, but she eventually returned. After delivering her line, "I'll get you my pretty, and your little dog, too!" Hamilton was supposed to disappear. Flames were supposed to shoot up after a hidden elevator took her below the stage. On the sixth take, the flames erupted too soon, setting her hat and broom on fire. Sustaining severe burns to her face and right hand, she was out for six weeks. When she returned to the set, she refused to perform any scenes with fire, so her stunt double took over. The double also sustained injuries. While riding the witch's broom, it exploded. Even Toto did not escape injury. One of the Wicked Witch's guards accidentally stepped on Toto's paw, squashing it. Judy had a stand-in dog until the original Toto healed.

About a dozen Wicked Witch scenes were cut from the movie, because she was too terrifying. When the movie was released in England, the London Board of Film Censors said children could only see Wizard of Oz in the company of an adult.

Almost cut from the film was Judy's signature song, "Over the Rainbow." For the movie, it was a transitional song, one Judy would sing in the monochrome-filmed Kansas sequence. Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg were the songwriters. Arlen wrote the music. He struggled over the melody. It had to have a symphonic quality that gave a feeling of the wide-open spaces of Kansas and also of searing to someplace else. The song also had to fit Judy's voice. After wrestling with the melody, Arlen took the advice of friends and put it aside. Later while riding down Sunset Boulevard with his wife, he was struck with inspiration. He was already jotting on a notepad when he begged his wife to pull over. He wrote the melody of "Over the Rainbow" by the light of Schwab's Drugstore.

When Arlen first played the song, Harburg didn't think it was a good song to be sung by a sweet, rosy-cheeked Kansas girl. Harburg wrote the lyrics, anyway. Because Judy couldn't read music, Arlen played through each number several times after Judy had memorized the lyrics. It took only a couple run-throughs of "Over the Rainbow." The song writers had no more doubts about the song. And it was perfect for Judy. When the film was deemed too long, the song almost got cut. After a lot of debate, the song was allowed to stay in the film. The "Jitterbug" scene ultimately went to the cutting room floor. When "Over the Rainbow" was released on record, "Jitterbug" was on its flip side.

It took 23 weeks, five directors, six soundstages and cost almost three million dollars to shoot Wizard of Oz. Judy Garland was 17 years old when the film premiered. Judy and Mickey Rooney, who were on tour for another project, attended the premiere at Lowe's Capital Theatre on Broadway. All 5,000 seats were filled. 10,000 more people crowded the block around the theatre. The theatre manager added another showing. The first day's attendance at that theatre alone was 37,000. Although the reception was an overwhelming success, MGM lost $750,000. It didn't turn a profit until the 1940s when it was re-released. In 1956 the film started to be shown on television yearly and started earning a lot more money than it had when shown in theatres.

On Oscar night on February 29, 1940, Wizard of Oz was nominated for six Academy awards. It was up against the epic, Gone With the Wind, which won ten out of the then 17 major awards. Wizard of Oz won one for best original music score and another for best song, "Over the Rainbow." Judy Garland received a special "juvenile" Oscar for best juvenile performance of the year. She joked that she wasn't good enough for an "adult" award.

This month theatres around the country are having one-night showings of the Wizard of Oz to celebrate its 70^th anniversary. People magazine are conducting an online poll about who its readers think should be cast for Wizard of Oz if it were ever remade. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20307566,00.html . Even though there have been numerous spin-offs, spoofs and attempts at remakes, I can't imagine Wizard of Oz being any other way than the 1939 version. And none of those remakes have endured the way the Judy Garland version has and will for many years.