Basic Information Film: The Wizard of Oz My Scene: 19:33 to 33:45- 14 minutes and 12 seconds long Dorothy opens the door and finds herself alone in a strange village. Arriving at the village via a floating bubble, Glinda, the Good Witch of the North (Billie Burke), informs the girl that she and her falling house have killed the Wicked Witch of the East. The timid Munchkins come out of hiding to celebrate the demise of the Witch by singing "DingDong! The Witch Is Dead". Their celebration is interrupted when the Wicked Witch of the West suddenly appears in a cloud of smoke and tries to claim her dead sister's powerful ruby slippers. But Glinda magically transfers the slippers from the dead witch onto Dorothy's feet and reminds the Witch of the West that her power is ineffectual in Munchkinland. The Witch vows revenge on Dorothy, saying "I'll get you, my pretty...and your little dog, too!" before leaving the same way she arrived. When Dorothy asks how to get back home, Glinda advises her to seek the help of the mysterious Wizard of Oz in the Emerald City, which she can reach by following the yellow brick road, and warns Dorothy never to remove the slippers or she will be at the mercy of the Wicked Witch. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_of_Oz_(1939_film) Directed by: Victor Fleming George Cukor (fill-in director) (uncredited) Mervyn LeRoy (uncredited) King Vidor (director:Kansas scenes) (uncredited) Writing Credits: Noel Langley (adaptation & screenplay) Florence Ryerson (screenplay) Edgar Allan Woolf (screenplay) L. Frank Baum (Author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz) Produced by: Mervyn Leroy (producer) Arthur Freed (associate producer) Cinematography: Harold Rosson Camera: John Arnold, A.S.C. (Department Head) Harold Rosson, A.S.C. (First Cameraman) Allen Davey, A.S.C. (cameraman provided by Technicolor) Ray Ramsey Sam Cohen Max Fabian Editing: Blanche Sewell Ernie Grooney (Assistant) Margaret Booth
Sound: Gavin Burns Chip Gaither (sound boom [microphone])
Sources 1. IMDb a. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032138/
2. The Making of the Wizard of OZ: Movie Magic and Studio Power in the Prime of MGM-and Miracle of Production #1060 a. Harmetz, A. (1998). The making of the wizard of oz: movie magic and studio power in the prime of MGM--and the miracle of production . New York: Hyperion Books. b. (Harmetz, 1998)
3. The Wizardry of Oz: The Artistry and Magic of the 1939 MGM Classic a. Scarfone, J, & Stillman, W. (2004). The wizardry of oz: the artistry and magic of the 1939 m-g-m classic. New York, New York: Applause Theatre & Cinema. b. (Scarfone & Stillman, 2004)
4. Memories of a munchkin: An Illustrated Walk Down the Yellow Brick Road a. Raabe, M, & Kinske, D. (2005). Memories of a munchkin: an illustrated walk down the yellow brick road. New York, New York: Back Stage Books. b. (Raabe, M, & Kinske, 2005)
5. Finding oz: How L. Frank Baum Discovered the Great American Story a. Schwartz, Evan I. (2009). Finding oz: how L. Frank Baum discovered the great American story. New York, New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH). b. (Schwarts, 2009)
6. The Real Wizard of Oz: The Life and Times of L. Frank Baum a. Loncraine, Rebecca. (2009). The real wizard of oz: the life and times of L. Frank Baum. Gotham Books. b. (Loncraine, 2009)
7. The Annotated Wizard of Oz: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz a. Frank, L.Wallace, W. & Patrick, M. (2000). The annotated wizard of oz: the wonderful wizard of oz. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company. b. (Frank, Wallace, & Patrick, 2000)
8. Wizard Of Oz: On Set Footage & Stories
a. "YouTube - Wizard of Oz: On Set Footage & Stories." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. 5 Apr. 2009. Web. 02 Apr. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPuwnyep51Q>.
9. Judy Garland Database a. http://www.jgdb.com/oz.htm
10. CBS - Behind the Scenes of the Wizard of Oz, 1990 pt. 1 of 5 (Parts 1-5 follow in order below) a. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6mkoo_cbs-behind-the-scenes-of-thewizard_shortfilms b. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6ml4c_cbs-behind-the-scenes-of-thewizard_shortfilms c. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6mli3_cbs-behind-the-scenes-of-thewizard_shortfilms d. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6mzw2_cbs-behind-the-scenes-of-thewizard_shortfilms e. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6mzzp_cbs-behind-the-scenes-of-thewizard_shortfilms
11. Cinema: The New Pictures: Aug. 21, 1939 a. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,762487,00.html
12.Return to Oz: The Munchkins 70 Years Later a. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5s8LURnmpc&feature=related
13.Wizard of Oz (CASTING THE WICKED WITCH) a. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qHaIO0LU38&feature=related
14.Wizard of Oz (CASTING DOROTHY) a. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU9bN6EUm5s&feature=related
15.Wizard Of Oz (CASTING GLINDA) a. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6qcgeg2dcY&NR=1
Information from The Making of the Wizard of OZ: Movie Magic and Studio Power in the Prime of MGM-and Miracle of Production #1060 After Mr. Fleming left to direct Gone With the Wind, King Vidor finished directing Oz. In the fall of 1937, either Mervyn LeRoy or Arthur Freed persuaded Louis B. Mayer to buy The Wizard of Oz. That much is certain. When The Wizard of Oz won Herbert Stothart an Academy Award for Best Original Score, the award was really aimed at the for minutes of songs-“Over the Rainbow,” “If I Were King of the Forest,” “Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead,” “We’re Off to See the Wizard,” “If I Only Had a Brain”-all written by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg. The midgets arrived at MGM in mid-November. There were 124 of them, and their presence was felt immediately. The midgets who arrive at MGM in mid-November ranged in size from 2’3” to 4’8”.
The Munchkins were timid more often than aggressive, shy more often than bold. Their preferred term for themselves was “little people,” and they called the people who towered above them “big people,” “adults,” or “grown-ups.” They identified as “grownups” even those big people who were younger than themselves. Most of the 124 Munchkins were acquired for MGM by Leo Singer, the proprietor of Singer’s Midgets. Singer was a German Jew who found and trained his midgets as acrobats, singers, dancers, and wrestlers in Germany and Austria. MGM had originally hoped for two hundred midgets. But Singer had difficulty finding even a hundred. Major Doyle, one of the best known Ringling Brothers midgets, refused to deal with Singer-partly because of Singer’s reputation, partly because little people who had remained independent tended to be hostile toward the big people who managed troupes of midgets. A number of the Wizard of Oz midgets were non-professionals. All of page 197 which talks about the Munchkin rehearsal process Top paragraph on page 199 talks about the Munchkin rehearsal process Their costumes, like the rest of the costumes in the film, had been designed by Adrianthe MGM’s No. 1 designer, the husband of Academy Award-winning actress Janet Gaynor, and the man who had invented padded shoulders for Joan Crawford. Page 200 gives a full description of the Munchkin’s costumes: All made out of felt. The costumes were heavy with silk tassels, silver chains, wide buckles. Flowers were appliquéd everywhere-on gloves, on hats, on bodices, even on sleeves and capes. The huge vests and coats and jewelry were designed to make the Munchkins look even smaller. Each coat, vest, bodice, shoe, even each pair of stockings had to be made within the Wardrobe Department. There were barely 600 actors and they required fewer than 1,000 costumes. On the largest of the 60 sets, (Producer Mervyn LeRoy’s somewhat rounded figure) 80 or 90 men worked behind the cameras and controlled the 150 arc lights. The number of makeups designed more or less matched the number of actors. It was up to William Horning, the art director, to invent Oz. It had already been decided that the entire picture would be shot “under roof,” within the studio sound stages. The cameras would dictate how much of each set needed to be built. Munchkinland was easiest. “You had something working with you. Doors are onlt this high because the houses are for the midgets. Windows are only this high. Flower boxes have to be low enough for midgets to water them. Then we put grass roofs on the houses and shaped them like mushrooms, and that was Munchkinland.” The Kansas sequences of The Wizard of Oz were sepia-toned. They were shot in black and white; then the film was place in a brown bath to take away the harshness of the black and white. The rest of the film was in color. And color was still an uncharted sea. Page 221 is a great source of information about the coloring of the film. The painted backdrops were George Gibson’s responsibility.
The backdrops were painted by using the temperamental medium of pigment and wellwatered glue. Gibson quote, “To trick the eye. For Munchkinland, we painted half a dozen cutouts-flat pieces of scenery we shaped like houses. The first cutouts were a little larger than the last real houses on the set. Then the cutouts kept getting smaller and smaller, to give the stage depth to indicate a larger town.” The Color Director on The Wizard of Oz was Henri Jaffa, who was later, in 1943, loaned to Cedric Gibbons by Technicolor and remained on loan to MGM for eleven years, until 1954, a year after MGM built its own color laboratory. It was in Mrs. Cluett’s Beading Department that Judy Garland’s ruby slippers were made. “The sequins were on a very fine chiffon,” remembers Marian Parker, “and the beaders were working frantically with their little needles pushing all those red sequins onto the shoes. They had hoped to get by with just spraying a leather shoe read, but that didn’t work. The chiffon with the sequins was formed in the shape of a shoe and then sewed onto the cloth shoe.” The sequins themselves as being glued onto the chiffon rather than sewn A. Arnold (Buddy) Gillespie was the special effects man The enormous ball in which Billie Burke appeared and disappeared was even simplerpurely an optical effect. “We used a silver ball about seven or eight inches in diameter, a beautiful silver ball just like a Christmas-tree ornament, only bigger. We didn’t move the ball at all. We photographed the ball against a neutral….the rest can be found on pages 254 and 255. 268 tells of Betty Danko’s accident and the red smoke effect: The top of the pit was covered by a thin piece of aluminum painted to look like the Yellow Brick Road. The aluminum would be jerked away by an invisible wire, and she would spring, rather like a jack-in-the-box, into the scene. Smudge pots and long smoke tubes would produce enough fire and red smoke to keep the audience from being aware of the trickery. The picture did extremely well that first week at Loew’s Capitol Theater. Opening day broke the house record. According to the Hollywood Reporter, “The lines started to form at 5:30 in the morning and when the box office opened at eight there were 15,000 four abreast lined up around the corner almost to Eighth Avenue.” By the end of the day, the picture had been seen by more than 37,000 people. The film didn’t have firm enough legs to justify its cost. Part of the problem was the fact that nearly half of a typical audience for the picture consisted of children, who got in for reduced prices, so that even when the picture played to full houses, the theatres made considerably less money than usual. The Wizard of Oz cost $2,777,000 and grossed $3,335,000 for the studio. When the costs of distribution, prints, and advertising were added to the cost of making The Wizard of Oz, it meant a loss to the studio of nearly a million dollars. The men who reviewed and disliked the film in 1939 were adults. The consistently more favorable reviews the film received after 1949 were partly because most of the second and all of the third set of reviewers had first seen the film as children of adolescents.
Information from The Wizardry of Oz: The Artistry and Magic of the 1939 MGM Classic For the picture a total of 3,210 costumes were designed and made, 8,428 separate make-ups were sketched in color and applied to faces, sixty-five fantastic settings built from 1,020 separate units, 212,180 individual sounds were placed in the picture and eighty four different effects created for unusual events of Oz. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was published in 1900 by L. Frank Baum and is widely considered to be the first indigenous American fairy tale. Jack Dawn, make-up man for The Wizard of Oz, should get a special award for his part in making the picture the splendid entertainment it is. The thin, delicate masks for the three grotesque characters by Dawn allow a degree of their personality to peep through. Jack Dawn’s counterpart in the wardrobe department was Gilbert Adrian-known simply by his surname. The designer was allegedly familiar with the Baum stories, and the studio contended that Adrian was scanning the thirty Oz books for costume planning. The munchkin costumes were critical from several standpoints. Being the first creatures encountered by Dorothy upon entering Oz, the fanciful nature of the Munchkin wardrobe would set the tone for the rest of the picture that followed. The Munchkin sequence was emphasized for the extravagant shift from black and white to three strip color photography. The omnipotence of traditional blue attire was not a consideration for the expensive Technicolor film; and it was intolerable to envisions the potentially brilliant hues of this scene reduced to a monochromatic wash. The individual munchkin personalities were to have been defined in a manner that would rival the popularity of Walt Disney’s Seven Dwarfs. The mutations and limitations of Technicolor photography were of little concern to Adrian as he began to effect the Lilliputian costumes. This mindset eventually led to a heated confrontation between Adrian and color director Henri Jaffa over the feasibility of colors for the Munchkin wear. Technicolor processing, though highly developed for the time, in particular curtailed the creative scope of costume designers. Hues and tints would translate to color film with frustrating inconsistency. The sensitive nature of the film required extensive planning and testing well in advance of photography. Pale blues faded to nothingness, bright blues were startlingly brilliant, and yellows could look green or orange. Adrian sought for the doll effect because when a girl enters a dream world as Dorothy does in Oz she imagines some people small like her own dolls. Hence, Adrian used felt for them, exaggerated jewelry and thousands of individually made flowers. A full picture of Munchkinland with the actors in costume looks like a flower garden. To symbolize Glinda’s gracefulness and ability of flight, Adrian also infused the gown with a butterfly motif, evident in jeweled decorations and pink tulle “wings” at the
shoulders. The image of sheer fairy tale fantasy was completed with Burke’s shimmering, starry headdress that routinely necessitated lighting adjustments to avoid glare. The witch’s costume, with its flowing cape, bishop sleeves, and sleek medieval style, gave Hamilton a lean, spidery appearance that heightened her wrongdoing. When Technicolor filming began on October 13, 1938, Judy Garland was dressed in a blue cotton pinafore with blue-polkadot border, which also circled the hem border of the dress. Her blouse was constructed of white organdy with puff sleeves, a Peter Pan collar, and a front button panel with six pleats, finished with a matching blue-polkador bow attached at the neck. For the purpose of Technicolor photography, the jumpers were given a pink overdye to tone the contrast of the blue and white check. Judy Garland was older than the Dorothy in the book. To soften her silhouette and make her body appear childlike, Garland’s blouses ended in ribbons of bias tape that would tie around her upper waist-and the corset used to flatten her bosom. A separate dress was made for the Kansas scenes. And while there has been much speculation as to the extent to which it was worn, it was likely used for a few fleeting seconds-during the transition from black and white to Technicolor. This shot was filmed in color. Garland’s double wore a black and white checked jumper dyed with an ochre wash. The outfit was otherwise an exact copy of the blue gingham dress worn by Garland throughout the Technicolor scenes. To create the color change, Garland’s double ran to the front door with her back to the camera. As she drew the door open, she stepped back out of the frame as Garland stepped forward through the door, giving the illusion of one seamless take. The silver shoes were transformed to ruby slippers because red was the most vibrant contrast against the bright yellow brick road. The magical ruby slippers were covered with red satin and lined with cream colored kid leather, to which was applied 2,300 sequins. Each leather bow comprised 46 rhinestones, 42 burgle beads, and 3 costume jewels. Red or orange felt on the shoes’ soles minimized the sound of footsteps. Typical of the early Technicolor process, the shoes’ sequins were a deep burgundy or crimson color in order to shimmer a bright red of film. The fundamental components in portraying any motion picture environment of the 1930s required an artful combination of physical setting, realistically painted backdrops, and skillful lighting. An interoffice communication dated February 26, 1938, stressed: The whole background should be more modernized than it is in the book to appeal to the modern person’s idea of a Fairyland. When L. Frank Baum wrote this story which was before 1900, there were no autos, no radios, no airplanes and I do believe if he had written it today he would have in some manner made it a little more acceptable to the audience on a basis of
using some of the modern contrivances that we use today. I think our Wizard of Oz background should be a Fairyland of 1938 and not of 1900. The creation of Munchkinland was intended to echo the logical imagining of any youngster who finds themselves in a world where they tower over the populace. By extension, flowers would grow larger than life, the domed Munchkin huts would resemble mushroom caps, and the sweeping spiral of the yellow brick road would be conceived of the candy swirl of an enormous lollipop tipped on its side. The sets for The Wizard of Oz were built on elevated wooden frameworks, which the construction department kept in stock. These variously sized structures were planked over, like flooring, and nailed together by carpenters on the stages. The frames could then be covered over by jute tarps and topped with grass sod from the studio nursery. For the Kansas farm, the apple orchard, and the Scarecrow’s cornfield, the tarps were covered with dirt that was stockpiled on the lot and shipped to the set by trucks. Foliage and other decorative accents were next put in place. The trunks of smaller trees were authentic, and augmented with artificial leaves. When situated, the trees were affixed to the stage floor and secured to the top of the set with wires. The studio contended that actual magicians were consulted to learn theatrical feats involving appearances, disappearances, fire, and sleight of hand illusions. An improved version of the stage floor trapdoor was pressed into service when the Wicked Witch was required to melt and make her fiery entrances and exits. Unwanted footsteps noises also resulted in a great deal of postproduction sound editing. It would not be until June 1939 that the majority of all postproduction work on Oz was completed for the sake of “rough cut” previews. Audience response to those previews meant further work for editor Blanche Sewell and assistant Ernie Grooney, as several scenes were shortened or eliminated altogether.
Information from The Wizardry of Oz the movie The wizard of Oz wasn’t the first Technicolor film but the contrast of Kansas and Oz was first hinted by L. Frank Baum The munchkinkland set was 90 feet high. Water will only reflect blue if it can reflect the sky. At first MGM dyed the water but when they unleashed a flock of white ducks the ducks were dyed blue. Then they drained the pond and painted the bottom blue before filling it with water once more. Solid 6 minutes of song, dance, and rhymed dialogue once Billy Burke starts singing.
Criticism Summarize the critics and contribute your own analysis about the film. http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1800019695/critic
BBC Reviewed by George Perry: Apparently more people have seen "The Wizard of Oz" than any other film, a record enhanced by its perennial appearances on television, especially at Christmas time. The universality of its appeal remains undiminished, even more than 60 years since Judy Garland as Dorothy set out with her friends along the Yellow Brick Road. It was not an easy film to make. Quite
the contrary. Buddy Ebsen, the original Tin Man, suffered severe metallic poisoning from his make-up and had to be replaced by Jack Haley. Margaret Hamilton, the wicked witch, sustained first degree burns when a fire effect went wrong. Bert Lahr, the Cowardly Lion, experienced severe discomfort from his costume and could only sip liquid food through a straw. The adolescent Garland at 16 was far too buxom to play Dorothy (who was meant to be around 12) and wore a tightly binding garment under her dress to flatten her bust. Some of the small people who played the Munchkins turned out to be lecherous drunks and ran amok when not in front of the camera. The director, Richard Thorpe, was fired after two weeks shooting and his footage scrapped. His replacement, George Cukor, lasted only a week. Victor Fleming shot the bulk of the film, but King Vidor (uncredited) filmed the Kansas sequences, including the song "Over the Rainbow", which was deemed by studio executives as too gloomy for children, and nearly cut from the finished print. Given such a history, it is astonishing that the result should have been so serendipitous. Yet each time it is shown, this extraordinary film (which was not even the first Wizard of Oz - L Frank Baum's sublime story had been filmed before as a silent and a cartoon) embraces a new generation of children who succumb to its magic.
CNN Reviewed by Paul Tatara: http://articles.cnn.com/1998-1111/entertainment/9811_11_review.wizardofoz_1_movies-oz-big-screen?_s=PM:SHOWBIZ
Visual Artifacts: Links below the images are the sources aka where I found them. Dorothy entering Technicolor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6D8PAGelN8 Dorothy lands in Munchkin land: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP_wx0qrKu0
http://www.starpulse.com/Movies/Wizard_Of_Oz,_The/gallery/WIZARDOZ012/
http://www.starpulse.com/Movies/Wizard_Of_Oz,_The/gallery/WIZARDOZ017/
http://www.starpulse.com/Movies/Wizard_Of_Oz,_The/gallery/WIZARDOZ016/
http://www.starpulse.com/Movies/Wizard_Of_Oz,_The/gallery/WIZARDOZ010/
http://www.collectiblesandmoreinstore.com/wozcom.html
http://www.andrewgarvey.com/wizard/characters/TheWickedWitchoftheWestProfile.html
http://www.gonemovies.com/WWW/MyWebFilms/Drama/WizardWest1.asp
http://www.jgdb.com/oz.htm
http://mymemorycollector.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/yellow-brick-road.jpg
http://bestkidsmovies.blogspot.com/2011/01/wizard-of-oz.html
http://www.beyondtherainbow2oz.com/pic01fleming-leroy&munchkins.jpg
http://www.beyondtherainbow2oz.com/pictures.html
http://www.thelmagazine.com/imager/the-wizard-of-oz-and-gone-with-the-wind-weredirected-by-an-a/b/original/1558730/0a2d/Victor_Fleming.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_k4j0a1UrUM/TGcq6uHVkwI/AAAAAAAAA30/YOZVkqLIaoM/s1600/wizardofoz.jpg
http://videos.videopress.com/FjFnfVqU/wizard-of-oz1_scruberthumbnail_0.jpg
http://peelslowlynsee.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/wizard-dorothys-back1.jpg?w=448&h=336
http://www.scavengeinc.com/costumeideas/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/munchkins.jpg
http://chicagohistoryonline.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/l-frank-baum2.jpg
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/images/s184.jpg
http://www.laopride.com/pictures1/judy-garland-and-bobbie-koshay-in-the-wizard-of-oz.jpg
http://editmentor.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/technicolor-by.jpg
http://www.rochestercitynewspaper.com/uploads/articles/8066-mchoice_WizardOz_42909.jpg
http://www.wendyswizardofoz.com/wiz_c011cp.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3146/3033955294_bfb8c89f09.jpg
http://www.hollywoodandart.com/adrianamerican.jpg
http://www.fashionencyclopedia.com/images/sjcf_01_img0006.jpg
http://images2.fanpop.com/images/photos/5500000/Dorothy-With-The-Munchkins-thewizard-of-oz-5590344-600-400.jpg
http://www.wizardofozpictures.com/images/munchkins/munchkins4.JPG
http://www.gonemovies.com/www/MyWebFilms/Drama/WizardBurgemeester.jpg
http://thedailypump.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/ruby-slippers-wizard-of-oz.jpg
http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/aroundthemall/wp-content/files/2008/11/ruby-slippers.jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_XEpMyo9X0ko/SZ1TL5xH2aI/AAAAAAAAAEY/g3J3dpFXOU/s400/ruby_slippers.jpg