Let’s talk (again!) about “The Wizard of Oz”

A masterpiece worthy of enduring interest

We only had a black and white TV when I was growing up in the 1970s because my weirdo father hated color TVs for some reason. We finally got a color set when I was around 11 years old. When I watched the annual showing of the movie on the new set for the first time, I was genuinely shocked at the transition to color. I ran into the kitchen and shouted at my mother, "Did you know The Wizard of Oz was IN COLOR?"

Billie Burke spent the entirety of her time in Oz sporting a cast on one leg. On Burke's off days, or when she was away from the production, Margaret Hamilton often took her lunch in Burke's exquisitely tricked-out pink and blue dressing room.

I think it's the most perfect and most beautiful movie of all time.

We'll never see a film quite like it again.

The film is a lie. Dorothy should have stayed in Oz.

The FLYING MONKEES were deliciously creepy.

Being color blind, I do not understand the impact of the arrival in Munchkinland.

The Technicolor transition/movie portion always seemed brighter and more garish to me watching it annually on our old big TV console as a kid. We probably all fcuked with the different color and brightness sliding switches and buttons on the set in those days, and screwed it all up!

I think gay men connected so strongly with this film because of their longing for a world where they could be themselves, where "Skies are blue and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true."

Too drunk to care

I'm also of the generation where it was shown once a year--was it around a special time of year? I don't recall.

I do recall being terrified by the flying monkeys. And later putting together that an old fat grandpa on The Partridge Family was the Scarecrow.

I think it was shown around Easter.

To this day I have a recurring dream about a giant floating green head.

Gosh I both love and was terrified the Wicked Witch of the West and in some ways even more terrified of Miss Gulch since she was "real".

Margaret Hamilton’s wicked witch was the best part. Without her the movie would flop.

The end of the movie left unresolved whether Miss Gulch was going to come back and take Toto away again. Imagine Auntie Em telling Dorothy that Miss Gulch had been killed when a flying pail of water hit her in the head during the cyclone. What would Dorothy have done? Smiled knowingly and sung “Ding Dong Miss Gulch is Dead”?

The story is quite radical for its time: Underage girl kills two people and disappears into the woods with three men in drag and old enough to be her father.

r17 and apparently they were into furries.

My favourite film. I remember seeing it as a kid when it was shown on Christmas Eve in the mid-80’s, think it was shown most ever Christmas in the UK. Obviously, everything else was in colour long before then, but the transition to colour from sepia was nevertheless still magical. I adore technicolour and hate the current trend in cinematography to make everything as drab, dark and grey as possible. Oz had a magic I don’t think had ever been quite replicated. I was watching with my grandparents who I still miss very much. It was kind of a special memory and part of the reason I still have so much love for the film.

I remember watching it as a kid and crying when the balloon took off without her. My siblings laughed at me.

A number of years ago - maybe 10 or 15 - The Wizard of Oz played in select theaters in 3-D and I just HAD to see it out of curiosity, especially since I couldn't remember the last time I saw the movie on TV.

I don't know how they toyed around with it to make it 3-D, but the process made the color sequences even more amazing than before because it heightened how fake looking everything was.

What that did was make everything look surreal and dreamlike, most especially in Munchkin City.

As a result I never had a desire to see the movie again because that 3-D version was so special.

I’ve always wanted to know why some baby munchkins are sitting in hatched eggs in nests. What conclusions are we meant to draw from this?

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: 50 Years of Magic

Hosted by Angela Lansbury

R21 - if you see the best digital copy, ---

4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

--on a 4k television - the colors are shocking and yes the entire color part of the movie is "hyper-real" totally artificial and fabulous. (The B&W is great too, of course).

Many of us grew up watching degraded prints on average CRT televisions.

It was a shock to me to discover what was rally captured on that celluloid.

R19 Technicolor®️!

"I'll get you, my pretty and your little dog, too!"

Someone said in another thread that Berl Lahr's "If I Were King of the Forest" brought the film to a grinding halt.

That someone was simply trying to bring that thread to a grinding halt, R28. That number was probably the single best character solo in the film (with the exception of Judy's 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow,' of course).

R29, I agree 100%, if anyone dragged the film it was the supremely bland Jack Haley, but he was a last minute replacement and he was so bland as to almost be invisible so he didn't effect things too much.

Having the film restored to sepia really demonstrated the brilliance of the creators of "The Wizard of Oz" that you don't see when they had the Kansas sequences only in B&W. The big scene when Dorothy opens the door to Oz is in Technicolor, but they cleverly had the set and Dorothy's dress a sepia tone, so it looks like she is walking from sepia film into color film. The effect was lost when it went from B&W to color as the transition wasn't smooth. I also grew up with a B&W TV and it was many years that we didn't see "Oz" in color. When I finally did, I was shocked that the Witch was GREEN!!

Well, Haley may have been bland, but he nailed this line: “Now I know I’ve got a heart, ‘cause it’s breaking.” I tear up every time.

I seem to remember it being shown annually around Thanksgiving and later on at Easter. The first time I saw it was at a friend’s house. When Dorothy et al were in the Witch’s tower trying to escape, and the film cuts to an overhead shot of the Winkies coming toward the tower from two directions with spears drawn I freaked the fuck out and leapt behind the sofa. I didn’t come out until the Witch was dead.

1939 was lightning in a bottle for American movies

Whenever I watch it, I think of random questions with no answers. Like what does the Wizard do all day? Is he hanging out behind the curtain and holding meetings as the giant head? Do the people of Oz know the truth about him being just a man behind a curtain?

r34 the novel would answer many of your questions.

Agree with the other posters, when viewed in HD on a screen the sets look like cardboard. It's still fabulous though.

I love Frank Morgan’s daffy “wizard”!

Was this a totally studio made film with no location photography? Those painted backdrops give it away. Or did they use some of the backlot?

I'm wondering how many times you all saw the film as children before you realized that certain roles were double cast?

r38, what scenes are you thinking could have possibly been shot on location??

Were Garland and the film crew put into a real tornado for the twister scene?

R31 I read or heard somewhere that the rear shot of Dorothy going out the door of the house into Oz was done by Judy Garland’s double. Once she goes through the door, her image becomes somewhat nebulous for a split second and then there’s a front shot of Judy in color. I agree it’s a well-done transition from sepia tone to color.

I, too was shocked the first time I saw that the witch was green!

Judy was only sixteen and she was given speed for energy and to keep her weight down. That's probably what led her to drug addiction.

The Wicked Witch scared little me, but what TERRIFIED me was the crystal ball that had Auntie Em trapped in it that faded into the Witch cackling and taunting Dorothy.

R43 I never knew that! Is this common knowledge?

R43 Really Colombo?

A big problem with the last third of the movie is there is no music. The "King of the Forest" is pretty much the last song in the film. The "Jitterbug" number ("I've sent a little insect to take the fight out of them") set in the Witch's forest is so zany and bizarrely jovial and is so totally wrong for the moment.

But the single biggest mistaken cut is the grand Triumphal Return to Oz with the broom. It was filmed and though not terribly long (the soundtrack exists) but it's spectacular, with the residents of Oz singing a reprise of "Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead", forming a nice catharsis of sorts. It appears on one of the window cards and shown for a flash - and mentioned! - in the trailer. In the film as it is, the scene with the Winkies singing :"Hail to Dorothy, the witch is dead" cuts right to the long walk back to the Wizards throne-room.

R47 The “suits” at MGM didn’t want even “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” in the movie, claiming it slowed the film down, until Arthur Freed fought back. The trade-off may have been less music later in the movie. I don’t know what the attention span of children was in 1939, but I’ll bet it was longer than that of adults in 2023.

I was molested by the Wizard of ID.

Bert Lahr's singing vibrato is funny but then he was a one-trick pony.

John Lahr of The New Yorker wrote a wonderful piece about growing up with The Cowardly Lion—his dad..

A great read—

R50 He was a Broadway legend.

[quote] the supremely bland Jack Haley, but he was a last minute replacement and he was so bland as to almost be invisible

Well said!

Bert Lahr was hammy with a narrow range, but plenty of show biz was like that, and I find him very charming.

R42 I grew up with a Zenith B&W TV so yes, the color WOO was amazing.

I think I was 11 when my parents bought the a Sony Trinitron color TV, which was THE television used in every movie in the 1980s.

Do they still play this every year? It doesn't have any POX in it. I figure it would get cancelled.

The Witch is green, R57.

She's HEX 299617.

That's all.

[quote] John Lahr of The New Yorker wrote a wonderful piece about growing up with The Cowardly Lion—his dad..

R51 Thanks, I enjoyed reading that. It made me wonder for the first time how a lion in Oz got a Brooklyn accent.

I saw it in a theater in 3D about 10 years ago and it was amazing!

Just by seeing it on a theater screen I noticed things in the background I'd never noticed before.

I love this movie, have seen it countless times and never tire of it. But I'm glad I got to see it in a theater.

R60. Thanks

I could have written a version of the last para about my own father. If only we knew then what we know now, with a chance to talk it over with Mom or Da. Such is life.

A fun game to play with friends over cocktails or after dinner is to ask everyone if they could have one prop from any Hollywood movie what would it be? (A *prop*, not a costume, vehicle, piece of furniture, etc.) Someone always says the Maltese Falcon, but my answer is the Witch's Hourglass. (Yes, she hurls it to the ground from the balcony but surely more than one was made.) This is also a good icebreaker game if you're stuck at the Random Friends and Relations Table at a wedding.

*

That sounds a bit dull TBH.

I agree with whoever said that Bert Lahr's range was narrow as a performer, but I'm glad that we have his performance as the Cowardly Lion (which I think is the best performance in the entire film, save Judy's singing Over the Rainbow) forever enshrined on celluloid (or digital files as the case may be), one of those great examples of perfect match of performer and role.

Narrow range?!

He was the original Broadway Estragon. How different from Oz could an actor possibly get? And before that he played Louis XV—in a musical!

Don't forget Bert's 50 Load Weekend.

My favorite line as spoken by the Wizard- “And remember, my sentimental friend, that a heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others.” As corny as it may sound, I do truly try and remember that in my daily life.

The comments on the YouTube video!

[quote] My Nana once remarked that, when watching this in the picture-house in Besley, as Dorothy opened the door and colour streamed onto an unsuspecting audience she was so stunned her mouth fell open and she soiled herself.

Which one of you bitches wrote THAT?

I love that line too, [R69]. It makes you think. I’m not sure I believe it to always be true, though. Some people give a lot of love to others, but aren’t loved in return. I still say they have big hearts. Also, people like DJT receive a lot of love in this world . . .

Nana, you dirty girl.

R69 I hate that line. What a messed up thing to teach to kids, that the only way to have a good heart is to be loved by everyone.

W.C. Fields was the first choice for the title role. He wanted too much money. Frank Morgan is fine in the role, but can't help but feel Fields would have portrayed the fraudulent aspect of the dual role better

Shirley Temple was offered the role Dorothy first. In her autobio, she related that both she and her mother were molested by MGM execs. She called her molester as "an exhibitor", a double entendre for someone who shows movies.

Instead, Temple did "The Blue Bird". It was her first flop. 1976 remake laid an egg @ the box office as well.

I know, R73. There's more than one way to interpret that chestnut!

OMG, I think Frank Morgan is perfect as the Wizard. Nobody could have don it better, including Fields.

[quote] My favorite line as spoken by the Wizard- “And remember, my sentimental friend, that a heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others.”

He didn’t say it as a good thing. He said it as a showman and a con man. All of the interactions at the end between the Wizard and the four other characters were fake, including the Scarecrow stating the Pythagorean Theorem wrong and the Wizard suggesting he knew how to fly Dorothy back home (he later confessed that he didn’t know how the balloon worked). The Wizard gave the items and told them things to placate them. There’s no truth in what he did.

[quote](The B&W is great too, of course).

It was sepia.

Was it tinted b-w film stock, or a dulled color film stock?

lets not

I think Frank Morgan was perfect too.

Dorothy was extremely ignorant

Glinda was a bitch, not telling Dorothy she had the power to go home all along.

[quote] so he didn't effect things too much.

Oh, dear!

Dorothy was ignorant!

I read her personality changed after the head injury and she turned to giving nickel handjobs behind Mr. Gower's drug store before dying two years later in a hay bailing accident.

R74-I didn't read her book, but while plugging it on one of the talk shows, she said it was Arthur Freed who exposed himself to her, and LB Mayer who came on to her Mom.

I think that incident was a couple years after TWOO. I believe Shirley and her Mom were there to discuss a possible contract for Shirley at MGM. When they shared stories in the car afterwards, Shirley stated "we decided we liked it better at Fox". I guess DF Zanuck, who was known for screwing every actress on the Fox lot, at least wasn't a pedo (and apparently had higher standards than LB Mayer).

This is indeed both my and my late brother's favorite movie of all time. Since his rather sudden and untimely passing 6 years ago, I can't bring myself to watch it. I know I'll start sobbing hysterically and I really don't want that.

Oddly enough, my late Mom was one of the few people I've known who despised the movie. She didn't like the "fantasy" aspect, and would only watch the Kansas sequences. She wasn't a big Judy fan either. She did like her in "Presenting Lily Mars" and "The Big Clock" though.

[quote]W.C. Fields was the first choice for the title role.

Oh I’m so glad he didn’t play Dorothy. That wouldn’t have seemed right. I’m glad Julie Gartland got the job!

R88 = epic fail

Wc fields was a fool

[quote]Glinda was a bitch, not telling Dorothy she had the power to go home all along.

R91 read the damn thread before you post

N.B. That sketch was weak

Why does that bother you so, r92? Who cares if there’s a repetition?

Please don’t inflict your OCD on the rest of us.

The (not so very weak at all) sketch needed to be reposted in response to R83, o hall monitor at R92.

"Only bad witches are ugly!" 😀

93 94 have some issues

Mary!

The Wizard of Oz is literally too twisted for colored TV.