The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It is based on L. Frank Baum's turn-of-the-century children's story The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, in which a resourceful American girl is snatched up by a Kansas tornado and deposited in a fantastic land of witches, talking scarecrows, cowardly lions, and more. It stars Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Bert Lahr, Billie Burke and Margaret Hamilton. It also featured a cast of little people in the roles of the munchkins including Jerry Maren in the Lollipop Guild and Meinhardt Raabe as the Munchkin Coroner. While not the first feature film produced in Technicolor (as commonly believed), The Wizard of Oz makes conspicuous use of the technique; its Kansas bookend sequences are in sepia-toned black-and-white, while the Oz scenes are in full three-strip Technicolor.
Plot Description
Dorothy is an orphan from Kansas, raised by her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry. At the beginning of the film, Dorothy is telling the three farm hands about her conflict with a local rich, stern and humorless woman, Almira Gulch (played by Margaret Hamilton, who also plays the Witch of the West). Each hand advises her in his characteristic way, foreshadowing their appearance in Dorothy's dream of Oz. One suggests that it's not smart to walk with her dog Toto near Gulch's property (Scarecrow). The next starts making a passionate speech, straight from the heart (Tin Man), but is stopped in mid-speech by Aunt Em, with his right arm upraised. The last recommends a more aggressive approach, as he would do... then is found to be afraid of hogs (Cowardly Lion).
Dorothy's dog, Toto, is in trouble for biting Miss Gulch, and Gulch comes to the Gale farm with an order from the sheriff allowing her to take the dog, to be "destroyed". Dorothy's aunt and uncle argue unsuccessfully with Ms. Gulch about the ordeal, and Toto is taken away, as the exasperated Dorothy calls her "a wicked old witch" (foreshadowing her role in Dorothy's dream). Toto escapes by jumping out of Miss Gulch's basket, unnoticed by her. When the dog gets home, Dorothy decides that they should run away from home, because Miss Gulch would be coming back for him.
Dorothy and Toto begin their journey, and they soon encounter Professor Marvel (played by Frank Morgan, who will reappear as the Wizard of Oz, the doorman, the cabbie, and the guard; each of his characters is essentially, in his own words, a "humbug", i.e. a fraud). (Trivia note: His circus wagon is parked near a small bridge, a set piece that was also used in a dramatic scene in Gone With the Wind). He leads Dorothy into his traveling abode, and after sneaking a peek in her basket and finding a family photo, he pretends to see her Aunt Em crying, in his crystal ball. Dorothy is convinced, and she and Toto hurry home. On her way out of the trailer, though, a cyclone begins to form ("a 'whopper', speaking in the vernacular of the peasantry"). When she gets home, her whole family is already down in the storm cellar and cannot hear her stomping on its door. Seeing the tornado approaching (a very convincing special effect, made from a large muslin stocking spinning on a sliding track, accompanied by powerful off-screen fans that nearly knocked the actress off her feet at one point), Dorothy rushes inside the house and gets to her bedroom, but the wind blows the window out of its frame, hitting her in the head and leaving her unconscious.
Although Dorothy is lying senseless, the audience (and Toto) begin to see various objects, stirred up by the cyclone, which appear outside her bedroom window. (There is also a very noticeable edit in the audio track. A three-CD collection of all the music from the film, issued in 1995 with remastered music, contains a fuller version of this track).
Dorothy awakes suddenly, to find that her house is being carried up inside the cyclone. She sees some familiar faces out of the window, including the wicked Miss Gulch. In a dramatic, terrifying moment (underscored by the audio track's sudden and powerful mood change), Miss Gulch transforms into a witch (which witch, though, is a matter of some debate) and her bicycle into a broomstick. She cackles with an Eeeeh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh! (that has since become an English-language icon of fictional witches) and flies away. Moments later, girl, dog and house all land in Munchkinland, a county in the land of Oz. (The dramatic footage of the house falling toward the viewer was actually an inverted and time-reversed shot, made by dropping a model house toward a floor painted to resemble sky and clouds.) The movie makes a transition from sepia-tone to vibrant Technicolor as Dorothy carries Toto out of the house.
Shortly thereafter, Glinda, the Good Witch of the North (played by Billie Burke), arrives in an iridescent bubble. She asks Dorothy whether she is a good witch or a bad witch, and despite Dorothy's repeated disclaimers, Glinda appears to not quite understand who Dorothy is, nor where she came from. She does inform the child of where she is, and that she killed the Wicked Witch of the East by dropping her house on the ruby-slippered victim. She introduces her to the Munchkins, a small community of little people who sing and dance thanking Dorothy for freeing them from the Witch's tyrannical reign.
As the amazingly impromptu festivities reach their seeming climax, there is a burst of flame and the Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton) arrives. Having heard about the recent death, she wants to know who killed her sister, and to claim her dead sister's powerful ruby slippers. To her horror, Glinda magically transports the slippers to Dorothy's feet. The Wicked Witch makes threats against Dorothy, but Glinda reminds her that her magic is largely ineffective in Munchkinland: "Oh rubbish! You have no power here! Begone, before somebody drops a house on you, too!" The Wicked Witch vows revenge on Dorothy and Toto, with her famous "I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too!"; she disappears in the same way she arrived.
The Munchkin Land scenes were filmed from December 10 - 23, 1938.
On December 23, 1938, during a second filming of her departure from Munchkinland the lift Margaret Hamilton was standing on did not go down fast enough. When the fire started she nearly got caught in it. Her green makeup did catch fire, she was severely burned and she was out of the filming for six weeks, spending time in the local hospital. She returned to the set on February 11, 1939.
Glinda tells Dorothy that the only way to get back to Kansas is to follow the yellow brick road to the Emerald City, where she can ask the mysterious Wizard of Oz for help. Before Glinda disappears in her bubble, she tells Dorothy never to take off the slippers, and to "just follow the Yellow Brick Road".
On her journey, Dorothy befriends a supposedly brainless (though very resourceful) talking scarecrow (Ray Bolger), a supposedly heartless (though very kind) tin woodsman (Jack Haley), and a definitely cowardly lion (Bert Lahr). All three of them sing songs detailing their difficult handicaps. They too decide they will visit the Wizard to obtain what they desire, despite the Witch's threats to stop them.
Two scenes from this part of the film were cut in previews. First is the aformentioned dance to "If I Only Had A Brain". The second one was a scene where the witch follows up on her threat to turn the Tin Man into a beehive. Originally there was a scene with dozens of animated bees flying around the Tin Man.
Just before the group reaches the Art Deco-style Emerald City, the Wicked Witch casts a spell to stop them. She produces a giant field of poppies that put Dorothy, Toto and the Lion to sleep. The Scarecrow and the Tinman (who are not conventional organic creatures and are immune to the spell) cry for help, and Glinda produces a counterspell in the form of a snow shower to wake everybody up. They immediately arrive at the Emerald City, where they are only allowed in after Dorothy proves by her footwear that Glinda sent her there.
Inside the Emerald City, everything is green except for the Horse of a Different Color, who changes colors several times while taking the group to a salon (a special effect reportedly accomplished by coating the horse with different colors of Jell-o). The travelers are professionally refreshed, and just before they go to see the Wizard, the Wicked Witch flies above the Emerald City, writing words in the sky with her smoldering broomstick, demanding that the citizens "SURRENDER DOROTHY".
(Originally it was "SURRENDER DOROTHY OR DIE SIGNED WWW"; the last few words were cut after the first preview. A lot of the witch's scenes were cut, or script ideas never filmed, because MGM executives felt it made the witch too scary for children. Given the full text of that message, arguably the executives also felt some ideas were too silly.)
The emerald citizenry are quite frightened by this development, and even though they have just welcomed five strangers (one canine, one feline to boot) en masse, they are unaware that one of them is indeed "the witch's Dorothy". The Wizard's guard shoos away the worried locals as well as our heroes and heroine; but when he's confronted by the Scarecrow, "she's Dorothy!" he states: "That makes a difference. Wait here, I'll announce you at once." The respite allows the Lion to wax rhapsodic on his imminent acquisition of courage: "Monarch am I, and I shall reign."
When the party at last stand before the Wizard of Oz, they find him to be a terrifying floating head surrounded by fire and smoke. He bellows that he will only help them if they can obtain the broomstick of the Witch of the West (coincidentally enough). On their way to her castle, flying monkeys, sent by the Wicked Witch, capture Dorothy and Toto and take them to the castle.
There was another deleted scene that the witch hints at when she says "They'll give you no trouble; I promise you that. I've sent a little insect on ahead to take the fight out of them" she sends a fictitious bug, "the jitterbug", that bites or stings them, causing Dorothy and friends to dance helplessly until the flying monkeys arrive to take Dorothy and Toto away. It, too, was cut after an early preview. The only archival evidence remaining of this scene is the sound recordings and a backstage home movie filmed during rehearsals. Any original footage appears to have been lost. Some critics have pointed out that the bouncy song was inappropriate to the mood of the scene, as well as "dating" the movie, so that cutting it was a wise decision. In any case, dropping the "beehive" and "jitterbug" sequences leaves the only "humbug" in the movie as the figurative one: the Wizard himself.
Once Dorothy is delivered to the castle, its evil resident demands the ruby slippers, but it turns out that the shoes actually cannot be removed... as long as Dorothy is alive (although not overtly stated, but this relates back to the earlier dialogue in which Glinda asks the Witch of the West if she has forgotten the Witch of the East's slippers; they could only be removed with the Witch of the East being dead, but Glinda got to them first). In a fury, the Witch orders one of her monkey slaves to kill Toto. The dog, however, escapes, finds their friends, and leads them to the castle to save Dorothy.
Dorothy, meanwhile, is locked inside a chamber with an hourglass and a crystal ball. When the hourglass runs out, Dorothy will die. As she waits and cries, she sees her Aunt Em in the crystal ball, wondering where her niece is. Dorothy cries out to her aunt, but the image of Aunt Em fades out as the image of the Wicked Witch fades in, cackling and mocking Dorothy, terrifying her; then turning and looking into the camera, continuing her devilish laughter before fading out.
(Originally, during these scenes there was a reprise of Dorothy, in despair, singing a faltering "Over the Rainbow" with slightly altered lyrics. It too was cut after an early preview of the film).
The Scarecrow, the Tinman, Lion and Toto arrive at the Wicked Witch's castle where they are surprised by three of her guards. They get into a scuffle, hidden from the audience's view behind some rocks and a quick fadeout in order to hide the "payoff": the Scarecrow, Tinman, and Lion emerge dressed in the defeated guards' uniforms and are then able to sneak in by bringing up the rear of the unwitting guard contingent marching across the drawbridge and into the castle. When they finally get inside the castle, they find Dorothy and try to escape (to the tune of Moussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain). The Witch stops them, and once she and her soldiers have them cornered, sets the Scarecrow on fire. Dorothy grabs a nearby bucket of water and, in throwing the water on her friend, she also hits the horrified Witch and causes her to melt down to nothing (presumably dropping through that infamous trap door again), leaving just her dress, her pointed hat, her broomstick, and feeble wisps of steam. To the travelers' surprise, her soldiers are delighted at their liberation. They award Dorothy the broomstick she has been charged with retrieving and graciously send them on their way, chanting "Hail to Dorothy, The Wicked Witch Is Dead".
In the preview release, the travelers return Emerald City to a "hero's welcome", with a grand reprise of "The Wicked Witch is Dead". This too was cut after early previews. Footage of this scene no longer exists, except for a few frames seen in a later re-issue trailer.
Once again in the Wizard's chamber, the requested broom is proffered to a shocked Wizard, who it would seem did not expect their return. He tells them, "Go away and come back tomorrow". Having just defeated the evil Witch, the four now feel empowered and bold; even the Lion growls in real, not feigned, anger. The previously "small and meek" Dorothy scolds the Wizard for breaking his promise, and they soon discover, thanks to Toto's exploring, that the Wizard is just a "man behind a curtain" (also played by Frank Morgan), not really a wizard at all, just a "humbug" as he himself admits. The four friends are horrified, but the Wizard (as with his alter ego Professor Marvel) solves their problems through psychology rather than magic. He gives the Scarecrow a diploma, the Tinman a heart-shaped clock (he calls it a "testimonial"), and the Lion a badge of courage.
He explains to them that his presence in Oz was an accident, that he was lost in (ironically enough) a "hot air" balloon, and that he is, in fact, from Kansas as well (which seems strange since the text on his balloon reads "Omaha", a city in Nebraska). He promises to take Dorothy home in the same balloon that got him there in the first place. He announces to his people that he will leave the Scarecrow, the Tinman and the Lion in charge of the Emerald City. Just before takeoff, though, Toto jumps out of the balloon's basket to chase a cat. Dorothy goes after him, and the Wizard inadvertently lifts off in the balloon, unable to get back to the ground, and once again proving to be a humbug: "I can't come back! I don't know how it works!" Given that admission, it's anyone's guess how he might have found his way back to Kansas with girl and dog.
Just as Dorothy is resigning herself to spending the rest of her life in Oz, Glinda reappears. She tells Dorothy that she can use the ruby slippers to return home... both herself and "Toto too!" She didn't tell her at first, though, because Dorothy had to learn a lesson. When her three friends asked what she has learned, a tearful Dorothy replies that, if she can't find what she's looking for in her own backyard, then she never really lost it to begin with.
Dorothy and Toto say goodbye to their friends, and Glinda instructs her to click her heels together and repeat the words, "There's no place like home." There is a montage of her face, her shoes' clicking heels, and the house again falling toward the camera, all transitioning from Technicolor back into the same sepia tones that had begun the film. She awakens in her Kansas house surrounded by her family and friends. She tells them about her journey, and they tell her it was all a bad dream, although Dorothy protests that it was real. The movie ends with Dorothy hugging Toto and exclaiming to her Auntie Em that there really is no place like home. [top]
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