Although it was considered a box office flop when it was released in 1939, today “The Wizard of Oz” is thought to be the most-watched movie in history, not only because of its frequent TV screenings, but also due to the sheer numbers of DVDs sold annually. It’s considered a beloved classic. Come along with Tidbits as we discover some wonderful facts about the wonderful Wizard of Oz!
WIZARDS & WONDERS
• The “tornado” was a 35-foot muslin tube rapidly twirled in circles as it spun through a miniature farm while a fan blew dust around. The footage was projected on a screen behind the set of Dorothy’s front porch as she struggled to get in the farmhouse.
• The Munchkins were portrayed by The Singer Midgets, named for manager Leo Singer. The troupe came from Europe. Because Europe was on the verge of war in 1939 when the movie was made, and because some of the midgets were Jewish, many stayed in the U.S. after the filming to escape the Nazis. Most of them couldn’t speak English. Their singing voices were dubbed. The only two real-life voices used belong to the midgets who give Dorothy flowers after she climbs into the carriage.
• The “steam” that shoots out of the Tin Man’s hat is actually talcum powder.
• A total of 124 little people were cast as Munchkins. The studio originally wanted 300 little people, but they turned out to be harder to find than expected. They rounded out the crew with about a dozen children, who can be seen waving out of the village windows.
• The green-shirted member of the Lollipop Guild, Jerry Maren, hands a lollipop to Dorothy. He was 18 at the time, and stood 3 ft 6 in. Later, hormone treatments helped him reach the height of 4 ft 6 in. Maren died at the age of 98 in 2018, outliving all of the other Munchkins, and nearly all of the original cast members.
• The part of Toto was played by Terry, the terrier. Terry made her film debut in the 1934 Shirley Temple film “Bright Eyes.” At one point, Terry was accidentally stepped on by one of the Witch’s castle guards, breaking her foot. This required a doggy double to be brought in for two weeks while she recovered. Judy Garland wanted to adopt Terry, but owner Carl Spitz refused. Terry appeared in ten movies. She died in 1945.
• Veteran actress Gale Sondergaard was initially cast as the Wicked Witch of the West. At the time, the Wicked Witch was going to be portrayed as a slinky, glamorous villain similar to the Evil Queen in Disney’s “Snow White.” This was a role Sondergaard was interested in. However, directors at MGM later decided to make the Wicked Witch ugly. After her first screen test as an ugly witch, Sondergaard backed out, fearful it would harm her reputation as a movie beauty. The role went to Margaret Hamilton instead. She also played the bicycle-riding “Miss Gulch” in the film’s opening scenes. Hamilton was a popular character actor both before and after “Oz.”
• The Munchkins were awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in November, 2007. Eight of them attended.
• When the Wicked Witch turns to leave Munchkinland, she disappears in a whoosh of red smoke and a torch of flame. To do this scene, Margaret Hamilton was to step on a trap door that would lower her out of sight just as the smoke plume went up, and just before the torch of real flame exploded. During the first take, the smoke was mis-timed and she could be seen stepping on the trap door behind it. The scene was set up for a second take. This time, the flame was mis-timed, blasting her in the face. Her copper makeup melted to her skin. She spent six weeks recovering from the painful burns before she could return to the set.
• When Glinda arrives, she’s riding a glass bubble. The bubble was a glass ball filmed separately with a mobile camera and later composited into the film. Because compositing was still a new technique, it took two weeks of experimenting with lighting to get the glass ball to look right.
• In the scene where a carriage takes them to Oz, the carriage is pulled by a white horse, which changes to purple, then yellow, then red, truly making it a “horse of a different color.” This was accomplished by starting out with a white horse, and then replacing it in quick succession with three other white horses which had been dyed using colored gelatin powder: grape, lemon, and cherry. In one scene, the purple horse can be seen licking the purple gelatin powder off.
• The carriage used in that scene was originally made for President Lincoln, given as a gift during the Civil War. It has a handwritten note on its frame, “A. Lincoln, June 8, 1863.” It was used in over 200 movies before being donated to the Judy Garland Museum.
• The whereabouts of Dorothy’s parents is never discussed.
• The famous “Surrender Dorothy” skywriting scene was done using a hypodermic needle filled with black ink, writing on the bottom of a glass tank filled with colored water. The words were written in reverse and filmed from below. The entire message originally said “SURRENDER DOROTHY OR DIE.”
• The ruby slippers were painful to wear, so Judy only wore them while the cameras were running. There is one scene where she is dancing with the Tin Man when you can get a glimpse of the plain black oxfords she wore during rehearsals, having forgotten to put the ruby slippers on for the shot.
• The Munchkins were paid $50 per week for a six-day work week, while Toto received $125 per week.
• Near the film’s conclusion, the Wizard presents the Scarecrow with a diploma. The Scarecrow, now possessing a long-sought-after brain, instantly declares: “The sum of the square roots of any two sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square root of the remaining side.” This is actually not true; it’s a mangled misstatement of the Pythagorean Theorem, which concerns right triangles and not isosceles triangles, but it is untrue about any triangle at all. He should have said, “The area of the square whose side is the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the areas of the squares on the other two sides.”
• Judy Garland could only do 4 hours on set as she was at school at the time. She studied for 3 hours every day when she was not playing Dorothy.
• Judy Garland was deeply disappointed that the movie was considered a box-office failure. It would take years to recoup its costs, and it did not really take off with audiences until CBS began showing it every year during Christmas, starting in 1959.
