The Golden Age of Hollywood has been outlined by movies that transport the viewers into the world of the creativeness. From the late Twenties into the early Nineteen Forties, American cinema introduced a wonderful sense of escapism to theaters. From The Great Depression, the early onset of World War II, and new technological feats, together with the introduction of synchronized sound, the movement image expertise boomed. Films like Citizen Kane, Casablanca, and Gone with the Wind have set cinematic gold requirements. However, one specific movie continues to be celebrated for its technical achievements and maintains its degree of heartwarming nostalgia.
The Wizard of Oz, launched by Metro Goldwyn Mayer in August 1939, is without doubt one of the best movies of all time. Despite many accounts of a earlier “screening,” the official premiere of the movie is dated August twelfth in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. The movie relies on L. Frank Baum’s kids’s novel has been beloved by audiences ever since. With a finances of practically $3 million, the movie noticed a worldwide gross return of over $25 million (roughly $500 million in fashionable spending), although a lot of that’s as a result of movie’s re-release over a decade later. The movie additionally earned two Academy Awards for its unique rating and maybe the most well-known tune ever included in a film, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”
Updated May 27, 2023: If you are a fan of The Wizard of Oz, then you definitely’ll be blissful to know this text has been up to date by Grayson Uckele with further content material.
While the Judy Garland movie has been cherished and can proceed to encourage movement footage to this present day, the story of its inception isn’t any colourful picture. The story behind the story was hidden away for years, however by biographies and solid interviews, an increasing number of has been uncovered in regards to the so-called “cursed” manufacturing. As unlucky as it’s to confess, the 1939 launch of the movie may have been executed by safer strategies had security percussions been prioritized. From a number of administrators to enforced drug use and harmful stunt work, The Wizard of Oz‘s manufacturing crew ought to thank their fortunate stars that not one of the actors died on set. Here are a few of the craziest issues that occurred to deliver this legendary story to the massive display screen.
Judy Garland’s Experience on The Wizard of Oz
It isn’t any secret that movie icon Judy Garland was uncovered to some mistreatment in the course of the making of The Wizard of Oz. Garland was given a wage of simply $500 every week for her work on the movie, considerably lower than her male co-stars. Contrary to city legend, she was paid greater than the canine, Toto… however not by a lot. The well-known canine companion (or fairly, his homeowners) was given a weekly wage of $125, whereas Garland’s male co-stars got a wage of $3,000 per week regardless of hardly anybody figuring out their names right now. Margaret Hamilton, who performed the Wicked Witch of the West, was given a wage of round $1000 per week.
Garland was additionally uncovered to bodily and emotional abuse whereas making the movie. Victor Fleming (who was one in all many administrators on this movie) is infamously famous to have slapped younger Garland throughout the face for laughing throughout takes. Garland’s ex-husband particulars accounts of inappropriate contact Garland acquired from the ‘munchkin’ performers (who had been males of their 40s), although these actors have been much-maligned over time. In addition to the bodily abuse, Garland was below intense scrutiny for her look earlier than, throughout, and after manufacturing. Garland’s drug consumption was fairly prevalent throughout this time on the age of 17.
The manufacturing firm prescribed Garland an everyday consumption of amphetamines in the course of the day and sleeping tablets at night time. The higher/downer cycle was so Garland would stay alert and centered in the course of the lengthy hours of filming, however due to the daytime use of amphetamines, sleeping tablets had been wanted at night time to get her to sleep. Garland was not the one sufferer of Hollywood-enforced drug use, different younger actors, particularly Mickey Rooney, had been fed “pep tablets” on the time to boost their efficiency in entrance of the digicam. It’s essential to notice that the compelled drug use and bodily abuse of kid star Judy Garland was and nonetheless is prohibited.
The Music in The Wizard of Oz
The Oscar-winning tune “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” was practically pulled by MGM for being too gradual for the movie. The tune takes the now-standard format of a Broadway “I Want” tune that establishes a personality’s motivations and needs in a method that touches the viewers, because of composer Harold Arlen and lyricist E.Y. Harburg. According to their biography by Walter Frisch, the beats of the tune have sentimental which means to the duo:
An Arlen trademark is to start a tune with an octave leap, as within the opening syllables’ ‘Some-WHERE.’ The part ‘Someday I’ll want upon a star’ was meant to mimic a toddler’s piano train, Arlen claimed. Harburg recalled that it was the best way Arlen whistled to name his canine. When Harburg and Arlen had been caught on an ending for the tune, Ira Gershwin stepped in to assist. When requested why he steered ending the tune with the query, ‘Why, oh, why can’t I,’ Gershwin later recalled, ‘Well, it was getting to be a long evening.’
Another be aware of music that was famously reduce was a jazzy tune referred to as “The Jitterbug.” When the 4 pleasant vacationers make their method by the cursed forest, they see what the Wicked Witch calls “a little insect” within the remaining reduce. The little insect is the jitterbug, which sends the group right into a dance the place they cannot get the jitters out. The jazz sequence was reduce from the movie however can nonetheless be considered on YouTube or varied biographical web sites. Taken out of context, it is really a bit disturbing.
Technicolor in The Wizard of Oz
Imagine being an viewers member in 1939, seeing what would probably have been an intense scene on the time — Dorothy transitions from a sepia-toned world right into a magical, colourful land of make-believe. It was an eye-opening and groundbreaking second in movie historical past that stands the take a look at of time.
However, what it took to perform this sequence was a little bit of movement image sleight of hand… and a hand-painted set. The manufacturing designers washed your complete inside of the Gale home in sepia paint, together with Bobbie Koshay, a stand-in for Judy Garland, who moved out of body after the door opened to the colourful ‘Munchkinland.’ Garland entered into the body and graciously maneuvered by the land for the primary time with the viewers in an exquisite monitoring shot.
Asbestos in The Wizard of Oz
The first sight of the Emerald City is breathtaking and full of wonderment and inspiration at what’s to return. Dorothy and her three associates discover themselves in a subject of poppies earlier than making their approach to the town gates. However, when the Wicked Witch sees them, she curses the poppies with a sleeping agent. Glinda the Good Witch saves them by making it snow, and the Cowardly Lion notes it’s uncommon climate.
Why the MCU Has So Many Wizard of Oz References Lately
To create this synthetic winter wonderland, the manufacturing is pouring pure 100% asbestos falling over the heads and within the faces of the actors. Little did the manufacturing know asbestos can do a ton of harm to at least one’s lungs. But in these days, it was all about what seemed the perfect on movie. Asbestos is now prevented as is now, fortunately, prevented. The use of supplies that trigger long-term well being points runs the danger of a lawsuit, and manufacturing corporations should halt filming for an actor injured on the job, compensate them, or if a substitute is required, they need to notify the incoming actor of the rationale why their predecessor is in want of a substitute which clearly was not the case on The Wizard of Oz.
A movie revamped 80 years in the past goes to have a lesser statute of security rules, and far of the make-up and costuming that the actors had been uncovered to depart them with long-lasting results. For instance, Margaret Hamilton, the Wicked Witch herself, had well-known inexperienced make-up which contained metallic substances that wanted to be totally cleaned off after each capturing day. In addition, Hamilton additionally suffered severe burns to her fingers and face after being lowered by the brick street throughout her first terrifying sequence in Munchkinland. Her restoration reportedly took three months earlier than she may return to filming.
The well-known costume that Bert Lahr needed to put on to painting the Cowardly Lion was extremely heavy, weighing practically 90 kilos. Parts of actual lion pelts had been included within the costume to offer it a extra genuine look, a follow that will not be allowed with right now’s animal rights legal guidelines. In addition, the costume received so sizzling for Lahr, already baking below the practically 100-degree, studio-lit set, that he’d sweat by it. His costume needed to be rung out and washed after day by day of capturing.
Before Jack Haley wore the silver make-up to play the Tin Man, American actor Buddy Ebsen was initially solid to play the function. However, the unique costume design used aluminum-based make-up powder, which brought about Ebsen to endure from a lung an infection. He was hospitalized for simply after 9 days of filming. Ebsen broke down the story in his autobiography:
“It was a number of days later when my cramps started. My first signs had been a noticeable shortness of breath. I’d breathe and exhale after which get the panicky feeling I hadn’t breathed in any respect. Then I’d gasp for one more fast breath with the identical outcome. My fingers started to cramp, after which my toes. For a time I may management this uncommon cramping by forcibly straightening out my fingers and toes.
One night time in mattress I wakened screaming. My arms had been cramping from my fingers upward and curling concurrently in order that I couldn’t use one arm to uncurl the opposite. My spouse tried to drag my arm straight with some success, simply as my toes started to twist; then my toes and legs bent backward on the knees. I panicked. What was occurring to me? Next got here the worst. The cramps in my arms superior into my chest to the muscular tissues that managed my respiratory. If this continued, I wouldn’t even have the ability to take a breath. I used to be certain I used to be dying.”
Ebsen’s restoration was interrupted by manufacturing, who referred to as him to return to set early. Ebsen was unable to return, so manufacturing changed him with Haley, who was by no means knowledgeable of the previous Tin-Man’s sickness. Although Tin-Man’s powder was exchanged for the aluminum-based paste to keep away from inhalation, Haley suffered a severe eye an infection due to the make-up.
The Wizard of Oz Hanging is Just a Bird
Many viewers of The Wizard of Oz have famous the chance that one of many actors who performed a munchkin was hanging by the neck in the course of the sequence the place Dorothy, Scarecrow, and the Tin Man prance down the Yellow Brick Road. Nevertheless, because the movie’s fiftieth re-release on dwelling video, completely different variations of this sequence exist, the place shadows appear to be extra outstanding and vibrant than others.
A shadow of what’s rumored to be a roaming animal or manufacturing hand may be seen on some VHS variations, whereas the more moderen colorizations of this sequence on streaming providers similar to HBO Max clearly present the colourful growth of wings from an unique chicken on set.
Is Safety a Concern on Future Films?
The Wizard of Oz is without doubt one of the hottest tales on the earth because of the 1939 movie, and due to that, there have been a number of reimaginings of the basic story. The two most outstanding upcoming ones are Universal Pictures’ two-part adaptation of Wicked, which relies on the musical play of the identical identify, and the novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, which reimagines the story from the attitude of the Wicked Witch of the West standpoint. The movie can be a musical just like the Broadway play and star Cynthia Ervino and Ariana Grande because the Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch, respectively.
The second is a extra direct remake of the MGM basic. New Line Cinema (a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery which owns the distribution rights to The Wizard of Oz) has set Kenya Barris, the creator of Black-ish and You People, to direct the reimagining of the basic movie. There’s not a lot data out on the undertaking as of but, however it’s recognized the remake can be a contemporary retelling – it is doable the story can be advised by a recent lens.
The points The Wizard of Oz actors confronted 80 years in the past are unlikely to be revisited on the set of the remake as a consequence of fashionable security guidelines, and people security guidelines are because of the varied Hollywood Guilds preventing for his or her rights. The Wizard of Oz stays a timeless basic that can be treasured for generations, however you will need to at all times bear in mind how tough it was to make and the intense long-term harm that was brought about in order to not repeat these errors.