The fortune teller at the beginning told her that her aunt was ill because he knew that would get Dorothy to go home. He was helping her. He wasn't being mean. He knew she would go home because she was worried about her aunt. He was trying to get her to go home.
My sister and I watched the movie every year for several years before finding out that the Oz scenes were in color. We didn't get a color television until late 1968.
@@triadmad It was shown each year as an event, introduced by a host. I can remember Danny Kaye in his spiel, telling owners of colour TVs (my family was the first in the neighbourhood to have one) not to worry about the first part of the film being in black and white because it was made that way. "There's nothing wrong with your set." In the television prints, Kansas scenes were in B&W rather than sepia for technical reasons I do not understand. It wasn't until VHS became available that they restored the sepia.
Margaret Hamilton played the Wicked Witch of the West and she got along so well with Judy Garland on set that Judy reportedly struggled to act scared of her. On the flip side, there were several scenes involving the Wicked Witch that the movie studio deemed "too scary for children" and cut from the film. Margaret was originally a schoolteacher and loved children. Still, she had trouble connecting with children after filming The Wizard of Oz because many children couldn't get past her movie role and were frightened of her. In 1974, she made an appearance on the PBS children's show "Mr. Roger's Neighborhood." She discussed the role and explained the difference between acting and reality.
Before the days of home theater and VHS, we could only see this movie once a year when the networks decided to show it. Usually it was around Easter or Thanksgiving. For kids growing up in the '60s and '70s, it was almost as big an event as birthdays or Christmas. That's really how the film became so beloved, because its message of home reminds us of our childhood and our homes.
I remember this being shown on TV in the spring. I grew up in the '80s and it was huge seeing this on TV. Sunday night got to stay up late to watch this.
The fact that that tornado was an on-stage practical effect, just using nothing more than a 35-foot long muslin bag hung from a gantry, plus wind machines, and dust -- then adding in the sky/cloud effects is nothing short of amazing. To have it hold up as _that_ _realistic_ after nearly ninety years is mind-boggling. My jaw drops every time I see it, even to this day.
Fun Fact: The beginning and ending of the movie was filmed entirely in sepia colors. When Dorothy came out of the house into color, the inside of the house was made with sepia colors, with a Dorothy double, who was dressed and painted in sepia colors to match. So when the double opens the door, Judy Garland then walks out to give that illusion of her walking out from sepia into color. 😊
@@minnesotajones261 She clutched her heart and fell down on the bed. "Illness," or an attack, or a seizure are all close enough unless we plan to diagnose her.
I’m glad you recognised Scarecrow’s physicality. Ray Bolger, the guy who played scarecrow, was regarded as one of the best physical comedians of his day. You can definitely see why.
Buddy Ebsen, who played Jed Clampett in the 60's TV show, The Beverly Hillbillies, was set to play the Tin Man. He had filmed several, before falling very ill. The way they applied his silver makeup was to put down a base, then use a pounce bag to apply aluminum powder to the base. Ebsen had inhaled a lot of the powder coating the inside of his lungs. He spent months in the hospital. Before Jack Haley started, they switched to a liquid makeup.
I'd heard that account of Mr Ebsen's reaction to the aluminum power makeup about 40 years ago and was always concerned that it would eventually cut his life short, because, as a kid, I loved him as Jed Clampett. But, Buddy lived to be 95!
Here's a little tidbit. Buddy Ebsen is still technically in the movie. You don't see him, but you do HEAR him. When Jack Haley replaced him, they had to, of course, refilm all of the tin man's acting and singing by himself. What they did not bother to re-record was the group singing of "We're off to see the wizard . . ." when Dorothy, the scarecrow, the tin man (and later the lion) head off down the road singing together. Buddy Ebsen had already recorded that and they left his version in the movie. So, if you listen really close when Dorothy and friends sing "We're off to see the wizard", you can hear Buddy Ebsen's slightly twangy country-ish version of the tin man singing.
She keeps mentioning TV but in 1939, televisions were extremely rare and there were no networks or broadcasts worth watching. Movies were only viewed in theaters. Televisions had not become commonplace until the 1950s and even then, they were black and white. Color televisions were not widely available until the mid 1960s.
Also, movies were not intended to be shown again. This movie was not released to theaters again until 1955 - 16 years later. (And no way to watch home movies, no video or DVD's.) It was only because CBS approached MGM to be able to broadcast Gone With The Wind (also 1939, also color), and MGM offered them this movie as a second best, where it was then shown once a year, starting in the late '50's.
@@johnnehrich9601 When you say "offered them this movie as a second best," do you mean they said "No, you can't have Gone with the Wind, but we'll let you have The Wizard of Oz"? Or was it "We'll let you have Gone with the Wind for Big Bucks, but to sweeten the deal we'll throw in The Wizard of Oz for free"?
@@bigdream_dreambig The first - CBS would not let them broadcast Wind (don't if it has ever been on tv) so they gave them Oz. At the time, although Oz had been a hit, it hadn't been such a hit as MGM had hoped. Although for one thing, with the War on, they lost the European market. (I think it was shown in England.) Like It's a Wonderful Life, it was the repeated tv showing that cemented its legacy.) And totally unrelated - in the book, they find out the wizard is a fraud so they have to travel to the Good Witch of the South (whose name was Glinda, the one in the north was unnamed). Mad TV did a spoof of the movie ending, where Dorothy is really pissed at Glinda for not telling her how to get home back in Munchkinland. Type "Wizard of Oz" and "Mad TV" to see this great spoof.
Our family didn't get a color TV until 1969 when we were stationed in Japan. Even then, it was a small TV with a tiny screen. We watched the moon landing on that small TV. It was really cool to get a larger console TV when we moved back to the states. I don't think I saw The Wizard of Oz in color until the early 1970's. In addition, most television stations didn't have the capability to broadcast in color for a long time.
We throw around the phrase "classic" pretty freely (like "classic chips" "classic cars" "classic sneakers") but this is truly classic cinema. My dad graduated high school the year it was released, and he saw it at some nearby theater---and I saw it annually when it was on TV. for all my childhood. (didn't know it was in color at all since we had a B&W tv) It was lovely seeing how much you appreciated it. I get to experience it anew through your (beautiful green) eyes, thanks.
Actor Frank Morgan played 5 roles in this movie: Professor Marvel, the Emerald City Doorman, the Carriage Driver (Horse of a Different Color), the Wizard's Doorman and the Wizard of Oz.
First thing, Nicki, I don't see HOW I haven't found your channel until now. But what an introduction this has been! I am eagerly loking to your other reactions, and all the more to come, with a new subscription!
My mother was 10 when this was first released in the cinema. She said the Wicked Witch gave her NIGHTMARES. The actress who played the Wicked Witch would come once a year to my University and lecture for a day in the English Department's Children's Literature class. At the end, she would cackle her famous line "I'll get you, my pretty, AND YOUR LITTLE DOG, TOO!"
The song *Over The Rainbow* is one of the most iconic numbers in a musical and my personal favorite in this movie. Delicious movie trivia: >The "oil" that they used to lube up Tin Man's joints was actually watered-down chocolate syrup. >The horse pulling the carriage in The Emerald City kept licking off the gelatin powder that turned its coat purple, red and yellow. Sweet movie trivia: >Jack Haley, the actor who played the Tin Man was the replacement for Buddy Ebsen, who suffered an allergic reaction to the makeup. The voice Jack used for Tin Man was reportedly one he'd use when reading good night stories to his daughter, his real voice was gruffer and deeper. Sad movie trivia: >In the scene where Dorothy, Scarecrow and Tin Man meet The Cowardly Lion, you can see Judy bury half of her face in Toto's fur. This is because she found it difficult to keep a straight face when Bert Lahr started blubbering as the Lion, and the producers would get mad and slap her because of it. >In the poppy field scene when Glinda makes it snow to negate the Wicked Witch's sleeping spell, the "snow" is actually asbestos flakes. >The pyrotechnics used for the Wicked Witch of the West's entries and exits inflicted 2nd degree burns on Margaret Hamilton's face and a 3rd degree burn on her right hand. She understandably refused to not only do any more stunts involving pyrotechnics, but she missed 6 weeks of filming due to hospitalization.
I've heard the snow was NOT asbestos but gypsum, which would have been cheaper. According to Wiki: "The poppy plant, Papaver somniferum, produces opium, a powerful narcotic whose derivatives include morphine, codeine, heroin, and oxycodone." So the witch didn't actually poison the plants. The accident that burned Margaret Hamilton was on another take of the scene in Muchkin land, where the flames shoot up after she descends. The biggest problem was the green makeup, made of copper, which is poisonous if it gets in the body. The stagehands first grabbed her and rubbed her burnt skin with alcohol to remove the makeup before they could treat the burns. In another take of the skywriting scene, Hamilton's stunt double was burned instead of Hamilton but of course it only freaked her out more.
They all wanted attributes they already possessed, courage, intelligence, heart, they simply needed to believe in themselves to attain them. That's the moral of this story.
I just LOVE how animated you get! I'm new to reaction channels and I love watching people be enchanted/excited by my favorite medium and you look like you had such a great time with this! Consider me a fan and a subscriber!
I am so happy to hear that! Welcome to the channel! So glad you liked it. I absolutely love reactions for the same reason and I love filming these reactions too!
Logically, if you say only bad witches are ugly, you are not saying that all bad witches are ugly. So there is a loophole for that, awkward construction or not.
@@chulavista5239 It's not just a loophole. It's exoneration. Glinda says "only bad witches are ugly". When she asked whether Dorothy was a good witch or a bad witch she revealed that she believed Dorothy was not ugly. (If she had been ugly-and Glinda had been sure she was a witch-then Glinda would have known she was a bad one.)
No she was cunning sarcastic and evil she threw shade on Dorthy saying she was ugly Glinda was the evil witch the green one was the scape goat Dorothy's the one that passed away they read her ulogy in munchkin city
The film was out in 1939. It was not the first Technicolor film but was an early one. The sepia sequences were done because sepia creates a warmer, more nostalgic atmosphere, than the coolness and stark contrast of black & white. Also, it helps to simulate the “Dust Bowl” atmosphere of the Great Depression. It also fitted the transition to color better.
Dorothy's aunt & uncle were clearly doing well, in spite of the dust bowl era. If my folks had been able to afford to have THREE HIRED MEN fulltime on the farm in the mid-1960's, they would have considered themselves rich!
It wasn't an early Technicolor film either the first Technicolor film was The Gulf Between in 1917, it wasn't even one of the early Technicolor Process 4 films theres over 70 other films that used it before The Wizard of Oz.
@@yedead1 by early, I meant as a large-scale, big-budget feature film pushed by the major studios as a prestige release with some major studio talents attached. By 1939, the larger percentage of films were in black & white, or sepia, so a Technicolor film attracted critical and popular attention. I have seen some of the pre-WW1 hand-colored silent films and some experimental films from the 1920’s which incorporated color segments, and love them all and am astonished at the creative talent.
The munchkins were all adult “small people “ brought together from all over the country. There’s a comedy called “Under the Rainbow” about the real life problems they had with the little actors (Wild parties; orgies, public indecency, public intoxication, etc. ) Supposedly it was a wild time
Great reaction, a couple of notes for you. Judy Garland was 16 years old when she was cast as Dorothy Gale in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. She was 17 when filming ended. Colour television in the U.S did not start until the early 1950's and the movie was released when colour films were a rarity, so you can imagine its impact on the big screen.
@@treetopjones737 They originally was going to use Shirly Temple as Dorothy, but she was under contract to another studio. They were going to trade the use of different actors in order to do the deal, but Jean Harlow was one of the trades, but she passed away at the age of 26 so the deal was off, and they HAD to use one of their own which is where Judy Garland came in. She was only doing B-films back then and this was her big break. Shirly said she thought Judy was brilliant in that character. If she had done the film, there would not have been an Over the Rainbow song because she was not a singer like that
Never knew that! In 1984, our family walked into a restaurant in Georgetown, Colorado and were seated back to back with Liza!! Incredibly beautiful woman. She was lunching with Alan Jay Lerner.
It may have been gypsum according to onset records and statements by one of the makeup artists. If it were asbestos, it wouldn't have been unusual. A lot of movies used asbestos to simulate snow.
If you like Judy Garland in this, you should see her in Meet Me in St Louis (1944) and especially in A Star is Born (1954), which earned her an Oscar nomination.
There is also a three part SyFy channel miniseries called "Tin Man" that came out in 2007, which was also very good. It stars Zooey Deschanel, Alan Cummings, Neal McDonough & Richard Dreyfus. I think you would enjoy it as well.. 😊
I've always enjoyed this movie and it's even more delightful with you reacting to it. 😊 I actually live around Culver City where this was filmed. Keep up the good work!
There is more than meets the eye in this story. Frank L. Baum was a theosophist, and he passed a lot of universal wisdom in every detail of the story. Man, know thyself !
I'm so glad that I got to enjoy your reaction to this wonderful classic. This was such a great way to discover your channel. It's easy to see you're beautiful inside and out 💗
This was my wife's favorite film seen it 40+ times, and love it each time. Thank you had not seen it since she passed almost 3 years ago. I adore someone so young seeing this classic and allowing the younger generation to keep the classics alive. Thank you :)
Btw Toto's real name was Terry. She was a Cairn Terrier. Watch her run from the Tin Man when he makes that "toot toot" noise during "if I only had a heart."
Margaret Hamilton was apparently a very sweet lady in real life. Originally was a kindergarten teacher, but went into acting to better support her young son. She was actually at a ballgame when her agent told her she'd won a part in THE WIZARD OF OZ; her favorite book from childhood. Margaret asked whom she was playing. He said, "Well.......the Witch." She said, "THE WITCH???!!!" Then, he said, "Yeah, what else?" A story Margaret would tell fans til the day she died. Sadly, the scene where the Witch exits Munchkin City nearly ended in tragedy. Margaret was supposed to drop down a trapdoor before the fireball went off, but unfortunately the timing was off and the fireball went off before she dropped. She got third degree burns all over her face and arms, but the makeup artists had to immediately wash the makeup off because there was copper in it, which would've ate right through her face. Because she came home in bandages, she pretended she was made up like a mummy as not to scare her son.
Dorothy's friends were all played by seasoned Broadway and Vaudeville veterans who made too few movies. Among other appearances, Ray Bolger (scarecrow) can be seen in "The Harvey Girls" 1946, and "Where's Charley" 1952, Jack Haley (tin man) appeared in "Poor Little Rich Girl" 1936, and "Alexander's Ragtime Band" 1938, and Burt Lahr (Lion) was in "Ship Ahoy" 1942, and "Rose Marie" 1954. Frank Morgan (the wizard, etc.) had major roles in the musical extravaganza "The Great Ziegfeld" in which Myrna Loy plays Billie Burke (Glinda) and in the drama "The Human Comedy" 1943 among many other films.
Billie Burke was married to Ziegfeld and returned to acting after the Crash of 1929 destroyed Ziegfeld's career. Burke used that soprano champagne voice of hers to wonderful effect, especially in comedies, where she often played dotty upper class ladies. She's especially delightful in "Merrily We Live", and in "Dinner at Eight". Here, in "Oz", she's about 55, and she certainly doesn't look it.
Great reaction! You'd also love watching Judy in "Meet Me in St. Louis". More iconic songs in that one. Including a very sentimental Christmas Classic! Also check out a great song called "Tin Man", by '70's pop group "America". I think you'll love that too. 👍
I know right? It’s one of those films that’s just a cornerstone of not only movie history but a classic that stands the test of time. Kinda like the old Willy Wonka movie
In the Oz books, the Tin Woodsman had been a real man who got cursed by a witch to keep chopping off body parts. He found a tin smith to make him replacements, and eventually he replaced even his head, and his consciousness joined the new head.
The green face paint on the wicked witch was lead based, the snow was actually asbestos. Just a couple of un-fun facts from this movie, there’s others that I only partially remember.
it was commercially available in the '50s, but few shows were in color (my grandfather had color, but I only remember Packer games in color). We got our 1st color set in '67.
I'll repeat what others have said. Professor Marvel told Dorothy that Auntie Em was sick to get her to go back home. He knew it was a bad thing for a young girl to run away, and fixed the problem in his own way. Also, the scene with Professor Marvel serves a dramatic purpose. All the time Dorothy was in Oz, she was trying to go home. This parallels what she was trying to do in Kansas before the tornado. Professor Marvel gave her the motivation for her quest. The tornado was a big piece of twisted muslin cloth. It's amazing what they could accomplish with practical effects long before CGI was invented. The transition to color when Dorothy opened the door was done by painting the room in shades of grey, and putting her in a grey dress, then shooting the whole thing in color. I've heard it was actually a double who opened the door (maybe to save time with costume changes). Most of the Munchkins were adults. They cast little people, and also shot things so they'd look smaller than they actually were. Some of the Munchkins were European Jews, and they stayed in the U.S. after the movie was made to get away from the Nazis. Toto got $125 a week. The Munchkins each only got $50 a week. Margaret Hamilton, who played Miss Gulch and the Wicked Witch of the West, was a kind woman who loved children. It bothered her that children were afraid of her after this movie came out. She once went on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood and changed from her normal clothes into a witch costume while explaining to kids that it was all make believe. They originally wanted to cast Shirley Temple as Dorothy. It would have been an entirely different movie. Temple was typecast as a cute little kid. Also, Garland was a much better singer than Temple. They originally cast Buddy Ebsen as The Tin Man, but he had to quit because he had an allergic reaction to the silver makeup, so they got Jack Haley instead. Ebsen is best known today as Jed Clampett of The Beverly Hillbillies. The "snow" in the poppy field was made from asbestos. The horses in Emerald City were colored with Jell-O mix. They had to shoot the scenes quickly before the horses licked it off. The song "Over the Rainbow" was almost cut from the movie. It's a slow number, and they thought the movie was too long. Fortunately, they left it in. Otherwise it would have been lost to history. In 2004 the American Film Institute ranked it #1 in their list of 100 Greatest Songs in American Films. It was also named The Song of the Century by the National Endowment for the Arts. Yip Harburg wrote the lyrics to all the songs, and Harold Arlen wrote the music. Both wrote a large number of other songs, and wrote some together apart from Wizard of Oz, including "It's Only a Paper Moon." They'd have worked together more, except that Harburg drove Arlen crazy with his political opinions. Harburg was a socialist. It's not that Arlen disagreed with Harburg, but that Harburg wouldn't shut up about it. Harburg also wrote: April in Paris Brother Can You Spare a Dime? Arlen is considered one of the all-time great American songwriters - some of his best are Accentuate the Positive Come Rain or Come Shine Get Happy I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues One for My Baby (and One More for the Road) Stormy Weather That Old Black Magic.
All three of the actors playing Dorothy's friends were veterans of Burlesque stages and silent films. Their training in those venues really shows in the physicality of their performances, and it was a perfect match for this film.
Misc trivia: They originally wanted Shirley Temple for Dorothy, but her studio wouldn't let her do it. The tin man was originally played by Buddy Ebsen (aka Jed Clampett of the Beverly Hillbillies or Barnaby Jones). He had such a bad reaction to the makeup, he ended up in the hospital. The Munchkins were all played by little people. Most of them had never seen another little person before and Judy Garland (Liza Minelli's mother) said it was like an orgy for them. One of two pairs of the original ruby slippers, which were stolen in 2005, were recently recovered and are presently being auctioned off for over $1 million. Great reaction!
Great reaction Nicki. For people of a certain age, who came of age before the widespread popularity of the VCR, viewing this movie was an annual tradition. CBS would show it during the Thanksgiving season, and the whole family would watch. Pretty much every TV set in America was tuned in. Nothing in today's world can match that communal experience, with so many viewing options. There is a ton of trivia to go along with the movie. The aluminum dust that they used for the original Tin Man makeup gave Buddy Ebsen emphazema. He had to spend several weeks in an oxygen tent, and was replaced by Jack Haley. Head of MGM, Louis B. Mayer wanted Shirley Temple to play Dorothy, but the songwriters didn't. They fought for Judy Garland. They even threatened to quit if Shirley Temple got cast. She didn't have the vocal range necessary for their songs. Mayer also wanted to scrap Over the Rainbow, to bring the runtime down. But the editors found other places for cuts, and the song survived. Most of the munchkins were adults, or at least teens. There were only a few children used, and they were relegated to deep background. If you want to see Toto again, he (really a she), stars in Tortilla Flat with Oa costar Frank Morgan, (Prof. Marvel/the Wizard, etc.) The miniseries Tin Man is a sequel, with Dorothy returning to Oz as a young adult. Oz the Great and Powerful is a prequel with Johnny Depp arriving in Oz, and becoming the Wizard. The 75th anniversary dvd has about 3 hours of documentaries on the making of, and cultural impact of the movie. Since you want to know more, that would be a great place to start. An even earlier Technicolor movie I would highly recommend is The Adventures of Robin Hood, starring Errol Flynn. The colors really pop. And I think it's still the best telling of the Robin Hood story on film.
I'm going to go along with practically everything you've written here,especially the nod to Errol Flynns' Robin Hood...best version ever on film,brilliant colour,amazing cast..One minor correction.Oz The Great And Powerful starred James Franco,not (mercifully)Johnny Depp.
@@josephmayo3253 No worries.If the Oz movie had Johnny Depp in the starring role,I would have passed.Not a fan.I could only imagine if Sam Raimi had passed and Tim Burton had directed.No thanks.
They also scared the hell out of our cockatiel birds, they saw and heard those on the TV set, and feather were flying, the flew all over and pooped on the drapes lol LMAO
Color film wasn't entirely new. The first color film was in 1902, and there would be newsreels in color all through the 30s. The first Technicolor films were released a few years prior. Gone With the Wind, in Technicolor, was released the same year as Wizard of Oz. The real achievement here was the seamless transition from sepia to full color. This was a special effect you don't necessarily think about while you're watching. When Dorothy opens the door to Munchkinland, it's already full color. The interior set and Dorothy's double were literally sepia-colored to trick you into thinking the film was still sepia, as in the previous shots. When Dorothy's double opens the door, you see the colorful set beyond, and Dorothy is momentarily out of shot and replaced by Judy Garland in her blue gingham dress.
It's not really a special effect though. They just painted stuff sepia in that shot (the set, the costume), rather than it actually being in sepia like the preceding stuff. Still very clever though!
@@halfvader8015 It's called a practical special effect, I forgot the term when I posted. 😄 Before CGI, all special effects involved physical trickery of some kind. For instance, the impressive cyclone was a huge sock with dirt poured through it.
@@ink-cow Yup I work in VFX and grew up with practical fx. You're not using the terms correctly though. Painted costumes and makeup, and set dressing and painting of a physical set don't come under that banner. But I know what you mean. It is definitely "trickery" and lateral problem solving of the best kind! And yes the tornado is a fantastic practical effect!
Growing up long before cable created what may be viewed as event programing. Once a year one of the three networks would show one of several classically loved films, like this or It's a Wonderful Life for example. We would still gather around the TV as a family for these. One of the first things they saw in color at the movies. Color TV was a ways off. I know - it was long ago and not that important.
I'm glad you know this film, I'm 46 and grew up watching it along with Lucille Ball, Charlie Chapin, and John Wayne(it's what my parents watched), me I'm a Crow, Warriors(or anything late 70's, 80's and 90's films), me I'm a E.T. , Star Wars and 80's Horror loving type of person(big Friday the 13th fan here), glad to your generation discovering these classics.
@@bigdream_dreambig FWIW, Bert Lahr moved from vaudeville to Broadway and then the movies. He had already been in feature films for 10 years at this time.
Actually that is a story told by Judy years later. As Liza Minelli (Judy's daughter) told it Judy was an amazing raconteur and could turn anything into an epic joke.
You’re thinking of an old interview with Judy Garland I think on the Jack Paar show. It’s in black-and-white and she tells the story that the Director kept calling cut because of that. She is so funny. you really need to watch a few of her interviews. She’s hilarious! But she tells the story of the Director had to keep saying cut and yelling “you big hams! quit pushing that little girl out of the scene!” Here’s a clip of her telling that story. She starts talking to the interviewer at 15:43 and tells the wizard story at 26:40. ruclips.net/video/L5vDFFiU_Os/видео.htmlsi=eh5keINtXS2MHkH0
The poppies only affected flesh and blood beings. Frank Morgan played 5 roles in the movie: Professor Marvel, the guard to Emerald City, the cabbie with the horse, the guard to the Wizard and the Wizard himself. Judy garland is my all time favorite female singer. AMAZING voice. If you read the book (which has many differences from the movie) try getting a copy with the original illustrations by W. W. Denslow.
LOL! Great reaction Nicki! Shan't lie. This movie makes me tear up repeatedly and I'm 56. It was a movie that made me cry as a little boy too, so this isn't anything new, but the reaction then was emotional and now it's much deeper, especially the various messages that are imparted at the end, like the Wizard's statement to the Tin Woodsman about hearts and Glinda's message that Dorothy had to learn the truth on her own (just like her three companions did, really) to be able to believe it. And Nicki, no matter how much you talk you're a wonderful young lady to watch a movie with. Wonderfully adorable!
A movie no one ever reacts to but is a great old classic musical with great dancing, and singing is "Calamity Jane" (1953) with Doris Day. You should definitely do a reaction Nicki if you love the old classic musicals, it's one of the best!
I think the professor wanted her to go home but I think he knew that just telling her to go home wouldn't work. He knew she needed to be the one who told herself that she belonged at home. This ties into the lesson that Glinda teaches her "There's no place like home".
I had the honor of playing the title role in a local Community Theater production of this, and when I watch the movie, I can still say the lines along with Professor Marvel and the Wizard. It was one of the highlights of my life. Backstage playing with the children who played the Munchkins was a lot of fun too.
My Grandfather saw one of the first talking pictures in Canada. He was kicked out the theatre for laughing too loudly because the sound went out of sync and the dialogue got swapped between the evil villain and the heroine, with the villain saying "Help me! Help me!" and heroine saying "Marry me my pretty or I'll tie you to the railroad tracks."
If you love Judy Garland's singing voice, make a note to watch "Easter Parade" around Easter and "Meet Me in St. Louis" around Christmas!! Both classic seasonal musicals and I think you'll enjoy them. ☺
I didn't ever see this in color until 1967, when we got a color tv. It was played once a year on tv. It came out 12 years before I was born. Seeing it every year was a great event. Enjoy your watching "Wicked". I enjoyed your reactions. Sometimes your facial expressions reminded me of my 22 year old granddaughter, and other times you reminded me of my 15 year old granddaughter, who is in show choir and a really good singer. Thanks for your reaction.
Every summer up in Chittenango, NY there's a Wizard of Oz festival where the author Frank L Baum was born. The movie was based on the first book of the series. The second was made into a movie around 1984, Return to Oz which while not a musical was very good in its own right.
Professor Marvel isn't being mean: Dorothy wants to go off with him "To see the crowned heads of Europe" and this was a way he felt would send her back home without rejecting her request. Incidentally, of course, in 1939, this wouldn't have been "on tv" but in movie theaters, where the color would have been spectacular. However, in 1939, remember, all color "Gone With the Wind" was also filmed. Color was a novelty, but not unknown. When I was growing up, we had only b&w tvs. This movie was broadcast about once a year, but I never saw the color transition until we could afford a color tv. Yes, the doorman is the same person as the cabbie, is the same person as the guard, is the same person as the Wizard, is Frank Morgan, who was Professor Marvel at the start. Morgan was one of an army of priceless supporting actors during this period. They came in to take small or medium parts in thousands of movies, and were often better recognized than the stars, and sometimes more anticipated.
35:47 The line "Wherefore art thou Romeo" was spoken by Adriana Caselotti, the original voice of Snow White. This film was MGM's response to "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" which was released two years prior.
This was my grandfathers favorite movie. My grandma told me they saw it in theaters. And as soon as it became available on video he went out of his way to buy it, despite the fact they didn’t have a VHS player yet. When I was a very little he would watch it with me. And then he died. I don’t have memory of the time my parents said I would cry and leave the room if I saw the movie playing on tv. Eventually I did get around to watching it again and I liked it. I kind of just have a thing for stories that have magical and creative worlds. Like Alice in Wonderland, or Spirited Away, or Peter Pan for example. So not only is this movie is a classic but it holds sentimental value to me.
2 месяца назад
There are SO MANY just AMAZING classic GEMS in this film!!! From "somewhere over the rainbow", to "follow the yellow brick road"... It's just like a BLAST FROM THE PAST of my childhood every time I see it!! Thanks for the reaction Nicki!! I LOVED HOW YOU REACTED TO "SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW"!!! That's exactly how I react to it after I haven't seen this for a while.❤❤❤
This is when color film came into existence in the theaters. The first scene had been shot in Sepia ( B&W ), They shot the Land of Oz in color. It was breathtaking for the public. And yes, The three farm workers were the Lion, the tin man and the scarecrow. The cowardly lion is the one who rescued Dorothy from the pig pen, then nearly passed out form the fear of what he just did. The one who was saying there will be a statue of him and raised his arm like a statue, was the Tin Man. The other was of course the scarecrow. It was a typical Hollywood executives instruction to take out the Rainbow song, because it was just no good. And yet if became a world renowned legend heard everywhere. So typical of Hollywood executives. Hollywood gathered as many 'short people' as they could find for the movie. It is quite delightful watching with you.
Lord, I love your reactions. You are so smart, and so emotionally honest and enthusiastic. Here's an interesting fact that most people haven't heard: When Greg Maguire wrote Wicked (yes, it was a novel before it was a musical), his publisher ran the manuscript by the MGM I.P. department before releasing it. The original Baum novel was in the public domain by this time, but MGM still owned the copyright to the film. So MGM went through the manuscript literally line-by-line, and said that Maguire could keep anything that was from the novel, but couldn't use anything that originated in the film. So the shoes could be silver, but not ruby; the road could be "the road of yellow brick," but not "the yellow brick road." The one thing they gave permission for was Elpheba's green skin, since that was so central to the whole book.
What a delightful reaction. so much so that I'm inspired to share some notes I made for a trivia quiz site some years ago. It was my very second movie-theatre experience, after Disney's 'Pinocchio'. When you're five years old, the Wicked Witch of the West is truly the stuff of nightmares. It was the green skin that creeped me out. Her portrayer, Margaret Hamilton, was said to be the kindliest of souls, a kindergarten teacher who doted on children. She's reported to have had even the teachers diving under their seats in terror during latter-day visits to school auditoriums for talks about the 'making of' etc. On persistent request, she would (reluctantly) let loose that cackle into a powerful mike and suddenly you're a petrified five-year-old again - and not in Kansas any more. It is true Margaret did get badly burned, delaying production for a few weeks, bur recovered like the trooper she was. The studio (MGM) at first wanted Shirley Temple. I wonder what Judy's signature tune would have been if ‘Little Miss Dimples’ had played Dorothy; Shirley's occasional dancing partner, versatile TV legend Buddy Ebsen (Georgie Russell, Jed Clampett, Barnaby Jones) was the original Tin Man but had to drop out due to a severe allergic reaction to the metallic paint. The cast were not told he'd been hospitalised and some assumed for years afterward that he'd simply been fired - that's Hollywood, after all. Ebsen was the original Scarecrow but Bolger wanted to play the part he had already created on stage so desperately that the studio relented. I assume Buddy was too sick, or just too darn nice, if Donna 'Ellie May' Douglas's recollections of him are anything to go by, to ask for his scarecrow back. Just minor quibbles: you mentioned television. Not in 1938 dear! And Toto was actually a brindle cairn terrier bitch named Terry,
Yes, there is speculation about using Temple but the studio knew from the get-go that she didn't have the voice range for this part so she was never seriously considered. Warner-Bros. used her in a movie, Bluebird of Happiness, which was intended to be their version of a blockbuster movie like Oz. I started watching it and couldn't see it all the way through, as I thought it was ghastly. (And I love Temple in such movies as Heidi.) Margaret Hamilton in later years appeared on an episode of Mr. Rogers, where she tried to allay children's fears about her character.
Thanks, Nicki! 🌈 Since you asked, experience both WICKED PART ONE (2024) and WICKED PART TWO (2025) in the cinema, as intended... do re-watches of them over here. 🤓 Since you're curious about the Munchkins, check out the comedy UNDER THE RAINBOW (1981) starring Chevy Chase and Carrie Fisher.
There are also a 2013 film "Oz the Great and Powerful" which is sort of a prequal/retelling of this film, "Emerald City", a 2017 single season TV series loosely based on Baum's story, and the second half of season 3 of the Disney/ABC series "Once Upon a Time" which covers the story of the Wicked Witch. That series as a whole covers ALL the fairy tale characters in the form of a soap opera. It begins with the Evil Queen banishing all the characters to a "land without magic", otherwise known as Storybrook, Maine in our modern world.
My last comments: the movie owes a lot to old time vaudeville, Ray Bolger was a famous song and dance man/comedian, and Bert Lahr a famous comedian. Also, 1939 was near the end of the Great Depression and due to crop failures many midwestern families were moving to big cities (the Emerald City) trying to find jobs. The theme of "there's no place like home" was used to try to convince some of them to stay with their farms, that better times were coming. An important social message for the times.
Probably the two movies from the late ‘30’s and mid forties that television saved and turned into classics are “ The Wizard of Oz” and “ It’s a Wonderful Life”
I've watched this with reactors and I just now got the - Poppy scene... And the snow to wake them up... This went over my head when I saw it in the 70's...
Nicki, you're reaction to this film was as adorable as the story itself. It was as if you were reading the book to a group of children (young & old 😊) Thank You! ❤
85 years later, and this film still looks goddamn amazing. This was decades before motion control and CGI and the effects work still dazzles. And Judy Garland is immortal. Not a perfect movie, but perfectly realized and it still brings a sense of wonder to those who watch it.
I liked this movie so much when I was a kid back in the seventies that I went and read as many of the Oz books as I could get my hands on. L. Frank Baum wrote 14 Oz books between 1900 and 1920. There were only five or six of them in the library at my elementary school and I read them all in short order. Most of the earliest color films are lost to time. But the oldest that you can still find on dvd might be Under a Texas Moon and King of Jazz, both from 1930. Two other notable color films from the 1930's that can found on dvd and that still hold up are Doctor X (1932) and Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933). But the first "true" color film, true in that it was the first feature film to use three-strip Technicolor, is Becky Sharp (1935). But I've never seen it. The second such "true" color film, The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936), still gets played on Turner Classic Movies. Color didn't come to dominate the movies until the 1950's and 1960's.
When Margaret Hamilton disappeared in flames from Munchkinland (lowered on a trap door) they discovered her makeup was flammable and she suffered some serious burns - production had to shut down for maybe a month. The first man to play the tin-man was Buddy Ebsen - later Jed Clampett in The Beverly Hillbillies and many other roles. He suffered a life-threatening reaction to the silver face makeup and was replaced by Jack Haley. The studio's story was that it was an allergic reaction, but in reality it was a reaction anyone would have had - they changed the composition of the makeup for Haley. Ebsen was furious that the studio told the story of the allergic reaction - maybe 30 years ago I heard an interview with him and he was still hot that they essentially blamed it on something about him to cover themselves.
I'm sure others have mentioned this, but nobody saw this on color TV in 1939. The TVs were all black & white until the late 1950s. The Technicolor in this movie and others would only have been experienced in theaters.
Also, most homes did not have color TVs until the late 60’s. Color sets were extremely expensive, even during the 1970’s, so most people stayed with black & white, and would enjoy color when they went to the movies. The first time I saw this in color or on the big screen, was in the 1970’s at a movie theater, when MGM re-released a lot of their films in newly restored copies.
Terry (November 17, 1933 - September 1, 1945) was a female Cairn Terrier performer who appeared in many different movies, most famously as Toto in the film The Wizard of Oz (1939). It was her only credited role, though she was credited not as Terry but as Toto, and because of the role's popularity her name was officially changed to Toto in 1942. She was owned and trained by Carl Spitz and Gabrielle Quinn.
I heard they let Judy Garland keep her after filming wrapped up. I don't know if that was true or if it was just a rumor. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Judy didn't keep Terry, but she was allowed to take her home with her while they were in production. Terry also played Rags in the 1934 film "Bright Eyes" with Shirley Temple
The daughter of Judy Garland Liza Minnelli, & the son of Jack Haley (Tin Woodsman) Jack Haley Jr. got married in real life. He was her second husband. 😊
For the 50th anniversary of the film there was an official book about it published, of which I bought. It is more than fascinating with the stories of the original writer and storyteller L. Frank Baum to the complete production of the movie. To see Nicki watch in a childlike amazement was so great.
The fortune teller at the beginning told her that her aunt was ill because he knew that would get Dorothy to go home. He was helping her. He wasn't being mean. He knew she would go home because she was worried about her aunt. He was trying to get her to go home.
Ya really. How could she not get that? It was a different time I guess. People today are much more suspicious.
It's not rocket science, I guess it's social science - like we had in school back in the 60's/70's.
@@ronweber1402 Stranger Danger! lol
"Poor kid, I hope she gets home okay..."
Putting on the ruse and using reverse psychology was far more effective than directly trying to convince her.
This was not shown on television until 1959, and was shown once a year. It was a major event which families eagerly anticipated all year.
Yes "the on television" caught me too. Movie theatres!
It scared the stuffing out of me ( I was 6 ) and I loved it and looked forward to seeing it once a year.
My sister and I watched the movie every year for several years before finding out that the Oz scenes were in color. We didn't get a color television until late 1968.
And most of us didn't have color TV sets way back then so many families like mine didn't see the Technicolor till years later.
@@triadmad It was shown each year as an event, introduced by a host. I can remember Danny Kaye in his spiel, telling owners of colour TVs (my family was the first in the neighbourhood to have one) not to worry about the first part of the film being in black and white because it was made that way. "There's nothing wrong with your set." In the television prints, Kansas scenes were in B&W rather than sepia for technical reasons I do not understand. It wasn't until VHS became available that they restored the sepia.
Margaret Hamilton played the Wicked Witch of the West and she got along so well with Judy Garland on set that Judy reportedly struggled to act scared of her. On the flip side, there were several scenes involving the Wicked Witch that the movie studio deemed "too scary for children" and cut from the film. Margaret was originally a schoolteacher and loved children. Still, she had trouble connecting with children after filming The Wizard of Oz because many children couldn't get past her movie role and were frightened of her. In 1974, she made an appearance on the PBS children's show "Mr. Roger's Neighborhood." She discussed the role and explained the difference between acting and reality.
The professor tricked her into going back home. He was looking out for her.
Indeed!
But he is a man. You have to wonder what his _real_ intentions were.
@@-.._.-_...-_.._-..__..._.-.-.- oh for God's sake
@@-.._.-_...-_.._-..__..._.-.-.- to make her go back to her family. Weirdo.
Before the days of home theater and VHS, we could only see this movie once a year when the networks decided to show it. Usually it was around Easter or Thanksgiving. For kids growing up in the '60s and '70s, it was almost as big an event as birthdays or Christmas. That's really how the film became so beloved, because its message of home reminds us of our childhood and our homes.
now you watch it 24/7 if you wanted to
that's one of the bad things about today
People forget or don't know how low resolution early tvs were, and color tvs rare but even so, this was a super-big event.
I remember this being shown on TV in the spring. I grew up in the '80s and it was huge seeing this on TV. Sunday night got to stay up late to watch this.
And yet there was no internet and no closed captioning so many of the songs went so fast we did not catch many of the words.
Yep. Never missed it!
The fact that that tornado was an on-stage practical effect, just using nothing more than a 35-foot long muslin bag hung from a gantry, plus wind machines, and dust -- then adding in the sky/cloud effects is nothing short of amazing. To have it hold up as _that_ _realistic_ after nearly ninety years is mind-boggling. My jaw drops every time I see it, even to this day.
Fun Fact: The beginning and ending of the movie was filmed entirely in sepia colors. When Dorothy came out of the house into color, the inside of the house was made with sepia colors, with a Dorothy double, who was dressed and painted in sepia colors to match. So when the double opens the door, Judy Garland then walks out to give that illusion of her walking out from sepia into color. 😊
At the beginning, Professor Marvel suggested Auntie Em's illness to induce Dorothy to go home.
I think it wasn't an illness; it was a broken heart.
@@minnesotajones261 She clutched her heart and fell down on the bed. "Illness," or an attack, or a seizure are all close enough unless we plan to diagnose her.
@@brandonflorida1092Whatever it was meant as, it did the trick to get Dorothy to go back home.
Dorthy stepping through the door into a colored world is one of the most iconic scenes in film history.
Everything today is "Iconic." Can't someone think up another adjective for once?
so excited cause we didnt have a color tv set until i was 12
@@billolsen4360 Suggestions?
@@billolsen4360 In 1939, it was iconic.
@@TheBTG88 Not possible. By its very nature things can't be instantly iconic. That takes time.
I’m glad you recognised Scarecrow’s physicality. Ray Bolger, the guy who played scarecrow, was regarded as one of the best physical comedians of his day. You can definitely see why.
and dancers
Yeah! He was also a dancer. That’s why he could move like that.
Buddy Ebsen, who played Jed Clampett in the 60's TV show, The Beverly Hillbillies, was set to play the Tin Man. He had filmed several, before falling very ill. The way they applied his silver makeup was to put down a base, then use a pounce bag to apply aluminum powder to the base. Ebsen had inhaled a lot of the powder coating the inside of his lungs. He spent months in the hospital. Before Jack Haley started, they switched to a liquid makeup.
Ebsen was originally set to play the scarecrow then he got bumped to the tin man, and then out the door.
I'd heard that account of Mr Ebsen's reaction to the aluminum power makeup about 40 years ago and was always concerned that it would eventually cut his life short, because, as a kid, I loved him as Jed Clampett. But, Buddy lived to be 95!
Haley's makeup was a paste made from aluminum powder. He suffered a temporary eye infection from it.
Here's a little tidbit. Buddy Ebsen is still technically in the movie. You don't see him, but you do HEAR him. When Jack Haley replaced him, they had to, of course, refilm all of the tin man's acting and singing by himself. What they did not bother to re-record was the group singing of "We're off to see the wizard . . ." when Dorothy, the scarecrow, the tin man (and later the lion) head off down the road singing together. Buddy Ebsen had already recorded that and they left his version in the movie. So, if you listen really close when Dorothy and friends sing "We're off to see the wizard", you can hear Buddy Ebsen's slightly twangy country-ish version of the tin man singing.
@@curtisbrack3398
Interesting tidbit. Thanks for the info. 👍🏽
She keeps mentioning TV but in 1939, televisions were extremely rare and there were no networks or broadcasts worth watching. Movies were only viewed in theaters. Televisions had not become commonplace until the 1950s and even then, they were black and white. Color televisions were not widely available until the mid 1960s.
Also, movies were not intended to be shown again. This movie was not released to theaters again until 1955 - 16 years later. (And no way to watch home movies, no video or DVD's.) It was only because CBS approached MGM to be able to broadcast Gone With The Wind (also 1939, also color), and MGM offered them this movie as a second best, where it was then shown once a year, starting in the late '50's.
@@johnnehrich9601 When you say "offered them this movie as a second best," do you mean they said "No, you can't have Gone with the Wind, but we'll let you have The Wizard of Oz"? Or was it "We'll let you have Gone with the Wind for Big Bucks, but to sweeten the deal we'll throw in The Wizard of Oz for free"?
@@bigdream_dreambig The first - CBS would not let them broadcast Wind (don't if it has ever been on tv) so they gave them Oz. At the time, although Oz had been a hit, it hadn't been such a hit as MGM had hoped. Although for one thing, with the War on, they lost the European market. (I think it was shown in England.) Like It's a Wonderful Life, it was the repeated tv showing that cemented its legacy.)
And totally unrelated - in the book, they find out the wizard is a fraud so they have to travel to the Good Witch of the South (whose name was Glinda, the one in the north was unnamed). Mad TV did a spoof of the movie ending, where Dorothy is really pissed at Glinda for not telling her how to get home back in Munchkinland. Type "Wizard of Oz" and "Mad TV" to see this great spoof.
My folks didn't get a color TV until 1980. There was a big price difference between B&W and color.
Our family didn't get a color TV until 1969 when we were stationed in Japan. Even then, it was a small TV with a tiny screen. We watched the moon landing on that small TV. It was really cool to get a larger console TV when we moved back to the states. I don't think I saw The Wizard of Oz in color until the early 1970's. In addition, most television stations didn't have the capability to broadcast in color for a long time.
Loved seeing that lightbulb moment when you realized how many different parts Frank Morgan plays in this!
I like to think that they're all the Wizard but he likes to go in disguise among his people.
The witch in the crystal ball cackling terrified me as a kid 60 + years ago. It's still fantastic.
Try MEET ME IN SAINT LOUIS for more Judy Garland , ( & A STAR IS BORN ). She WAS fantastic., too.
image that in a dark theater.. on a huge screen.. that and the monkeys and the talking trees and the tornado are really scary in a movie theater
And the actress a former kindergarten teacher! Apparently Margaret Hamilton was a dear person.
that crow that is there with the scarecrow in the field, later shows up in 'It's a Wonderful Life'
The fortune teller wasnt being mean he was getting dorthay to go back home he used reverse psychology to show Dorothy sympathy
We throw around the phrase "classic" pretty freely (like "classic chips" "classic cars" "classic sneakers") but this is truly classic cinema. My dad graduated high school the year it was released, and he saw it at some nearby theater---and I saw it annually when it was on TV. for all my childhood. (didn't know it was in color at all since we had a B&W tv) It was lovely seeing how much you appreciated it. I get to experience it anew through your (beautiful green) eyes, thanks.
Even worse, everybody throws around the word "Iconic" too. So sick of that.
Actor Frank Morgan played 5 roles in this movie: Professor Marvel, the Emerald City Doorman, the Carriage Driver (Horse of a Different Color), the Wizard's Doorman and the Wizard of Oz.
First thing, Nicki, I don't see HOW I haven't found your channel until now. But what an introduction this has been! I am eagerly loking to your other reactions, and all the more to come, with a new subscription!
My mother was 10 when this was first released in the cinema. She said the Wicked Witch gave her NIGHTMARES.
The actress who played the Wicked Witch would come once a year to my University and lecture for a day in the English Department's Children's Literature class. At the end, she would cackle her famous line "I'll get you, my pretty, AND YOUR LITTLE DOG, TOO!"
The song *Over The Rainbow* is one of the most iconic numbers in a musical and my personal favorite in this movie.
Delicious movie trivia:
>The "oil" that they used to lube up Tin Man's joints was actually watered-down chocolate syrup.
>The horse pulling the carriage in The Emerald City kept licking off the gelatin powder that turned its coat purple, red and yellow.
Sweet movie trivia:
>Jack Haley, the actor who played the Tin Man was the replacement for Buddy Ebsen, who suffered an allergic reaction to the makeup. The voice Jack used for Tin Man was reportedly one he'd use when reading good night stories to his daughter, his real voice was gruffer and deeper.
Sad movie trivia:
>In the scene where Dorothy, Scarecrow and Tin Man meet The Cowardly Lion, you can see Judy bury half of her face in Toto's fur. This is because she found it difficult to keep a straight face when Bert Lahr started blubbering as the Lion, and the producers would get mad and slap her because of it.
>In the poppy field scene when Glinda makes it snow to negate the Wicked Witch's sleeping spell, the "snow" is actually asbestos flakes.
>The pyrotechnics used for the Wicked Witch of the West's entries and exits inflicted 2nd degree burns on Margaret Hamilton's face and a 3rd degree burn on her right hand. She understandably refused to not only do any more stunts involving pyrotechnics, but she missed 6 weeks of filming due to hospitalization.
I've heard the snow was NOT asbestos but gypsum, which would have been cheaper.
According to Wiki: "The poppy plant, Papaver somniferum, produces opium, a powerful narcotic whose derivatives include morphine, codeine, heroin, and oxycodone." So the witch didn't actually poison the plants.
The accident that burned Margaret Hamilton was on another take of the scene in Muchkin land, where the flames shoot up after she descends. The biggest problem was the green makeup, made of copper, which is poisonous if it gets in the body. The stagehands first grabbed her and rubbed her burnt skin with alcohol to remove the makeup before they could treat the burns.
In another take of the skywriting scene, Hamilton's stunt double was burned instead of Hamilton but of course it only freaked her out more.
The voice that says “where for art thou Romeo” in “if I only had a heart song” was the voice of Snow White in the original Disney Film.
They all wanted attributes they already possessed, courage, intelligence, heart, they simply needed to believe in themselves to attain them. That's the moral of this story.
A journey of self-discovery.
The professor told her her aunt was sick to get her to go back home. He was looking out for her.
I just LOVE how animated you get! I'm new to reaction channels and I love watching people be enchanted/excited by my favorite medium and you look like you had such a great time with this! Consider me a fan and a subscriber!
I am so happy to hear that! Welcome to the channel! So glad you liked it. I absolutely love reactions for the same reason and I love filming these reactions too!
I like that Glinda explains that good witches are beautiful and bad witches are ugly, then can't tell which type Dorothy is without asking
Doh!
Logically, if you say only bad witches are ugly, you are not saying that all bad witches are ugly. So there is a loophole for that, awkward construction or not.
@@chulavista5239
It's not just a loophole. It's exoneration.
Glinda says "only bad witches are ugly". When she asked whether Dorothy was a good witch or a bad witch she revealed that she believed Dorothy was not ugly. (If she had been ugly-and Glinda had been sure she was a witch-then Glinda would have known she was a bad one.)
No she was cunning sarcastic and evil she threw shade on Dorthy saying she was ugly Glinda was the evil witch the green one was the scape goat Dorothy's the one that passed away they read her ulogy in munchkin city
The film was out in 1939. It was not the first Technicolor film but was an early one. The sepia sequences were done because sepia creates a warmer, more nostalgic atmosphere, than the coolness and stark contrast of black & white. Also, it helps to simulate the “Dust Bowl” atmosphere of the Great Depression. It also fitted the transition to color better.
Dorothy's aunt & uncle were clearly doing well, in spite of the dust bowl era. If my folks had been able to afford to have THREE HIRED MEN fulltime on the farm in the mid-1960's, they would have considered themselves rich!
It wasn't an early Technicolor film either the first Technicolor film was The Gulf Between in 1917, it wasn't even one of the early Technicolor Process 4 films theres over 70 other films that used it before The Wizard of Oz.
@@yedead1 by early, I meant as a large-scale, big-budget feature film pushed by the major studios as a prestige release with some major studio talents attached. By 1939, the larger percentage of films were in black & white, or sepia, so a Technicolor film attracted critical and popular attention. I have seen some of the pre-WW1 hand-colored silent films and some experimental films from the 1920’s which incorporated color segments, and love them all and am astonished at the creative talent.
The munchkins were all adult “small people “ brought together from all over the country. There’s a comedy called “Under the Rainbow” about the real life problems they had with the little actors (Wild parties; orgies, public indecency, public intoxication, etc. ) Supposedly it was a wild time
If I remember the lore correctly; some of the munchkins were know to make passes at Judy Garland.
The OG lil ppl convention
Great reaction, a couple of notes for you. Judy Garland was 16 years old when she was cast as Dorothy Gale in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. She was 17 when filming ended. Colour television in the U.S did not start until the early 1950's and the movie was released when colour films were a rarity, so you can imagine its impact on the big screen.
I never saw this in color growing up. My parents didn't get a color TV until after I moved out.
In the Oz books she's a young girl, not a teen.
@@treetopjones737 They originally was going to use Shirly Temple as Dorothy, but she was under contract to another studio. They were going to trade the use of different actors in order to do the deal, but Jean Harlow was one of the trades, but she passed away at the age of 26 so the deal was off, and they HAD to use one of their own which is where Judy Garland came in. She was only doing B-films back then and this was her big break. Shirly said she thought Judy was brilliant in that character. If she had done the film, there would not have been an Over the Rainbow song because she was not a singer like that
The tornado was a 35 foot tall structure made out of muslin and filled with a clay/dust substance. A huge crane moved the tornado across a stage.
Liza Minelli, Judy Garland's daughter, married Jack Haley Jr., the son of the Tin Man.
Never knew that! In 1984, our family walked into a restaurant in Georgetown, Colorado and were seated back to back with Liza!! Incredibly beautiful woman. She was lunching with Alan Jay Lerner.
18:19 “HOLD ON! HOLD ON! HOLD ON! HER SISTER WAS A WITCH! AND WHAT WAS HER SISTER? A PRINCESS! THE WICKED WITCH OF THE EAST, BRO!”
😂😂😂
I never knew the time in OZ was in color until I got a color TV in the 1970's.
The snow to wake them up in the poppy field was actually asbestos, ugh!
And Heroin is made from poppies.
Another scary substance overhyped by non-medically-trained "experts.
Yup. They didn’t know how dangerous it was when this movie was made.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the set was painted with lead paint too
It may have been gypsum according to onset records and statements by one of the makeup artists. If it were asbestos, it wouldn't have been unusual. A lot of movies used asbestos to simulate snow.
If you like Judy Garland in this, you should see her in Meet Me in St Louis (1944) and especially in A Star is Born (1954), which earned her an Oscar nomination.
There is also a three part SyFy channel miniseries called "Tin Man" that came out in 2007, which was also very good. It stars Zooey Deschanel, Alan Cummings, Neal McDonough & Richard Dreyfus. I think you would enjoy it as well.. 😊
I've always enjoyed this movie and it's even more delightful with you reacting to it. 😊 I actually live around Culver City where this was filmed. Keep up the good work!
There is more than meets the eye in this story.
Frank L. Baum was a theosophist, and he passed a lot of universal wisdom in every detail of the story.
Man, know thyself !
1952 Singing in the Rain...... The Standard of the Modern Musical.
I'm so glad that I got to enjoy your reaction to this wonderful classic. This was such a great way to discover your channel. It's easy to see you're beautiful inside and out 💗
This was my wife's favorite film seen it 40+ times, and love it each time. Thank you had not seen it since she passed almost 3 years ago. I adore someone so young seeing this classic and allowing the younger generation to keep the classics alive. Thank you :)
Btw Toto's real name was Terry. She was a Cairn Terrier. Watch her run from the Tin Man when he makes that "toot toot" noise during "if I only had a heart."
Margaret Hamilton was apparently a very sweet lady in real life. Originally was a kindergarten teacher, but went into acting to better support her young son. She was actually at a ballgame when her agent told her she'd won a part in THE WIZARD OF OZ; her favorite book from childhood. Margaret asked whom she was playing. He said, "Well.......the Witch."
She said, "THE WITCH???!!!"
Then, he said, "Yeah, what else?" A story Margaret would tell fans til the day she died.
Sadly, the scene where the Witch exits Munchkin City nearly ended in tragedy. Margaret was supposed to drop down a trapdoor before the fireball went off, but unfortunately the timing was off and the fireball went off before she dropped. She got third degree burns all over her face and arms, but the makeup artists had to immediately wash the makeup off because there was copper in it, which would've ate right through her face. Because she came home in bandages, she pretended she was made up like a mummy as not to scare her son.
Dorothy's friends were all played by seasoned Broadway and Vaudeville veterans who made too few movies. Among other appearances, Ray Bolger (scarecrow) can be seen in "The Harvey Girls" 1946, and "Where's Charley" 1952, Jack Haley (tin man) appeared in "Poor Little Rich Girl" 1936, and "Alexander's Ragtime Band" 1938, and Burt Lahr (Lion) was in "Ship Ahoy" 1942, and "Rose Marie" 1954. Frank Morgan (the wizard, etc.) had major roles in the musical extravaganza "The Great Ziegfeld" in which Myrna Loy plays Billie Burke (Glinda) and in the drama "The Human Comedy" 1943 among many other films.
I remember watching Burt Lahrs' last movie appearance,1966s' The Night They Raided Minskey's,a period comedy set in the '20s.
Billie Burke was married to Ziegfeld and returned to acting after the Crash of 1929 destroyed Ziegfeld's career. Burke used that soprano champagne voice of hers to wonderful effect, especially in comedies, where she often played dotty upper class ladies. She's especially delightful in "Merrily We Live", and in "Dinner at Eight". Here, in "Oz", she's about 55, and she certainly doesn't look it.
Great reaction! You'd also love watching Judy in "Meet Me in St. Louis". More iconic songs in that one. Including a very sentimental Christmas Classic! Also check out a great song called "Tin Man", by '70's pop group "America". I think you'll love that too. 👍
One of my favorite Christmas movies, even though it covers an entire year in the life of the family.
I’m always amazed at adults who’ve never seen The Wizard Of Oz! Their parents really failed them.
I know right? It’s one of those films that’s just a cornerstone of not only movie history but a classic that stands the test of time. Kinda like the old Willy Wonka movie
In the Oz books, the Tin Woodsman had been a real man who got cursed by a witch to keep chopping off body parts. He found a tin smith to make him replacements, and eventually he replaced even his head, and his consciousness joined the new head.
The green face paint on the wicked witch was lead based, the snow was actually asbestos. Just a couple of un-fun facts from this movie, there’s others that I only partially remember.
Actually, the green makeup base was copper, which caused the burns to be worse.
We didn't have a color tv until 1977. They were available around 10 years before that but as with most things
generally the rich had them sooner.
it was commercially available in the '50s, but few shows were in color (my grandfather had color, but I only remember Packer games in color). We got our 1st color set in '67.
I'll repeat what others have said. Professor Marvel told Dorothy that Auntie Em was sick to get her to go back home. He knew it was a bad thing for a young girl to run away, and fixed the problem in his own way.
Also, the scene with Professor Marvel serves a dramatic purpose. All the time Dorothy was in Oz, she was trying to go home. This parallels what she was trying to do in Kansas before the tornado. Professor Marvel gave her the motivation for her quest.
The tornado was a big piece of twisted muslin cloth. It's amazing what they could accomplish with practical effects long before CGI was invented.
The transition to color when Dorothy opened the door was done by painting the room in shades of grey, and putting her in a grey dress, then shooting the whole thing in color. I've heard it was actually a double who opened the door (maybe to save time with costume changes).
Most of the Munchkins were adults. They cast little people, and also shot things so they'd look smaller than they actually were. Some of the Munchkins were European Jews, and they stayed in the U.S. after the movie was made to get away from the Nazis.
Toto got $125 a week. The Munchkins each only got $50 a week.
Margaret Hamilton, who played Miss Gulch and the Wicked Witch of the West, was a kind woman who loved children. It bothered her that children were afraid of her after this movie came out. She once went on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood and changed from her normal clothes into a witch costume while explaining to kids that it was all make believe.
They originally wanted to cast Shirley Temple as Dorothy. It would have been an entirely different movie. Temple was typecast as a cute little kid. Also, Garland was a much better singer than Temple.
They originally cast Buddy Ebsen as The Tin Man, but he had to quit because he had an allergic reaction to the silver makeup, so they got Jack Haley instead. Ebsen is best known today as Jed Clampett of The Beverly Hillbillies.
The "snow" in the poppy field was made from asbestos.
The horses in Emerald City were colored with Jell-O mix. They had to shoot the scenes quickly before the horses licked it off.
The song "Over the Rainbow" was almost cut from the movie. It's a slow number, and they thought the movie was too long. Fortunately, they left it in. Otherwise it would have been lost to history. In 2004 the American Film Institute ranked it #1 in their list of 100 Greatest Songs in American Films. It was also named The Song of the Century by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Yip Harburg wrote the lyrics to all the songs, and Harold Arlen wrote the music. Both wrote a large number of other songs, and wrote some together apart from Wizard of Oz, including "It's Only a Paper Moon." They'd have worked together more, except that Harburg drove Arlen crazy with his political opinions. Harburg was a socialist. It's not that Arlen disagreed with Harburg, but that Harburg wouldn't shut up about it.
Harburg also wrote:
April in Paris
Brother Can You Spare a Dime?
Arlen is considered one of the all-time great American songwriters - some of his best are
Accentuate the Positive
Come Rain or Come Shine
Get Happy
I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues
One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)
Stormy Weather
That Old Black Magic.
Thanks for all the information Jeff!
Book Dorothy was twelve, which was much closer to Shirley Temple’s age (11) than Judy Garland’s (16).
Color was only in the movie theaters. Color TV was still 30+ years away.
All three of the actors playing Dorothy's friends were veterans of Burlesque stages and silent films. Their training in those venues really shows in the physicality of their performances, and it was a perfect match for this film.
Misc trivia: They originally wanted Shirley Temple for Dorothy, but her studio wouldn't let her do it. The tin man was originally played by Buddy Ebsen (aka Jed Clampett of the Beverly Hillbillies or Barnaby Jones). He had such a bad reaction to the makeup, he ended up in the hospital. The Munchkins were all played by little people. Most of them had never seen another little person before and Judy Garland (Liza Minelli's mother) said it was like an orgy for them. One of two pairs of the original ruby slippers, which were stolen in 2005, were recently recovered and are presently being auctioned off for over $1 million. Great reaction!
Great reaction Nicki. For people of a certain age, who came of age before the widespread popularity of the VCR, viewing this movie was an annual tradition. CBS would show it during the Thanksgiving season, and the whole family would watch. Pretty much every TV set in America was tuned in. Nothing in today's world can match that communal experience, with so many viewing options.
There is a ton of trivia to go along with the movie. The aluminum dust that they used for the original Tin Man makeup gave Buddy Ebsen emphazema. He had to spend several weeks in an oxygen tent, and was replaced by Jack Haley.
Head of MGM, Louis B. Mayer wanted Shirley Temple to play Dorothy, but the songwriters didn't. They fought for Judy Garland. They even threatened to quit if Shirley Temple got cast. She didn't have the vocal range necessary for their songs.
Mayer also wanted to scrap Over the Rainbow, to bring the runtime down. But the editors found other places for cuts, and the song survived.
Most of the munchkins were adults, or at least teens. There were only a few children used, and they were relegated to deep background.
If you want to see Toto again, he (really a she), stars in Tortilla Flat with Oa costar Frank Morgan, (Prof. Marvel/the Wizard, etc.)
The miniseries Tin Man is a sequel, with Dorothy returning to Oz as a young adult.
Oz the Great and Powerful is a prequel with Johnny Depp arriving in Oz, and becoming the Wizard.
The 75th anniversary dvd has about 3 hours of documentaries on the making of, and cultural impact of the movie. Since you want to know more, that would be a great place to start.
An even earlier Technicolor movie I would highly recommend is The Adventures of Robin Hood, starring Errol Flynn. The colors really pop. And I think it's still the best telling of the Robin Hood story on film.
I'm going to go along with practically everything you've written here,especially the nod to Errol Flynns' Robin Hood...best version ever on film,brilliant colour,amazing cast..One minor correction.Oz The Great And Powerful starred James Franco,not (mercifully)Johnny Depp.
@BobCrabtree-ev4rz Oops. I can never tell them apart outside of the Jack Sparrow costume. 😅
@@josephmayo3253 No worries.If the Oz movie had Johnny Depp in the starring role,I would have passed.Not a fan.I could only imagine if Sam Raimi had passed and Tim Burton had directed.No thanks.
It's a keeper, isn't it? So much fun! I enjoyed rewatching it with you, Nicki. Thank you for sharing it. ❤
As a child, the flying monkeys scared the Hell out of me.
Same!
Oh, yeah! Creepy as hell.
They also scared the hell out of our cockatiel birds, they saw and heard those on the TV set, and feather were flying, the flew all over and pooped on the drapes lol LMAO
Same here!!! Even today they’re nightmare fuel
Hi im a new watcher and i really like your reaction videos keep up the good work! and your thumbnail is really cool :) with the witch!.
Such a joy seeing you become a kid again in this watch! ❤❤❤ You also brought alive just how special the music and dance is. Thank-you Nicki!
Color film wasn't entirely new. The first color film was in 1902, and there would be newsreels in color all through the 30s. The first Technicolor films were released a few years prior. Gone With the Wind, in Technicolor, was released the same year as Wizard of Oz.
The real achievement here was the seamless transition from sepia to full color. This was a special effect you don't necessarily think about while you're watching. When Dorothy opens the door to Munchkinland, it's already full color. The interior set and Dorothy's double were literally sepia-colored to trick you into thinking the film was still sepia, as in the previous shots. When Dorothy's double opens the door, you see the colorful set beyond, and Dorothy is momentarily out of shot and replaced by Judy Garland in her blue gingham dress.
It's not really a special effect though. They just painted stuff sepia in that shot (the set, the costume), rather than it actually being in sepia like the preceding stuff. Still very clever though!
@@halfvader8015 It's called a practical special effect, I forgot the term when I posted. 😄
Before CGI, all special effects involved physical trickery of some kind. For instance, the impressive cyclone was a huge sock with dirt poured through it.
@@ink-cow Yup I work in VFX and grew up with practical fx. You're not using the terms correctly though. Painted costumes and makeup, and set dressing and painting of a physical set don't come under that banner. But I know what you mean. It is definitely "trickery" and lateral problem solving of the best kind! And yes the tornado is a fantastic practical effect!
Growing up long before cable created what may be viewed as event programing. Once a year one of the three networks would show one of several classically loved films, like this or It's a Wonderful Life for example. We would still gather around the TV as a family for these.
One of the first things they saw in color at the movies. Color TV was a ways off. I know - it was long ago and not that important.
I'm glad you know this film, I'm 46 and grew up watching it along with Lucille Ball, Charlie Chapin, and John Wayne(it's what my parents watched), me I'm a Crow, Warriors(or anything late 70's, 80's and 90's films), me I'm a E.T. , Star Wars and 80's Horror loving type of person(big Friday the 13th fan here), glad to your generation discovering these classics.
FYI: The actors who played scarecrow, tin man, and lion were veteran vaudeville actors who kept pushing Dorothy out of the scene.
That doesn't make any sense; veteran actors typically know how to share a stage -- although I guess vaudeville may have been a different beast.
@@bigdream_dreambig FWIW, Bert Lahr moved from vaudeville to Broadway and then the movies. He had already been in feature films for 10 years at this time.
Actually that is a story told by Judy years later. As Liza Minelli (Judy's daughter) told it Judy was an amazing raconteur and could turn anything into an epic joke.
I can't remember the source right now but that was what is reported. It just means poor Judy.
You’re thinking of an old interview with Judy Garland I think on the Jack Paar show. It’s in black-and-white and she tells the story that the Director kept calling cut because of that. She is so funny. you really need to watch a few of her interviews. She’s hilarious! But she tells the story of the Director had to keep saying cut and yelling “you big hams! quit pushing that little girl out of the scene!” Here’s a clip of her telling that story. She starts talking to the interviewer at 15:43 and tells the wizard story at 26:40.
ruclips.net/video/L5vDFFiU_Os/видео.htmlsi=eh5keINtXS2MHkH0
What a great reaction to one of my childhood favorites.
Also, at the risk of sounding creepy, you are so easy on the eyes, stunning actually.
The poppies only affected flesh and blood beings. Frank Morgan played 5 roles in the movie: Professor Marvel, the guard to Emerald City, the cabbie with the horse, the guard to the Wizard and the Wizard himself. Judy garland is my all time favorite female singer. AMAZING voice. If you read the book (which has many differences from the movie) try getting a copy with the original illustrations by W. W. Denslow.
LOL! Great reaction Nicki!
Shan't lie. This movie makes me tear up repeatedly and I'm 56. It was a movie that made me cry as a little boy too, so this isn't anything new, but the reaction then was emotional and now it's much deeper, especially the various messages that are imparted at the end, like the Wizard's statement to the Tin Woodsman about hearts and Glinda's message that Dorothy had to learn the truth on her own (just like her three companions did, really) to be able to believe it.
And Nicki, no matter how much you talk you're a wonderful young lady to watch a movie with. Wonderfully adorable!
A movie no one ever reacts to but is a great old classic musical with great dancing, and singing is "Calamity Jane" (1953) with Doris Day. You should definitely do a reaction Nicki if you love the old classic musicals, it's one of the best!
Doris Day is so under-rated.
I think the professor wanted her to go home but I think he knew that just telling her to go home wouldn't work. He knew she needed to be the one who told herself that she belonged at home. This ties into the lesson that Glinda teaches her "There's no place like home".
I had the honor of playing the title role in a local Community Theater production of this, and when I watch the movie, I can still say the lines along with Professor Marvel and the Wizard. It was one of the highlights of my life. Backstage playing with the children who played the Munchkins was a lot of fun too.
My Grandfather saw one of the first talking pictures in Canada. He was kicked out the theatre for laughing too loudly because the sound went out of sync and the dialogue got swapped between the evil villain and the heroine, with the villain saying "Help me! Help me!" and heroine saying "Marry me my pretty or I'll tie you to the railroad tracks."
If you love Judy Garland's singing voice, make a note to watch "Easter Parade" around Easter and "Meet Me in St. Louis" around Christmas!! Both classic seasonal musicals and I think you'll enjoy them. ☺
I didn't know about the original shoe color from the book! Very interesting. Thanks for the awesome reaction, as always, Nicki!
I didn't ever see this in color until 1967, when we got a color tv. It was played once a year on tv. It came out 12 years before I was born. Seeing it every year was a great event. Enjoy your watching "Wicked". I enjoyed your reactions. Sometimes your facial expressions reminded me of my 22 year old granddaughter, and other times you reminded me of my 15 year old granddaughter, who is in show choir and a really good singer. Thanks for your reaction.
This was released in 1939, the same year as Gone with the Wind, and Victor Fleming directed both. Busy man!
Every summer up in Chittenango, NY there's a Wizard of Oz festival where the author Frank L Baum was born.
The movie was based on the first book of the series. The second was made into a movie around 1984, Return to Oz which while not a musical was very good in its own right.
Professor Marvel isn't being mean: Dorothy wants to go off with him "To see the crowned heads of Europe" and this was a way he felt would send her back home without rejecting her request.
Incidentally, of course, in 1939, this wouldn't have been "on tv" but in movie theaters, where the color would have been spectacular. However, in 1939, remember, all color "Gone With the Wind" was also filmed. Color was a novelty, but not unknown. When I was growing up, we had only b&w tvs. This movie was broadcast about once a year, but I never saw the color transition until we could afford a color tv.
Yes, the doorman is the same person as the cabbie, is the same person as the guard, is the same person as the Wizard, is Frank Morgan, who was Professor Marvel at the start. Morgan was one of an army of priceless supporting actors during this period. They came in to take small or medium parts in thousands of movies, and were often better recognized than the stars, and sometimes more anticipated.
35:47 The line "Wherefore art thou Romeo" was spoken by Adriana Caselotti, the original voice of Snow White. This film was MGM's response to "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" which was released two years prior.
You’d think everyone would wanna see Oz at least once. (If not once a year.) 💚
This was my grandfathers favorite movie. My grandma told me they saw it in theaters. And as soon as it became available on video he went out of his way to buy it, despite the fact they didn’t have a VHS player yet. When I was a very little he would watch it with me. And then he died. I don’t have memory of the time my parents said I would cry and leave the room if I saw the movie playing on tv. Eventually I did get around to watching it again and I liked it. I kind of just have a thing for stories that have magical and creative worlds. Like Alice in Wonderland, or Spirited Away, or Peter Pan for example. So not only is this movie is a classic but it holds sentimental value to me.
There are SO MANY just AMAZING classic GEMS in this film!!! From "somewhere over the rainbow", to "follow the yellow brick road"... It's just like a BLAST FROM THE PAST of my childhood every time I see it!! Thanks for the reaction Nicki!! I LOVED HOW YOU REACTED TO "SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW"!!! That's exactly how I react to it after I haven't seen this for a while.❤❤❤
"PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!!!" 🤣
This is when color film came into existence in the theaters. The first scene had been shot in Sepia ( B&W ), They shot the Land of Oz in color. It was breathtaking for the public. And yes, The three farm workers were the Lion, the tin man and the scarecrow.
The cowardly lion is the one who rescued Dorothy from the pig pen, then nearly passed out form the fear of what he just did. The one who was saying there will be a statue of him and raised his arm like a statue, was the Tin Man. The other was of course the scarecrow. It was a typical Hollywood executives instruction to take out the Rainbow song, because it was just no good. And yet if became a world renowned legend heard everywhere. So typical of Hollywood executives.
Hollywood gathered as many 'short people' as they could find for the movie.
It is quite delightful watching with you.
Lord, I love your reactions. You are so smart, and so emotionally honest and enthusiastic.
Here's an interesting fact that most people haven't heard: When Greg Maguire wrote Wicked (yes, it was a novel before it was a musical), his publisher ran the manuscript by the MGM I.P. department before releasing it. The original Baum novel was in the public domain by this time, but MGM still owned the copyright to the film. So MGM went through the manuscript literally line-by-line, and said that Maguire could keep anything that was from the novel, but couldn't use anything that originated in the film. So the shoes could be silver, but not ruby; the road could be "the road of yellow brick," but not "the yellow brick road." The one thing they gave permission for was Elpheba's green skin, since that was so central to the whole book.
What a delightful reaction. so much so that I'm inspired to share some notes I made for a trivia quiz site some years ago. It was my very second movie-theatre experience, after Disney's 'Pinocchio'. When you're five years old, the Wicked Witch of the West is truly the stuff of nightmares. It was the green skin that creeped me out. Her portrayer, Margaret Hamilton, was said to be the kindliest of souls, a kindergarten teacher who doted on children. She's reported to have had even the teachers diving under their seats in terror during latter-day visits to school auditoriums for talks about the 'making of' etc. On persistent request, she would (reluctantly) let loose that cackle into a powerful mike and suddenly you're a petrified five-year-old again - and not in Kansas any more. It is true Margaret did get badly burned, delaying production for a few weeks, bur recovered like the trooper she was.
The studio (MGM) at first wanted Shirley Temple. I wonder what Judy's signature tune would have been if ‘Little Miss Dimples’ had played Dorothy; Shirley's occasional dancing partner, versatile TV legend Buddy Ebsen (Georgie Russell, Jed Clampett, Barnaby Jones) was the original Tin Man but had to drop out due to a severe allergic reaction to the metallic paint. The cast were not told he'd been hospitalised and some assumed for years afterward that he'd simply been fired - that's Hollywood, after all. Ebsen was the original Scarecrow but Bolger wanted to play the part he had already created on stage so desperately that the studio relented. I assume Buddy was too sick, or just too darn nice, if Donna 'Ellie May' Douglas's recollections of him are anything to go by, to ask for his scarecrow back.
Just minor quibbles: you mentioned television. Not in 1938 dear! And Toto was actually a brindle cairn terrier bitch named Terry,
Yes, there is speculation about using Temple but the studio knew from the get-go that she didn't have the voice range for this part so she was never seriously considered. Warner-Bros. used her in a movie, Bluebird of Happiness, which was intended to be their version of a blockbuster movie like Oz. I started watching it and couldn't see it all the way through, as I thought it was ghastly. (And I love Temple in such movies as Heidi.)
Margaret Hamilton in later years appeared on an episode of Mr. Rogers, where she tried to allay children's fears about her character.
@@johnnehrich9601 Thanls for info John. Yes, I've seen the Mr Rogers footage. I didn't think much of the movie version of 'Bluebird' either
"You live in an ugly castle."
SHOTS FIRED!
Thanks, Nicki! 🌈 Since you asked, experience both WICKED PART ONE (2024) and WICKED PART TWO (2025) in the cinema, as intended... do re-watches of them over here. 🤓 Since you're curious about the Munchkins, check out the comedy UNDER THE RAINBOW (1981) starring Chevy Chase and Carrie Fisher.
There are also a 2013 film "Oz the Great and Powerful" which is sort of a prequal/retelling of this film, "Emerald City", a 2017 single season TV series loosely based on Baum's story, and the second half of season 3 of the Disney/ABC series "Once Upon a Time" which covers the story of the Wicked Witch.
That series as a whole covers ALL the fairy tale characters in the form of a soap opera. It begins with the Evil Queen banishing all the characters to a "land without magic", otherwise known as Storybrook, Maine in our modern world.
I laughed at how cute it was seeing you yawning. 😊 Yawning is actually contagious (called sympathetic yawning- it’s a thing 😊)
2013's Oz The Great and Powerful. It doesn't have the heart of this movie, but it's still worth a viewing.
My last comments: the movie owes a lot to old time vaudeville, Ray Bolger was a famous song and dance man/comedian, and Bert Lahr a famous comedian. Also, 1939 was near the end of the Great Depression and due to crop failures many midwestern families were moving to big cities (the Emerald City) trying to find jobs. The theme of "there's no place like home" was used to try to convince some of them to stay with their farms, that better times were coming. An important social message for the times.
Probably the two movies from the late ‘30’s and mid forties that television saved and turned into classics are “ The Wizard of Oz” and “ It’s a Wonderful Life”
I've watched this with reactors and I just now got the - Poppy scene... And the snow to wake them up... This went over my head when I saw it in the 70's...
This was a fun reaction. Thank you, Nicki.
Nicki, you're reaction to this film was as adorable as the story itself. It was as if you were reading the book to a group of children (young & old 😊) Thank You! ❤
85 years later, and this film still looks goddamn amazing. This was decades before motion control and CGI and the effects work still dazzles. And Judy Garland is immortal. Not a perfect movie, but perfectly realized and it still brings a sense of wonder to those who watch it.
I liked this movie so much when I was a kid back in the seventies that I went and read as many of the Oz books as I could get my hands on. L. Frank Baum wrote 14 Oz books between 1900 and 1920. There were only five or six of them in the library at my elementary school and I read them all in short order. Most of the earliest color films are lost to time. But the oldest that you can still find on dvd might be Under a Texas Moon and King of Jazz, both from 1930. Two other notable color films from the 1930's that can found on dvd and that still hold up are Doctor X (1932) and Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933). But the first "true" color film, true in that it was the first feature film to use three-strip Technicolor, is Becky Sharp (1935). But I've never seen it. The second such "true" color film, The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936), still gets played on Turner Classic Movies. Color didn't come to dominate the movies until the 1950's and 1960's.
When Margaret Hamilton disappeared in flames from Munchkinland (lowered on a trap door) they discovered her makeup was flammable and she suffered some serious burns - production had to shut down for maybe a month.
The first man to play the tin-man was Buddy Ebsen - later Jed Clampett in The Beverly Hillbillies and many other roles. He suffered a life-threatening reaction to the silver face makeup and was replaced by Jack Haley. The studio's story was that it was an allergic reaction, but in reality it was a reaction anyone would have had - they changed the composition of the makeup for Haley. Ebsen was furious that the studio told the story of the allergic reaction - maybe 30 years ago I heard an interview with him and he was still hot that they essentially blamed it on something about him to cover themselves.
I'm sure others have mentioned this, but nobody saw this on color TV in 1939. The TVs were all black & white until the late 1950s. The Technicolor in this movie and others would only have been experienced in theaters.
Also, most homes did not have color TVs until the late 60’s. Color sets were extremely expensive, even during the 1970’s, so most people stayed with black & white, and would enjoy color when they went to the movies. The first time I saw this in color or on the big screen, was in the 1970’s at a movie theater, when MGM re-released a lot of their films in newly restored copies.
We didn't get color TV until the 80's, because my dad was convinced that they were radioactive.
Terry (November 17, 1933 - September 1, 1945) was a female Cairn Terrier performer who appeared in many different movies, most famously as Toto in the film The Wizard of Oz (1939). It was her only credited role, though she was credited not as Terry but as Toto, and because of the role's popularity her name was officially changed to Toto in 1942. She was owned and trained by Carl Spitz and Gabrielle Quinn.
I heard they let Judy Garland keep her after filming wrapped up. I don't know if that was true or if it was just a rumor. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Judy didn't keep Terry, but she was allowed to take her home with her while they were in production. Terry also played Rags in the 1934 film "Bright Eyes" with Shirley Temple
The daughter of Judy Garland Liza Minnelli, & the son of Jack Haley (Tin Woodsman) Jack Haley Jr. got married in real life. He was her second husband. 😊
For the 50th anniversary of the film there was an official book about it published, of which I bought. It is more than fascinating with the stories of the original writer and storyteller L. Frank Baum to the complete production of the movie. To see Nicki watch in a childlike amazement was so great.