Dozens of books have been written about the making of The Wizard of Oz.  Some are fantastic while others are, well, not so fantastic.  Instead of retelling the detailed story about the making of the film, the following is an extended overview of the production.  More information is contained in the various sections of these Oz pages.  If you’re looking for books, check out the Books Page here.

On February 24, 1938, the trade paper “Variety” published a notice that “LeRoy Will Produce ‘Wizard of Oz’.”  Producer Mervyn LeRoy had just been lured away from Warner Bros. by MGM boss Louis B. Mayer to replace the recently deceased “boy wonder” Chief of Production Irving Thalberg.  LeRoy said he wanted to make a film of L. Frank Baum’s classic children’s book “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.”  At the same time, MGM studio songwriter Arthur Freed was angling to become a producer, allegedly (there is some debate) he also wanted to adapt the book to the screen, as a musical.  Mayer told Freed to basically apprentice as an associate producer for LeRoy, telling him that the project was too big and expensive for a first-time producer.  This turned out to be a blessing for the production.  Freed, and his right-hand man, the genius musical director Roger Edens, took charge of the music aspect of the production.  One thing was clear, everyone wanted Judy Garland for the role of “Dorothy.”

It should be pointed out that the film as we know it today might not have happened at all were it not for the success of Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in late 1937.  That masterpiece of animation showed Hollywood that musical fantasies, when executed correctly, could be successful.  In this case, a mega-hit.  We have Walt Disney to thank for putting the wheels in motion that resulted in MGM’s production of The Wizard of Oz.  Most of the studios were looking around for fantasy properties and Baum’s classic was at the top of everyone’s list.  Independent producer Sam Goldwyn owned the film rights to the book.  MGM purchased the rights from Goldwyn on February 18, 1938, which was a few weeks after Freed’s early character outline, showing how early MGM began working on the film even though they didn’t yet own the rights.

From this point until the first day of filming eight months later on October 13, 1938, a myriad of activities occurred.  Several screenwriters were engaged to come up with a viable adaptation, which resulted in some amusing and thankfully unused ideas.  There were lots of ideas for characters who weren’t in the book, such as a prince and a princess of Oz, both of whom sang opera (Garland would sing Jazz).  Miss Gulch had a nasty nephew at one point and was “Mrs.” Gulch.  Casting the roles created a lot of angst as well.  W.C. Fields wanted to play the Wizard, but he asked for too much money.  Some people wanted the Wicked Witch of the West to be glamorous like the evil queen in Snow White rather than the “hag” so perfectly played by Margaret Hamilton.  They toyed with the idea of having a real lion play the Cowardly Lion.  Enough little people had to be found to play the Munchkins.  Costumes had to be designed, produced, and fitted for everyone from Dorothy down to the Munchkins, the extras who played the citizens of the Emerald City, and the Witch’s Winkie Guards.  Creating an entire fantasy world from scratch took a lot of time and a lot of trial and error.

Then there is the music.  Freed and Edens decided that Harold Arlen and E. Y. “Yip” Harburg were the right songwriting duo to handle the songs.  This turned out to be fortuitous.  Arlen and Harburg were instrumental in creating the Munchkinland musical sequence, in which almost everything is rhymed and set to music.  The brilliance of that decision cannot be overstated.  Herbert Stothart composed the score (“background music”) leaning heavily on the Arlen melodies.  Stothart was another brilliant choice.  Everyone on the music staff involved did career-defining work.  The phrase, “the stars were aligned” is apropos here.

Once the screenplay was completed, more or less (thankfully sans the extra characters and plot points), and once the songs were written and scored, and (most of) the cast was in place, production began with the first pre-recording session on September 30, 1938.  Then filming, which was originally scheduled to being on September 15, 1938, began on October 13, 1938, under the direction of Richard Thorpe.

After twelve days of filming, production was halted.  No one liked what was being seen in the rushes and worst of all, the original Tin Man Buddy Ebsen had been unknowingly poisoned by the “silver” makeup and had to be taken off the film to recuperate from his near-death experience.  Thorpe was fired.  Not because of Ebsen, but because, basically, his direction was “all wrong” for a musical fantasy.  See “The Wizard That Almost Was – But Wasn’t” section above.

At great expense, production began anew on the updated Cornfield set on November 4, 1938, with veteran MGM director Victor Fleming at the helm.  As seen in the photo below, the look of the Cornfield and Yellow Brick Road was completely changed.  The middle image shows director Victor Fleming with the “new” Dorothy and Scarecrow.

Filming went smoothly without any major issues, with scenes shot in the following order:

• The Cornfield (November 4 to the week of November 7)
• The Tin Man’s Forest (week of November 7 to November 19)
• The Lion’s Forest (November 21 to November 26)
• The Poppy Field (week of November 28)
• The Witch’s Castle (including the melting of the Witch) (December 1 to approximately December 14)
• Munchkinland (December 17 to December 30)

On December 28, 1938, the good fortune of the relatively smooth filming ended.  Things went horribly wrong in the scene in which Margaret Hamilton’s Wicked Witch of the West exits Munchkinland in a column of flames and smoke.  Everything was fine until after lunch when the scene was filmed again.  The trap door on the floor of the stage that contained an elevator type of rigging to lower Hamilton didn’t work properly and she was severely burned.  The green makeup had copper in it, resulting in her being so badly burned that she was immediately rushed to the hospital and out of the film until mid-February.  She suffered first-degree burns on her face and second-degree burns on her hands.  Thankfully she recovered and understandably refused to do any more special effects shots.  The shot you see in the film is the single good shot they were able to get that day before lunch and the accident.

After the new year, production resumed with the cast on the Haunted Forest set and proceeded as follows.

• Haunted Forest (January 3)
• “I’d Turn Back If I Were You” scene (January 6)
• “The Jitterbug” (January 9, 11, & 13)
• The scene on the Yellow Brick Road after waking up from the poppies (January 12)
• Emerald City Sequence (January 14 thru mid-February)
• “The Merry Old Land of Oz” (January 17, 19, & 20)
• Wizard’s Balloon Sequence (including the tearful goodbyes) (last week of January)
• “If I Were King of the Forest” plus Wizard’s hallway & Throne Room (Late January through mid-February)
• Wizard’s Throne Room (February 3)
• Toto’s Escape from the Witch’s Castle (February 7)
• Wizard’s Presentations * (February 12)
• Kansas Sequences (February 19 through mid-March)
• “Over the Rainbow” (February 23, possibly also the 24th)
• Miss Gulch scenes, Professor Marvel scenes, Cornfield retakes (Late February into mid-March)
• Retakes/Pickup Shots with “Glinda” (Billie Burke) (Early May)
• More retakes (according to the assistant director’s report for Babes in Arms, Garland was “on Wizard of Oz retakes” on June 30).  This was the last work on Oz for Garland.

*  This was director Victor Fleming’s last work on the film before leaving to rescue the troubled production of Gone With The Wind.  They were also the last Oz sequences to be filmed.  King Vidor came in to take over, beginning with the Kansas sequences which were the last sequences filmed.

Once principal filming was completed, the film then went into the post-production phase which included recording the marvelous score, creating the special effects, and the final editing.  MGM wasted no time and sent Garland on a personal appearance tour to Cleveland, Ohio, and a triumphant return to New York and Loew’s State Theatre.  When she returned she went into production on the first of the “Let’s Put On A Show” musicals with Mickey Rooney, Babes in Arms.

In mid-July 1939, the first previews of the film were held unannounced and inserted into a regular theatre program outside of the greater Los Angeles area.  This is the time period when “The Jitterbug” was removed, and “Over the Rainbow” was almost removed.  Thankfully, the song stayed.

On August 6, 1939, Garland and Rooney had just completed their work on Babes in Arms when MGM sent them on an extensive tour of the East Coast culminating in the New York premiere of The Wizard of Oz at the Capitol Theatre – with Garland and Rooney performing a stage act between showings.  The film had its official world premiere on August 15, 1939, at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood (see notes below).  Garland didn’t attend, having just arrived with Rooney in New York on August 14 (to a crowd of over 10,000 people meeting them in Grand Central Station).  The New York Premiere at the Capitol Theatre took place on August 17, 1939, with Garland and Rooney performing 26-minute (approximately) stage shows between screenings of the film.  The duo gave five shows a day during the week, between seven showings of the film, and seven shows per day on the weekends between nine showings of the film!

The rest, as they say, is history.  The Wizard of Oz was a big hit, unlike reports given decades later.   It was also recognized as an instant classic.  The reviews were almost unanimous in their praise of the film.  However, The Wizard of Oz did not immediately turn a profit due to the high cost of the long production and the extensive publicity campaign.  Added to that was the fact that a majority of the ticket sales were at children’s prices.  When the film was re-released in 1949, it was another success and easily put the numbers in the black.  The legend of The Wizard of Oz being “a flop” when it was released is just that, a legend.  It’s not true, but it makes for good copy and a good success story when it became an annual tradition on American television.

The Wizard of Oz was nominated for five Academy Awards (* winner):

• Best Picture (winner: Gone With The Wind)
• * Music (Song) “Over the Rainbow” – Harold Arlen & E.Y. Harburg
• * Music (Original Score) – Herbert Stothart
• Best Art Direction (winner: Gone With The Wind)
• Best Special Effects (winner: The Rains Came) – this one is especially puzzling, considering what they achieved on The Wizard of Oz, including that realistic tornado.

Garland received a special “Juvenile Oscar” for her performances on film in 1939 (both The Wizard of Oz and Babes in Arms).  Newsreel footage of the event shows Mickey Rooney presenting the award to Garland at the ceremony on February 29, 1940, at the Coconut Grove in the Ambassador Hotel.  Director Victor Fleming won the “Best Director” Oscar for Gone With The Wind.  If he hadn’t been nominated for that film he might have been nominated for The Wizard of Oz.  1939 was an incredible year for the movies, considered by most to be the best year for classic films, topped off by the super-masterpiece Gone With The Wind.  There were more than enough great films to go around.  However, it’s a bit puzzling that Oz wasn’t nominated in some of the other categories, such as Sound Recording, Film Editing, or Color Cinematography.

FACTOIDS:

Shirley Temple:

A common misconception about this casting is that MGM and/or the producers initially wanted Shirley Temple from 20th Century Fox to play “Dorothy.”  That misconception is understandable.  Temple was the number one box office star and she was the right age, judging from the illustrations in the original books (Baum’s book doesn’t give Dorothy’s age).  The legend of Temple missing out on the role and Garland getting it by default was accepted as fact for so long that in 1974’s That’s Entertainment!  The dialog Garland’s daughter, Liza Minnelli, was given as part of the narration about her mom also told this story.  It’s not true.  Everyone wanted Garland.  The role was being written for her, as were the songs.  An early outline by Freed from January 1938 lists Dorothy as “an orphan in Kansas who sings jazz.”  That definitely wasn’t Temple.  Roger Edens went over to Fox to meet Temple to kind of test her out, musically speaking.  He came back and reported that while she was charming, she wasn’t up to the intended vocal demands of the role.  It’s also safe to assume that Fox had no intention of lending their biggest box office star to MGM for an extended production schedule.  On February 28, 1938, columnist Louella Parsons broke the news, “Judy Garland to Play Dorothy in Metro’s ‘Wizard of Oz’ Film.”

The Hanging Munchkin: 

This is another urban legend.  When the home media market exploded in the early 1980s, the prints that were made available on videotape and early laserdiscs were faded and slightly fuzzy, similar to what had been broadcast on TV over the previous decades.  Viewers mistakenly thought that some of the movement in the background of the scenes in the Tin Man’s Forest were people rather than what they actually were, exotic birds.  This somehow morphed into the legend that a “Munchkin” hanged himself while a scene was shot and it mistakenly was left in the film.  Another version claims it happened on the Munchkinland set while yet another version claims it happened right behind the Wicked Witch while she’s on top of the roof of the Tin Man’s cottage threatening Dorothy and her companions.  The legend has persisted over the past several decades.

The Wizard of Oz was filmed on closed sets.  Additionally, the film was more costly and tricky to shoot than most films.  Everything was accounted for and a random little person finding their way onto the set, during a day of filming, to hang themselves, makes no logical sense.

Photo below: Director Victor Fleming (at right), gives direction (?) to one of the many exotic birds that the studio borrowed from the Los Angeles Zoo to populate the Tin Man’s forest.  That’s the bird’s handler on the left.

The Actual World Premiere: 

On August 9, 1939, The Wizard of Oz had its world premiere in New Bedford, Massachusetts.  The world premiere of the film was previously thought to have been in Green Bay, on August 10, 1939, but according to the August 23, 1939, issue of the trade magazine “The Exhibitor,” the world premiere was actually on August 9, 1939, at the State Theatre in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

The reason for the discrepancies is that the Hollywood premiere was originally scheduled for August 10th but was moved to the 15th at almost the last minute.  The film was already scheduled to open on several dates in several spots around the country.  The dates of those engagements were not changed.  According to newspaper records, the film was scheduled to premiere in several cities and towns in the midwest on the same day, August 11.  However, the owners of the State Theatre in New Bedford, The Zietz Brothers, jumped the gun and showed the film “before a capacity house” on August 9.  This was probably due to the fact that Judy and Mickey Rooney were in the area as part of their personal appearances tour leading up to the New York premiere, which the Zietz Brothers took advantage of.

The pre-Hollywood premiere showings of the film were as follows:

• • August 9:  New Bedford, Massachusetts
  • August 10:  Green Bay, Wisconsin
  • August 11: Cape Cod, Massachusetts; Kenosha, Neenah, and Appleton, Wisconsin
  • August 12: Oconomowoc, Wisconsin
  • August 13: Portsmouth, New Hampshire; Racine, Rhinelander, and Sheboygan, Wisconsin

Oconomowoc, Winsconsin, has claimed to being the location of the film’s world premiere on August 12th, and it was reported as such for several decades, but as noted, the film actually (and quietly) premiered on August 9th in New Bedford, Massachusetts.  In fact, since the film had been playing for several days ahead of the official world premiere in Hollywood, there was time for the “Green Bay Gazette” to publish an early review of the film.

Munchkin Shenanigans:

More legends galore exist about what the little people who played the Munchkins were up to both off the set and on.  In fact, much of the plot of the 1981 flop Under the Rainbow was based on these legends.  The legends include stories about lecherous behavior by some of the little men, attempted murder, drunkenness, prostitution, running amok at the MGM studios, and even harassing Judy Garland (and various other cast members, crew, and studio employees).  Garland herself didn’t help matters when she joked on TV in the 1960s that the Munchkins “were DRUNKS!”  Known as a raconteur, Garland liked to tell exaggerated stories for effect.  She joked that the studio picked them up at night in butterfly nets and that one little man asked her out.  She said that when she politely replied that her mother wouldn’t like it, he allegedly said, “Aw, bring your mom, too!”  At the time she told these stories, everyone knew she was embellishing.

As with most legends of this kind, the stories have been blown out of proportion.  It didn’t help that before, during, and in the decades after the production, little people were the butt of insensitive jokes and harassment due to their size.  There were most likely isolated incidents as there would be with any large group assembled like this and staying at the same hotel for an extended period of time.  “Work hard, play hard.”  But the image of little people running around Los Angeles like something out of a Looney Tunes cartoon or a scene in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? isn’t fair.  The little people worked just as hard as everyone else on the production, getting to the studio very early for hours of being made up and costumes, then enduring long 6-day work weeks.  There wasn’t much time for the kind of mischief that’s been attributed to them.

Enduring Legacy:

When The Wizard of Oz was shown on TV for the second time on December 13, 1959 (its first airing was in 1956), it began an unprecedented annual broadcast tradition that seared the film into the American national consciousness.  It became iconic in many ways via its imagery, quotable lines, music, and the simple moral of the story.  Watching the film each year, and only that one time each year, was a shared communal event.  For kids, it was right up there with Christmas and Halloween as one of the top annual kid events.  Even after the home media “revolution” of the 1980s, the film remained an annual event until the 1990s when it began to be shown multiple times a year on cable TV.  By that point, most households had a copy of it in one home media format or another.  That fact hasn’t diminished its legacy as one of the greatest films ever made, and as THE greatest live-action musical fantasy film.  Even before the TV broadcasts, when the film was first re-released in 1949, it was already considered a timeless masterpiece.

It’s estimated that The Wizard of Oz has been seen (thanks in large part to those annual broadcasts) by more people than any other film in history.  What better film to reach so many than this brilliant, beautiful musical fantasy about the very real human need to find one’s courage, heart, brains, and true friendships?  This is what carries us through the scary times and is why the film continues to touch us so deeply.  And it always will.