Something younger viewers don't get is that this movie was an EVENT. Every year, it appeared on TV only ONE TIME. That made it really special to generations of viewers. I maintain that tradition even now, only watching it once a year.
Yes it was an event. And it was one of the very few times I got to stay up late on a school night to watch it all. It was definitely a movie I looked forward to.
That's how I used to watch it as a kid. We didn't own a copy of it, so my family would sit and watch it together when it was on TV once a year and that was the late '80's and early '90's. Many generations have grown up watching the movie that way.
Margaret Hamilton (the Wicked Witch) felt so bad that her performance terrified so many children (I was one of them) over the years. She appeared on "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood" and showed how the witch's outfit was dress-up, and that witches are just make-believe. She may have been mean and scary in the movie, but in real-life she was very kind and sweet.
That’s really sweet of her! I’m sad that witches got a bad reputation bc of films like these, and I’m sad she said they’re make-believe, but I love that she did her best to make kids feel safer! Tbh, until I met my stepmom when I was 19, I never knew anyone was afraid of the witch. I was alway scared of the flying monkeys
So my grandpa told me about the first time he watched this: He kept hitting the TV because it was in black and white and they advertised this as the first colored movie. He didn't realize that the color came in later in the movie 😂😂😂
The first ten times I watched it, it was all in black and white (not even sepia at the start and the end). Most people in the 50s and early 60s did not have color TV.
To me, one of the funniest things to come from the movie is actually a line from another movie. In Beetlejuice, that one guy says "don't mind her, she's still mad because somebody dropped a house on her sister." It's just such an elegant burn.
There was a similar line in the TV show becker. Somebody asked him what happened to his ex wife and he retorted with "a house fell on her sister, i haven't seen her since" lol
The scene where Dorothy leaves the house and everything turns color in one shot, was an entirely practical effect. The set was painted sepia tone, along with Dorothy, who was Judy Garland's double. Once she opened the door, she stepped out of frame, and Judy Garland, who's in color steps in. It's an extremely simple effect, but works so well.
I thought I knew all the effects in this movie, having read trivia on it my she life, but somehow I didn't know this. And now I think it's my favorite effect. That is so freaking awesome.
The Avengers: Nick Fury: “... And I would like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys.” Thor: “Monkeys? I do not understand.” Steve Rogers: “I do. I understood that reference.” And now you too understand that reference!!! 😁💙💙💙
Just an FYI re Margaret Hamilton who played the wicked witch, in real life she was a total sweetheart. I had an older friend who taught school in the sixties near where Margaret Hamilton lived. Her students were scared of the witch as well, so my friend wrote Hamilton, explained the situation and invited her to visit her class. Hamilton accepted, explained to the kids what acting was all about, told tales of her experience making the film, and won the kids over with her charm. Apparently Hamilton was overwhelmed by the attention and was brought to tears. Hamilton was a wonderful woman, as was my friend. RIP Gerry
There was a lot of recasting in this movie. 1. Ray Bolger was originally supposed to play the tinman and Buddy Ebsen was supposed to play the scarecrow, but Bolger wanted to play the scarecrow so he and Ebsen switched roles. Then Ebsen had a severe allergic reaction to the aluminum dust used to make the tinman's makeup and had to spend six months in an iron lung, so the part of the tinman went to Jack Haley. 2. Shirley Temple was originally supposed to play Dorothy, but she was under contract with United Artists, and they wouldn't release her from her contract, so that part went to Judy Garland, whose real name was Frances Gumm. She was an unknown at the time and the studio changed her name to Judy Garland because they thought it sounded more glamorous. 3. W.C. Fields was originally supposed to play the Wizard, but he wanted too much money, so that part went to Frank Morgan. 4. Gale Sondegaard was supposed to play the Wicked Witch of the West, but they decided she was too glamorous, so they asked Margaret Hamilton, to play the Wicked Witch.
The overall biggest lesson of this movie was that everything the characters wanted they already had. They just didn’t know it. Even the wizard. Once he was found out the good people of Oz still listened to him, respected him & obeyed him. They believed in him. Dorothy has to realize that no matter how gloomy her life on the farm was, she was surrounded by people who loved her & she had no fears there. There’s no place like home. The scarecrow was always smart. Figuring out what to do. Always coming up with a plan. The tin man was always emotional. He wore his preverbal heart on his sleeve. He cared, he cried, he showed fear, joy, excitement. He had emotions all along. And the “cowardly” lion was always courageous when he truly needed to be. The gifts they were given were only to make them feel as though they finally had something they desired yet had all along but didn’t realize it. The wizard felt important & powerful having bestowed these things upon them all. Because just like professor Marvel, he was a fraud who didn’t believe in himself but desperately wanted others to believe in him. I never thought they could make a prequel to this movie that’d do the original any justice. But I highly recommend you watch “Oz the great and powerful “ soon. It’s pretty good.
1/ The brown and white parts of the film is Sepia (pronounced C-P-Ah), the brown filter is added to the monochrome film to make things including people look more natural. 2/ The twister special effect is considered by many Storm Chasers (an actual job) to be one of the most realistic looking tornados ever shown in a movie which is impressive for a movie made in 1939. 3/ The actress playing Glinda was 54 years old at the time, I was surprised to learn this as I thought she was decades younger than that.
If I remember correctly, the tornado was done using a fan blowing through a silk stocking... kinda like one of those inflatable wavy-arm guys, only upside-down
@Brad1980 It was a dream in the movie. That's one of the things they changed from the books. For example, how'd she wake up in her bed in her house when it was still in Oz?
Naah, I felt ripped off the first time I saw it when I was three years old. Like she went through all that for nothing? Return to Oz was awesome because it vindicated Dorothy's journey
“How can you cry if you don’t have a heart?” And that’s the whole moral of the story. Everyone already had what they thought they were missing. Also Technicolor was invented in 1917. But it was prohibitively expensive to use for decades. So no major color films were made until the 1930s and then only rarely. When Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind were both released in Technicolor in 1939, audiences began demanding color for all big spectacle films. That year was a major turning point for color.
Well yes and no, the original story is a metaphor for American politics. The Scarecrow represents the American farmer who needs education, the tin man being American industry needs a heart, and the COwardly Lion is the President of the United states and the Wizard of Oz is the Secretary of the Treasury who could give people these things. At least that's how it were explained to me.
@@effigytormented Trivia! The book wasn't a metaphor, but a professor in the 60s(?) was looking for a way to better teach the silver standard and stuff to his students so he was the one who made the connections.
The Wizard Of Oz improves when you watch other movies from the era. People don't realize how technically advanced this movie was. It is leaps and bounds ahead of its time, and like you said, is extremely watchable today. Glad you finally got to see it!
Fun facts about the movie: In the Munchkin Land scene, the actress who played the wicked witch got slightly burned as they lit the pyro prematurely while she dropped through the floor to "disappear" in the flame and smoke. She took six weeks to heal. Toto (real name Terry) was a female and made $125 a week, while the Munchkin actors (mostly all little people) got $50/week. Toto got accidentally stepped on by a stage hand, injuring her paw and she recuperated at Judy Garland's house. Judy loved the dog and wanted to adopt her but her owner declined, as Terry was a busy actress who was in several movies- she ended up with 18 acting credits in all. Oh..btw. The brownish color whose name you're searching for is sepia.
heres another fact, bet you and nobody else noticed the scarecrow carrying a gun? yup he carried a .38 caliber revolver in the movie. If you dont believe me look it up
another fact is the producers were evil messed up people, Judy got severly addicted to amphetamines and sleeping pills the rest of her life due to this movie they gave her uppers to do the dancing and acting 12 hours a day then downers to sleep, then more uppers to wake up. They also said she was fat and made her loose 12 pounds and only fed her little tiny dinners, no breakfast or lunch, unless you consider speed a meal
The green makeup the witch wore had copper in it. So when the actress playing the witch got burned, her face got the worst of it due to the copper in the green makeup heating up and melting to her skin.
the 2 best things about this movie: for the transition shot between the sepia and the colorful oz, they literally painted the farmhouse room and the body double in sepia tones; and the entire movie matches up perfectly to pink floyd's dark side of the moon
@@KRAFTWERK2K6 what he or she left out is that grandma & grandpa were in the back row and remember nothing about the movie, if you get my drift... jk, I too think it's very sweet 😇
Really? Did you HAVE TO go there? If you're just kidding, why ruin a nice, wholesome mental moment for every reader by injecting some unneeded sexual overtones into it? It was 1939, pre-WW2 United States. I can guarantee very little of that "stuff" was happening in the theaters back then. Decent morality actually meant something back then, and we could sure use a lot more of that right now.
Have you ever heard of a play called “Wicked”? THIS is what THAT is based upon. Buddy Ebsen (Jed Clampett from Beverly Hillbillies) was the original Tin Man, but became deathly ill from the silver paint, so Jack Haley replaced him. There were several musical numbers filmed that didn’t make the final cut. The history behind The Wizard of Oz is very rich. I’m so glad you watched it 😊👍
Those cut scenes are quite remarkable. Especially the extended dance scenes with Scarecrow & Tinman. None of them add much to the story, or move the plot along, so I get why they made those cuts. They're still wonderful to see.
The first time I ever saw this movie as a kid, color tv's were just coming out. We all gathered at our neighbor's house for an Oz party to watch it. When that door opened, there was a gasp you we just knew could be heard around the world. It was amazing. It became a holiday tradition to repeat every year. What a wonderful memory. Thank you for watching it with me in this way. :)
This used to play on TV every year, so it really became ingrained in people's minds. It's always surprising when I hear people haven't seen it. My mom originally watched it on a black and white TV, and when her uncle bought a color TV they were invited over to watch. She was really surprised when it switched to color. My dad was actually not scared of the witch, but of the flying monkeys. This is also the movie, in Avengers, that references the flying monkeys that Steve Rogers is able to recognize.
I was just telling my daughter that for my entire childhood this was considered a movie for the holidays. We watched it about Thanksgiving time every single year.
Fun fact Margaret Hamilton (the wicked witch of the west) was super nice and very generous to children's charities and schools, but the character was so scary that when she was on sesame street, the episode only aired once and was never seen again. Her guest appearance on mister Rogers neighborhood was all about Hollywood and make believe in the movies. They were just perfect together. Edit: She was seriously burned by the fireball in the munchkin village scene.
For her spectacular exit she was to step on a trap door, swirl her cape, the trap door would drop her below the stage, burst of flame through the opened trap door, then close the trap door while the fire burned away. Unfortunately the trap door started dropping her but the flame started before she was clear. Her costume and makeup caught fire. The scene in the movie was the original, as it was never reshot.
The annual primetime network airing of this movie was like a national holiday for kids. There was no home video, streaming, etc. that allowed us to watch whatever we wanted whenever we wanted, so we would do whatever it took to be there in front of the TV when it came on. No movie ever seemed quite so magical. Today it's still one of my three favorite movies of all time, along with "King Kong" (1933) and "Shane." I enjoyed your appreciative reaction.
My mom had lost her purse and got a phone call from the person who found it offering to meet her at a store. My sister and I begged to stay home alone at ages 6 and 4 because The Wizard of Oz was going to start…. Whyyyy did it have to be THAT day. Decades later and I still remember.
I love that Peter Jackson brought the original King Kong figure to the premiere of his remake and put in the giant creepy valley of the bugs scene the original 1933 script didn’t have the budget for.
Thank you so much for getting the part where Glinda tells her only bad witches are ugly but has been asking her if she is a good which or a bad witch. So many people miss that!
So, only good witches are pretty, only bad witches are ugly. OK, if Glinda can't figure out if Dorothy's good or bad, based on looks, then good ol' Dot must be quite 'ordinary' looking for a resident of Oz. Oh, and by the way, Toto is actually the REAL hero in this story. Look at all he does - Escape Miss Gulch, be a faithful companion to Dorothy throughout, escape the witch's castle & get help for Dorothy, expose the Wizard for who he really is, and cause Dorothy to use an 'alternate way' of getting home by jumping out of the balloon at the end. He's also right by her side when she wakes up. Love me some Toto.🥰
It is a weird detail but for some reason I absolutely adore the matte paintings that fill out the Oz shots. They don't look real but they are perfect for the landscape of a dream, creating this beautiful, almost hyper-real world you want to explore. It's the kind of magic you don't see in modern movies because computers have largely made matte paintings obsolete.
They don't look real because they're not supposed to. Remember, this is a FANTASY film. Everything in color is a dream sequence, thus, the cartoonish aspect of all the characters & scenes. It's a children's book brought to life.
In Blake’s defense, The Wicked Witch scared the crap out of kids when this came out and for years after. To the point that Mr Rogers did an early episode decades later on his show where the actress the played the Witch was aa guest and they explained/showed the makeup process to demystify her scariness for kids.
@@BleydTorvall Yes! The flying monkeys and specifically the SOUND they make - WOO! WOO! WOOOOO!! and when they rip the scarecrow to pieces! Terrifying!
Beat me to these points! I doubt that L. Frank Baum would have liked this movie. He specifically wrote it as a wonder tale - without terror. Also, growing up in the 60s I watched this many times on my parents' black and white television set. I didn't see the big color reveal until I saw the movie on the big screen in a revival house theater.
@@paulgunderson4721 "wrote it as a wonder tale - without terror" Did you even read the books!? There are wolves who get hacked to pieces. The stories are an American take on Grimm Tales. They're supposed to be scary so the positive messages stick with the kid
"Over the Rainbow" was voted the greatest song of the 20th century in a poll conducted by the National Endowment of the Arts and the Recording Industry Association of America. Your comment that there cannot be songs this good is spot on. MGM actually pulled the song out of the movie. Their executives said it slowed the movie down. The producer threatened to quit if they didn't put it back in.
MGM chief executive Louis B. Mayer thought it "slowed down the picture," was far over the heads of its targeted child audience, and sounded "like something for Jeanette MacDonald, not for a little girl singing in a barnyard". Fleming, producer Mervyn LeRoy, associate producer Arthur Freed, and Roger Edens, who was Judy Garland's vocal coach and mentor, fought together to have the song reinserted back into the film and they eventually won.
It's kind of comforting to know that after a massive world war, the mapping of the human genome, and the creation of a global information network, that studio executives are still just as stupid and clueless as they ever have been. The more things chance, the more they stay the same.
7:54 “What in the acid trip is that?” OMFG!! I had to pause the video to laugh at that, and took me a full two minutes to write this comment from laughing and wiping tears from my eyes.
"The dead guy in the tree" has been an urban legend for a long time, but it was just a bird that got loose. Also, Frank Morgan, the Wizard, played 5 characters: Mr. Marvel, the crying guard, the coach driver, Oz and the man behind the curtain.
@@DemonicGoddess i saw a documentary about it. One of the cranes (looked like a peacock to me) wandering free on set swung it's long neck down and people thought the sudden snap of movement was an actor hanging himself in the background
I totally get not having seen some classic films, but so much of this story is just part of the general cultural knowledge that my brain melted a little bit when you were surprised to learn that the witch died from water, or that the giant Oz head wasn't real. 😂
Right?! Like, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" has become such a popular expression when referring to con-artists / professional liars / phony politicians and religious leaders, etc. I always assume that type of stuff makes it near impossible to not know at least that part of the movie.
The other thing this movie is famous for, is the absolute Sh*tstorm that was the shoot, with the Wicked Witch getting third degree burns from the pyros during her exit, the first TWO actors who played the tinman getting poisoned by the silver makeup, the Munchkins getting drunk and Judy Garland being kept on a diet of coffee and cigarettes to keep her thin for the whole of shooting.
All these years later, the moment when you see OZ in full Technicolor still holds up. Can you imagine seeing that for the first time, in the theater, in 1939?
Interesting fact; In the original books, the Emerald City isn't actually emerald, the Wizard makes everyone wear green tinted glasses that make everything look like emeralds.
@@ladygray6081 It's been a while since I read it, but I'm pretty sure that was just the excuse, the real reasonwas to make it seem nicer than it really was. The movie is great, but the books are far superior from a storytelling perspective. They have better worldbuilding, better characters, etc.
@@goldilox369 He was a travelling stage magician from the US, so he was used to duping people. Oz the Great and Powerful is a kind of prequel film following the Wizard upon his arrival in Oz. It's more a prequel to the books, though, rather than the movie (since the movie makes Oz just a dream), though it takes inspiration from the movie.
Fun fact: The tin man, the scarecrow, and the lion all already had the attributes that they wanted to get from the wizard. The scarecrow was incredibly intelligent and always came up with the plans that everyone used throughout the movie. The tin man was very emotional, he was crying at the movie and clearly was a bit of a romantic. and while the Lion gets scared pretty often, he still do what he had to do to help his friends so that showed his bravery. What the wizard helped them deal was realize what they already had.
Which is interesting because in the book the wizard did give the three what they wanted. Supposedly the ending in the movie version was a statement against the (1930's) progressive movement.
"Over the Rainbow" came dangerously close to being cut from the movie. The studio head thought it slowed the movie too much, but the film makers fought to keep it in.
Personal experience: This and Heidi were both considered Thanksgiving movies when i was a kid. Why? Because one of the networks would broadcast them on Thanksgiving day to keep the kids from bugging mom in the kitchen and dad watching the NFL on the other networks. That's why.
Back when there were only three channels, this movie was shown every year on Thanksgiving. I remember watching it on TV for the first time in the mid-1970s. Then the following year you might be with different friends and family, but you would still gather and watch it all over again. In my family, as I recall, we'd make popcorn (the non-microwave kind) and wait with great expectation for the movie to start. With all the commercials, the damn thing ran for three hours, but it was a tradition to tune in and watch this. Every year a new generation would get hooked on The Wizard of Oz. It truly was a part of the national culture. Now, everything is splintered and we watch what we want to when we want to, via streaming. The technology available to us is amazing, and I wouldn't want to go back to the old days. But I also acknowledge it is sad what we have lost. I mean, my goodness, there are people who have NEVER EVEN SEEN THIS MOVIE!
@@HemlockRidge From Wiki. Did some digging. The 1959-1962 broadcasts occurred in autumn between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Beginning with the 1963-64 season, these special presentations were seen in the first quarter of the year as well as around Easter and Passover. The film was not broadcast in the U.S. in 1963, 1992, 1995, or 1997.
I don't know if was different in different regions. Like RR, I was used to seeing Wizard every Thanksgiving as I grew up in the 80s. Until Ted Turner bought it up, I believe. Ten Commandments ran every Easter.
A TRUE classic never goes out of style and _The Wizard of Oz_ fits that description perfectly. The behind-the-scenes of this film and its impact on the legend that is Judy Garland is so heartbreaking.
Yes, she was abused w/ the studio system, & she also had an overbearing stage mother that didn't help the situation. And her career peaked in Wizard if Oz at age 16.
The meme of the supposed "Hanging Munchkin" was in the back of the scene where they pick up the Tin Man and encounter the Wicked Witch. If you look beyond the cottage at the trees, you'll see movement in the very back of the set near the matte-painted wall. What people claim was a munchkin hanging himself was actually a swan spreading his wings and shaking them. And the color you are trying to remember from the beginning is Sepeatone.
@@JohnWilsonComicsGuy I have found the TH-cam "spell checker/highlighter" to be wrong as often as it flags mifspeiled words. (Especially foreign languages, too!;)
Summary in newspaper TV guide for this movie: “teenage runaway travels abroad, kills the first person she meets before banding together with 3 locals to kill again”
The beginning of this movie was filmed in sepia tones. When Dorothy first saw Oz the transition to color made audiences gasp at the change. They hired around 122 little people to be the munchkins. According to legend, these little people would get rip-roaring drunk and had wild parties that were X-rated. True or not, their antics of the little people were portrayed in the 1981 film Under The Rainbow. Bert Lahr's suit was actually made from the skins of two lions. The "horse of a different color" was colored by using flavored gelatin. Reportedly they had to work hard to keep the horses from licking it off.
When I was a kid, this movie was on TV every year. In those days, though, we had a black and white set. I can remember my mom (who had seen it in the movie theaters as a kid) trying really hard to explain to us how in Oz everything was in color and it was really cool, but we had to use our imaginations.
Just a quick shout out to thank you for this review. The WOZ was my late wife's very favorite movie, and as sad as I sometimes become watching it with our three kids over the years since her passing, having wonderful reviews like yours makes it all better! You're awesome Ashleigh and congrats because you are almost at 100,000 subs!!!
This movie has been shown on tv for decades at thanksgiving when they knew families would be together and want to watch a family friendly movie. It’s not really thanksgiving themed but is a tradition for a lot of people at thanksgiving.
Interesting fact: The man who directed The Wizard of Oz, Victor Fleming, also directed most of Gone With The Wind. Two massive films in one year. Margaret Hamilton, who played the witch, got badly burnt during a season. Also she was a school teacher before being an actress and spent most of her life working for children's charity. A lovely lady by all accounts. 😊
The Good Witch Of The South: In the novel, Glinda IS the Witch Of The South, and doesn't appear until near the end when the group travels to seek her advice in getting Dorothy home. The Witch Of The North that greets Dorothy and gives her the slippers is a different character, Tattypoo. Also, there are a LOT of books - in the novels Oz is a real place, and Dorothy eventually moves there permanently with her aunt and uncle. c:
@@tj_2701 One scene they skip over is right aftwr they pick up the lion where the party have to cross a gully and have to pass these creatures that are bears that stand on their hind legs and have lobster claws for hands! They also glossed over getting out of the poppies. There were a village of mice that help them by carrying them out of the field.
When I was a kid in the late 70's early 80's, and before movie rentals took off, this movie would only come on CBS once a year, (hosted by Angela Lansbury for many years) and I never ever missed it. It was my favorite day of the year!
FYI, Judy Garland was 16 when she did this movie. At the beginning, the 40 years referred to when the book was written. So approx 1899, and 40 years to the movie in 1939. When I was a kid, I also thought she was going to die when the sand ran out, but I think it was intended simply as a time piece. When the sands ran out, the witch would come back and kill her. As for the flying monkeys, yeah, they were terrifying when I was a kid. Somewhere in that time (when I was young), McHale's Navy and other WWII related shows and movies were big and I remember coping with the monkeys by imagining I had a twin .50 cal machinegun mount under the tree line so I could shoot down all the monkeys as they came flying down. This is one of those movies where you don't know if Oz is real, or just her hallucination after hitting her head. The witch was the mean lady on the bicycle. The wizard was Professor Marvel. And of course the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion were the farm hands. But there were later books and animated films where Dorothy returned to Oz. You can also do some trivia searching regarding the actors who played the Munchkins and the shenanigans that went on. Glad you liked it!
Part of the issue with the munchkins was that they needed so many little people that they were just any random person of the right size. Only a small portion were professional performers with singing, dancing, and acting skills. Most were just whoever they could get to do it. Put that many random people not used to being on set in one place, shenanigans are guaranteed.
I used to have a Cairn terrier named Ruby she was the coolest dog and she did not give two f's . She went from living in apartments to living in the country when I got her and she was always out in the woods chasing something down and being a good old country dog. She lived until the ripe old age of 18 and died of old age.❤❤
Little fact: Buddy Ebsen (Beverly Hillbillies, Breakfast at Tiffany’s) was originally the Tin-Man. But the aluminum makeup gave him a reaction so he spent 2 weeks in the hospital. Jack Haley replaced him and they reshot scenes they already filmed with Ebsen. You can still hear Ebsen’s voice during “We’re Off to See The Wizard”.
It wasn't an allergic reaction - this is a story the studio put out, and Ebsen was still mighty pissed about it when I heard an interview with him shortly before he died. It was the chemical composition of the make up which almost killed him. They changed it up for Jack Haley.
Also, Buddy Ebsen was originally cast as the Scarecrow and Ray Bolger was cast as the Tin Man. Bolger's fame was mostly as a dancer, and he was worried that the heavy tin costume would restrict his dancing moves, so he persuaded Ebsen and the producers to let them trade roles. Then, Ebsen was almost killed by inhaling the aluminum dust that was part of the makeup for the Tin Man costume and had to be hospitalized. Jack Haley, his replacement, got a safer, aluminum paste makeup, which didn't endanger his life but did give him a nasty eye infection.
"What in the acid trip is that"....Ashleigh that was such a classic line that had me laughing! I love your reactions and this movie is such a big deal so glad you finally watched it. I got to see it in the theater (my local would run it every few years in the 60s) and the witch with her flying monkey things always scared me. The witch putting them all 'in a kind of death sleep' using a poppy field and Glinda waking them up with 'snow' sure seem like references to certain popular drugs to me. There is a lot of lore and fun facts behind this classic so look into it more.
I just came in to say the same thing because hippies in 1970s used to drop acid and watch Wizard of Oz but with no sound but with Dark Side of the Moon playing
so glad someone referenced the drug symbolism in the poppy field. Yes, poppies are where opium comes from, which would have definitely put them into a hazy dreamlike, "sleep" state, and "snow" is, as someone pointed out, slang for cocaine, which would have woken them right up. This movie is "trippy" looking for many reasons :)
"Do we see a witch of the south?" Not in the movie, but in the book, Glinda is the good witch of the south, and we don't see here until the end. The witch she meets when she first arrives in Oz in the book is an unnamed good witch of the North. Also in the book, it's not a dream, it really happens. Last summer I played the wicked witch of the west in a local production of the wizard of oz.
Books ruin films. People need to stop reading them and just watch films instead. No, I am not entirely joking. Have grown tired of the complainers listing their gripes about how films never follow the books. Books don't have a time constraint, but films have to be edited for time and therein lies the problem but readers never stop bitching about it.
@@Coxmaul no, Glinda and Evanora (Witch of the East) fight and Glinda crushes her necklace with the jewel, taking her powers and her good looks. Then the apes fly her off to the East (I'm assuming.) Also, I assume if they made a sequel Theodora would have given her sister her ruby ring and gave her powers again.
This is the first I've seen of your videos, and I have to tell you: it was so much fun to see your reaction to this movie. I'm 20 years old, and I barely saw it for the first time, like, last year. I'm a really big fan of old hollwood musicals (and especially Judy Garland), so of course I had to see this movie. You mentioned at one point how the Scarecrow falls repeatedly throughout the movie. Well, I read somewhere- before I saw the movie- that one of the actors in it was a physical comedian...it didn't take long to figure out who that was.😅 Ray Bolger, who played the Scarecrow, was known for being very physically gifted and funny. I also have to agree with you about how gorgeous Dorothy is. What's so sad is that Judy Garland, who played Dorothy, never believed she was beautiful because she was constantly told by MGM execs that she wasn't. There's only one movie she made called "Meet Me in St.Louis" in 1944 that she claimed she felt beautiful in. I agree with you; she is so pretty here, but she is stunning and gorgeous all the time. I encourage you to watch more of her movies.❤❤❤
Little fact: Margaret Hamilton who plays the Wicked Witch of The West got third degree burns on her face and second degree burns on her hands during her exit from Munchkinland. The flames rose too soon before she descended under the stage. They had to remove her makeup with alcohol because it was copper based. She had a green tint to her skin long after they were done filming. She was also so terrifying to children that they cut down her lines significantly in the final cut. She also appeared on a 1976 episode of Sesame Street as the witch. The production got so many complaints from parents whose kids were terrified. They pulled the episode and it hasn’t aired once since 1976.
Margaret Hamilton also appeared on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood in costume, but out of makeup, to help kids not be scared of her performance or of witches in costume. By most accounts, Hamilton was a very nice person and reportedly the only person on-set in this movie that was nice to Judy Garland.
The Thanksgiving feel is because this movie was once shown annually on prime time TV around this time. Before the era of recording shows, this was always a holiday treat.
@@thomast8539 You must be younger than me. In the 1960s, CBS showed it in prime time ever year around this time. I think this changed in later decades, especially when Ted Turner got the rights. Then TBS or TCM would show film God knows when.
I was trying to remember too…..I think The Wizard of Oz was always on around Thanksgiving/Xmas time, and The Sound of Music was always on around Easter. They were evens you made sure you were watching growing up. Something to look forward to.
@@NotData 1956 MGM sold the tv rights to CBS. Wiki: The 1959-1962 broadcasts occurred in autumn between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Beginning with the 1963-64 season, these special presentations were seen in the first quarter of the year as well as around Easter and Passover. The film was not broadcast in the U.S. in 1963, 1992, 1995, or 1997.
I must have been VERY very young when i saw this film for the very first time but i vividly remembered a lot of things. Like the amazing twister scene, the transition from Monochrome to Color (The german TV broadcast master back then wasn't sepia but black and white and color) and the yellow brick road and the incredible sets. Dunno how young i was. Probably 4 or so. Then a few years later i saw it again and i was like re-living a distant dream. It was absolutely pure magic and i was amazed at how much i could still remember just from ONE time watching. THAT is how much this film impressed me as a lil boy. And as i grew up i had no idea how old that film already was. I'd always assume it was from the 60s or so but my god was i blown away when i realized it was from the late 1930s. This film really is a loveletter to everyone, old and young, who never give up dreaming about positive things and friendship. It stood the test of time and keeps captivating audiences of all new generations. THAT film is the most wonderful thing you could ever achieve with the medium of motion pictures.
The movie transitioning from sepia to color was HUGE! when it first came out. The color was extremely expensive, so most movies were in Sepia or Black and White. If I remember right, the studio almost canceled the film because of it, but a surprise secret viewing showed that the audience loved it so they went for it.
@@greatestscott6599 Theres a great scean in City Slickers where Billy Crystals character is talking about his father and going to a baseball game for the first time. That was the first time he say a proffessional base ball game in color because their tv at home was still in black and white.
I love how enchanted you are by this. I feel like there was never a time in my life that I didn't know about the Wizard of Oz because it's so famous, but you get to see it with fresh eyes. Yeah the color aspect was still a huge deal at the time which is a lot to do with why the colors in Oz are so garish and vibrant. They wanted people to be dazzled by the new technology. They even changed her magic footwear from "silver shoes" to "ruby slippers" because they thought the red would pop more on the screen. What's funny is that I have no recollection of her going to the psychic at the beginning. I know I saw the movie several times as a kind, but I guess that scene left no impression on me.
To answer your question about the munchkins, yes they are all little people. In fact it was the largest gathering of little people in history at the time, about 100+ and many had never met another little person before. It became so impactful and meaningful to them that since then they have had reunions and created little people conferences and support groups from this. One of the more positive things that came from this movie
If you can find it. I highly recommend the 2019 anniversary addition of this film. It was remastered from the original Technicolor negatives. Technicolor used 3 different rolls of film. One for each color channel. They were able to scan the original film and clean it digitally. When they put the three films together they aligned each frame so that every pixel matched up exactly. This gives the film a better appearance than even the original version (where the three films were lined up mechanically with sprockets). It's an amazing restoration. The amount of detail it brings out is stunning.
The "goose" was some kind of stork or egret. The "body" of meme lore was just another big bird they had wandering in the background on set (or maybe the same one). It was far in the background, and thanks to some of the tree branches someone thought it looked like a hanging body. And once the "shocking thing you didn't notice in kids film" factoid started circulating, no amount of facts would shut it down. There was always someone new for the OMG! reaction.
Same thing with the "ghost" on the set of Three Men and a Baby. It was a cardboard stand-up display of Ted Danson's character, who was a model and an actor.
My friends and I watched for that scene over and over back in the 80s and you could see what looked like a shadow standing on something and then the something tip over or fall off and it could have been someone hanging. As glad as I am that no one actually committed suicide it is still a little disappointing that it was just a bird in the background.
To answer the question, Scarecrow by far. First, I love his dialogue. There's a scene where he says, 'some people without brains do an awful lot of talking'. That line is so relevant nowadays, that I almost dare to say that it might have been prophetic. Secondly, for not having a brain, he's the only one that thought to bring a gun when going after the Witch.
$250 per week vs $50 per week. Then again, there were 130 Munchkins and 1 dog. It did, however, lead to an advocacy group representing little people(Yes, SJWs, that's what it was called) in the industry.
I adore Judy Garland, and I think you'd also really enjoy "Meet Me in St. Louis", a later musical of hers. She introduces the song "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" in that film.
My favorite Judy Garland film. Vincent Minelli fell in love with her when he was directing it, you can tell by how beautifully she's filmed; every frame is a love letter.
9:47 "Do we see the witch of the south?" Not in the movie, but in the original book that the movie was based on. In fact, Glinda is the witch of the south in the book, whereas the witch of the north is a different character. The witch of the north is the one that sends Dorothy to see the wizard, and then we never see her again. Glinda (the witch of the south) then shows up at the end to tell Dorothy that the silver shoes (not ruby slippers) can send her home. (Also, it's not a dream in the book.)
If you read Gregory Maguire's novel _Wicked_ (the one the Broadway play is based on), the two things that always make me laugh is the ends he goes through to avoid a) describing the color of the magic shoes, and b) making explicit exactly what region(s) Glinda is the good witch of. He tries simultaneously stay in canon with *both* continuities, and so it's a lot of fun seeing the various contortions involved in handling the contradictions between the book and the movie if you know what to look for.
@@formulah113 Citation? I'm pretty sure they just collapsed the two Good Witches into one to simplify the story. In the book the journey to visit Glinda involves a whole episode about people made out of china (i.e., porcelain) which is completely omitted in the movie.
@@colej.banning2419 That's interesting especially considering that the continuity of just the Oz books themselves is full of contradictions. For example, money is mentioned in Oz in the first couple of books, but later, it is stated that there is no money in Oz. And "nobody can die in Oz" is stated in one of the later books, as if the author had forgotten that Dorothy killed two witches in the first book, so this statement later gets amended to "nobody can die in Oz unless they just can't go on living"... which is kind of a meaningless statement, I think. And then, there are the conflicting stories about the origins of Princess Ozma and the role that the Wizard of Oz played in overthrowing the previous ruler of Oz... but as none of that is mentioned in "The Wizard of Oz", I'll just stop here.
I remember one time I was watching Japanese animated adaptation of the story on TH-cam, and the comments were pretty much filled with “That witch with the traffic cone hat is not Glinda!”
"The Wizard of Oz" was my late sister Dorisanne's favorite movie. Whenever the movie was on, she demands everyone in the room to be quiet. Love and miss you, Sis.
The film is based on a children's book by L Frank Baum, which has 13 sequels, all of which are sheer genius. They're the kind of children's' books which include plenty of stuff that's fun for the grown-ups who read them to their kids. Highly recommended. Oh, and in the books, Oz isn't just an hallucination that Dorothy has while unconscious. It's an actual place, a 'fairy land' far away that she actually travels to. The movie version is clever, but a huge departure from the books.
I remember my parents getting me this movie for christmas when i was 7 and i watched it and was probably the only one that wasn't really scared of the movie except seeing the wizard for the first time but i enjoy singing the songs they are so so good. Tin man being my favorite he's such a sweet loveable character with the biggest heart you can find and i think we all need people like him Scarecrow and Lion that when things are bad your friends will always be there for you and would sacrife their own life to save yours
Pretty much everyone in my generation saw "The Wizard of Oz" because it was broadcast every year on one of the three networks. It was basically an annual television event not unlike some of the stop-motion Christmas movies, Peanuts, Grinch, etc. So nearly everyone in that era saw it, usually several times over a number of years, and that's why older people are surprised when younger people haven't seen it.
@@MrRezRising I think VCRs and cable both changed everything in terms of everyone seeing the same thing at the same time. When you only have three commercial networks plus public television, you watch what's on when it's on, and hopefully you have good reception.
They did a theatrical release of it when my nieces and nephews, all about Ashley's age now, were between 7-10 years old. I took them all to see it and they HATED it. That was pretty disappointing. Not to mention expensive. I just about had to find a co-signer to buy them all popcorn and sodas, and then they didn't even like the movie.
@@marknash65 Born in 1970, VCRs were proof to me that there was a God. Life changed forever, for the better, but yeah, the magic was the price. For certain live events, I specifically watch live bc of the shared experience feeling, but nowadays it's rare. All I can say is goodbye, farewell, and amen.
"Stop-motion Christmas movies, 'Peanuts,' 'Grinch"? Are you referring to the Rankin-Bass stop motion movies? "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and the original "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" were Animated features.
The word you were looking for in the beginning was sepia toned 😁 Also... what I've read was that the poppies were "opium" which made them tired and then Glinda sprinkled the "snow" on them which was cocaine to wake them up 🤷🏻♀️ AND there was definitely something that looked like a body hanging in the forest on my vhs version from my childhood, I looked for it in my teens when I first heard about it. CRAZY! Love your reactions ❤
There definitely was NOT a body in your version. You've seen the edited clip and you're implanting the memory in your own head. The background was a painted, FLAT backdrop. There was no 'tree' for someone to hang from. The shape in the background is a crane and it is seen in multiple shots and there are documented photographs of the actors and the director with the crane, and documented evidence of the film borrowing the bird and a bunch of other animals from the local zoo to liven up the set and make it seem more exotic. No one killed themselves in the background. It's a myth that has been debunked over and over and over again. Stop perpetuating the lie. If you want to talk about a scandal around the film, focus on the things that actually happened. Like the rampant abuse of poor Judy over her weight, the fact that the Tinman had a horrible reaction to the makeup, and the Lion's costume was so hot he collapsed multiple times. Focus on the actual reality instead of a made up internet hoax that has been not only disproven but ADMITTED TO BE FALSE by the person who made the original fake edit.
The opium poppies aren't simply metaphor. When the poppies are ready for harvest the air would be thick with pollen, which would certainly have a narcotic effect on anyone who inhaled it (note that Scarecrow and Tin Man, who don't breathe, are not affected). The falling snow, while waking them up through cold, would also go some way to clearing the pollen out of the air. For that reason I felt the "snow" as cocaine metaphor was unnecessary and likely untrue, but apparently medicinal cocaine was used at the time as a treatment for opium addiction, so there may be something in it after all.
@Palitato the first actor they got to play the Tin Man was Buddy Ebsen he was the one that had a horrible reaction to the paint they had to change the paint and the actor
The brown colour is known as 'Sepia'. Some squid squirt ink, original sepia was squid ink. 4:33 That is one of the postures for riding an old bicycle it known as 'Sit up and beg'. In 'Airplane' one of Johnny's ad libs was 'Oh Aunty Em it's a twister, it's a twister!' 7:50 This is Technicolor, it is very distinctive, no other colour process looks quite like it. 14:09 Opium orginally comes from poppies (Morphine and Heroin are also Opiates, which are very addictive) that's why the poppies send them to sleep, it's a metaphor. The snow wakes them...you try sleeping when it's cold and damp (unless you're suffering from hypothermia, then it's a very bad idea). 17:15 There is an episode of 'The Simpsons' where Mr. Burns has flying monkeys. He open the window and says 'Fly my pretties' the monkeys jump out of the window and crash to the ground and Burns says 'Continue the research'. In one of the Marvel movies someone makes a Wizard of Oz reference and Captain America goes 'I got that reference!' because most references people make are to things while he was frozen so he doesn't get them.
You absolutely have to delve into more Judy Garland movies!!!! “Meet Me In St. Louis”, “Live Finds Andy Hardy”, “For Me and My Gal”, “Thousands Cheer”, “Girl Crazy”, “The Harvey Girls”, “Easter Parade”, “In The Good Old Summertime”, “Summer Stock” …,,. Many Many great songs came fr. These movies 🥰
Frank Baum was the author of the Wizard of Oz series and he dedicated his life to writing for young children. All of the books in series are phenomenal. He even took consideration to some suggestions made by his fans. Children couldn’t wait for the next book and the next…. I got them on Audible and enjoy listening to them. Eventually they all live in the castle along with Auntie M, the books are so good!
Yes, the biggest difference from the movie to the books is, it all really happens, not a dream! Dorothy comes and goes from Oz a few times, and both Uncle Henry and Aunt Em eventually get to Oz.
Which all completely changes the meaning of the story. The book is about a fantastical escape from the misery of depression era poverty, while film tells you that's just a dream and the best thing is to put up with what you've got.
I just found your channel and you are the absolute funniest reviewer I’ve seen! I couldn’t stop watching you. 😂 I’ve watched this since I was a child and was terrified when I was younger, of the Wicked Witch. Never watched this movie and laughed so hard because of you! Keep going because you’re so much fun to watch!
She was terrifying when you see her on the bike in the tornado turn into the witch & that music & the rest of the movie. Margaret Hamilton was the best.
Ashleigh channeling Ethel Merman as Dorothy. I just love how when she finally escapes Oz to get back to her reality, it's just as dusty dull and grey as when she left.
Hey, when I was five years old there were parts of this movie that made me hide behind my Dad's chair too! Interesting fact, the coat that the wardrobe department supplied for Frank Morgan to wear as professor Marvel was judged to be too new and tidy for the part so someone was sent out to buy another one at a used clothing store. It was eventually discovered from a name tag in the lining that the coat had been made for L. Frank Baum.
Yeah, when I was about 5 and they met the Tin Man and the witch appeared on top of the hut was when I ran around behind the couch to hide. I feel ya, bro! Years later and I've seen this movie twice in the theater on the big screen, one time in jacked up 3D!
I have long suspected that the Baum's coat story was the sort of made-up studio publicity that was common in those days. It is a series of improbable events: that Baum's family, who lived ten miles or more from Culver City, would have sold his frock coat to a Culver City second-hand store (or that it would be re-sold in the intervening twenty years and just happen to end up there); that the coat would still be identifiable as Baum's, twenty years later (and that no intervening owner discovered it, or knew it but sold it anyway); that this coat would just happen to get purchased for just this film and - surprise - turn out to be Baum's. I wonder how many frock coats like that you could find in second-hand stores in 1939? It's a great story, but it defies belief.
@@majkus You make sense on all points, except about identification of it as Baum's. If wealthy enough to have a coat MADE FOR YOU, you'd often get a sewn in tag with embroidery of your name. Basically, you're probably correct. The truth is always more boring than we'd wish life to be.
@@majkus I have never heard this story. I agree that it was probably studio propaganda, just like the later propaganda story that they didn't know the ending of Casablanca and were writing it as they were making it.
I am a grown ass man of 65 and The Wizard of Oz is still my favorite movie of all time. I’m gay, too, but that’s beside the point. This movie embodies everything that a fantasy for children should; wonderful characters, beautiful scenery, memorable songs. I remember being about eight years old and after having seen this movie numerous times, I had the epiphany of figuring out the Scarecrow, the Tinman and the Lion were the farmhands back in Kansas. The wonderment of this has kept this movie in my heart my entire life. It’s a rite of passage much like discovering the truth about Santa. Kinda sad, but what a wonderful movie!
@Doug Spooner Doug, there's a common stereotype that gay men love musicals/musical theatre. He's joking by saying "Of course I love it, I'm gay!" And goes on to say that the movie stands on its own merits as a piece of art. It's just a funny aside to mention he's gay, it is tangentially relevant. Hope that helps.
Up until some time in the 80s or 90s (I think), The Wizard Of Oz came on television ONCE a year very close to Easter. It was a very special event! I can remember being 4 or 5 years old and SOBBING in fear of the witch, I was inconsolable. She was the best witch of all time. My little pre-school self couldn't handle her threatening Dorothy AND Toto. It broke my heart an horrified me. Her mocking Dorothy when she cried for Auntie Em....it was too much for me. I love this movie and it is impossible to get tired of it. Only Judy Garland could have played Dorothy - she was such a likable girl - everybody loves Dorothy.
A few years back I was working as a volunteer at the Plaza Classic Film Fest... and this was one of the films. I'd seen this film dozens of times (I'm in my 50s and waited every year for this to come on TV, then had the VHS of it for a while). Anyway, I had never seen it on the big screen and it was amazing! I wondered how little kids that hadn't grown up with it would react. They were laughing at the lion, and cheering when Toto got away, and they were even singing along with yellow brick road! Such an experience.
The "goose" in the background was a species of Crane that was just allowed to wander the set. The "hanging man" urban legand was actually one of the onset cranes spreading it's wings.
Somewhere on TH-cam, you can find the "extended version" of Scarecrow's "If I only had a Brain", where he does a LOT more dancing. That guy could dance! The actress who played the Wicked Witch was also famous for being Mrs. Olsen in the Folger's Coffee commercials. She also made a guest appearance on Mr. Rogers, to teach the kids the difference between a wicked witch and an actress playing a wicked witch. Yes, the Munchkins are all little people. The thing the Scarecrow says when he gets is diploma is completely wrong. It's possible that it was written correctly in the script and he just garbled it. A possible follow-up to this movie you might consider watching is The Wiz (1978). It's not a sequel or a prequel or a reboot. I guess you'd call it a reinterpretation.
Actually, Margaret Hamilton played a character called Cora who ran a general store and sold Maxwell House coffee. Mrs. Olson of Folgers fame was another actress, Virginia Christine, but the ads were around at the same time.
Not really comparable but definitely worth a watch. Great iconic music and characters but the actual movie is not that great. Very enjoyable as a spectacle though. The MUSIC really makes that film very memorable. Definitely worth a watch but nowhere NEAR the greatness of the original 1939 film.
@@cashflowhustles Agreed. I know of nothing that ever spun off of TWoO that was as good. But The Wiz is at least an interesting take on it, with good music and big-name stars. I seem to remember a cartoon version as well, with completely different songs.
Okay, the snow and poppies scene was a reference to the effects of opium which is made from poppies. At the time when the book was written, users would inhale it in opium dens, then sleep on bunks or cots provided for them. When the movie was filmed (during the Great Depression) opium dens were becoming rarer, but many still used them to get away from their troubles. An opium daze was difficult to wake from, and many died in their sleep. The snow was used to wake the characters because the police slosh cold water on the sleepers to wake them enough to arrest them.
The author of the Oz books Frank L Balm was addicted to opium for many years. Many think that is how he came up with such fantastical stories to tell his kids his bed time stories that he ended up writing down to make the Oz books.
Just wanted to say thank you for your content. It gives me and my daughter time to bond, and she just loves you because she is also a redhead. Keep on keeping on and we cant wait to see whats next.
Ashleigh, you HAVE to watch the "sequel" the return to OZ from the 80s. (in 80s fashion its way more darker than the first movie, but a lot more accurate to the book!) its one of my all time fav. fantasy movies and in the likes of labyrinth and the neverending story.
I wouldn't say that it was more accurate. It takes elements from two different Oz books, one of which doesn't even have Dorothy in it, and mashes them together in an awkward way.
@@ericstoverink6579 It essentially mashed in a bunch of stuff from the other books AND the 1939 movie - like how it included the ruby slippers from the movie when they were silver in the original book. It's clear they were TRYING to make Return to Oz a pseudo-sequel to the MGM movie even though Return was made by Disney, but yeah, it's definitely an acquired taste.
Ever since I was 5, this was the next big event for us after Christmas! It aired each year sometime in February I think. This was the 60's and we all knew it was coming soon and we're so excited waiting for it🤗
Two things I'll say about the Wizard of Oz: When I was a kid, my family would watch this movie every Christmas when it would come on TV (this was the 1960's) and the wicked witch scared the crap out of me every time. Also, we watched on a B&W TV so I was in my mid-20's before I knew that the movie went from Sepia to Technicolor when she gets to Oz.
I remember when I was a kid in the '60's, each time before the network aired this movie (once a year), there was a "trailer" featuring Danny Kaye dancing down the Yellow Brick Road to explain to viewers that the scenes in Kansas were in black-and-white and that there was No Need to Adjust Your Set. 🌈
This movie wasn't aired for Christmas. It aired on Thanksgiving. It was a tradition to watch it on Thanksgiving because the movie came out on Thanksgiving day 1939.
This movie will always have a special place in my heart. When I was 4, my folks rented a VCR for my sister's 7th birthday sleepover party (this is back in 1980 when those were brand new and very few people had them) along with 2 videos. Annie and The Wizard of Oz. This was the first movie I ever saw, I'd never even been to a movie theater at that point as we lived in a small mountain community and the nearest theater was down in the valley. So, yeah. Lots of nostalgia for me on this one. Memories of sitting entranced on a rug in front of a roaring fire and being utterly amazed when the film went from sepia to color, all the wonderful characters, the songs, everything. It was a magical experience.
"He was dancing his heart out, wait he doesn't have one." Love it. I would also recommend watching Madtv's spoof of the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy gets pissed at Glinda because she knew the whole time how Dorothy could get home.
"if I was a child I'd be very scared of her". FACTS! I was terrified of the Wicked Witch of the West. My first time trick or treating a teen girl was dressed as her and I saw her and took off running. Threw my pumpkin, candy went everywhere hahaha. The girls mother brought her over to apologize I guess (the girl hadn't done anything bad) and I said I was fine but after she walked away I begged my mom and dad to please take home and I didn't really even want candy. Lol
Something younger viewers don't get is that this movie was an EVENT. Every year, it appeared on TV only ONE TIME. That made it really special to generations of viewers. I maintain that tradition even now, only watching it once a year.
YES!!
Yes it was an event. And it was one of the very few times I got to stay up late on a school night to watch it all. It was definitely a movie I looked forward to.
This and The Ten Commandments. So many family memories tied up with these two movies.
That's how I used to watch it as a kid. We didn't own a copy of it, so my family would sit and watch it together when it was on TV once a year and that was the late '80's and early '90's. Many generations have grown up watching the movie that way.
@@mycroft16 Oh, man, yes. The 'Angel of Death' scene was another terrifying moment that just stuck with you.
Margaret Hamilton (the Wicked Witch) felt so bad that her performance terrified so many children (I was one of them) over the years. She appeared on "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood" and showed how the witch's outfit was dress-up, and that witches are just make-believe. She may have been mean and scary in the movie, but in real-life she was very kind and sweet.
That’s really sweet of her! I’m sad that witches got a bad reputation bc of films like these, and I’m sad she said they’re make-believe, but I love that she did her best to make kids feel safer! Tbh, until I met my stepmom when I was 19, I never knew anyone was afraid of the witch. I was alway scared of the flying monkeys
She started out as a kindergarten teacher before becoming a professional actress.
She actually loved children and did work for children's charities and such as well.
I think she did folgers commercials too. I always liked her.
good to the last drop
Dorothy: "I miss Kansas!"
Toto: "I miss the rains down in Africa!"
That’s a meme joke
That almost killed me.
lmao this is awesome
You've reached the Point of Know Return.
IM DEAD😂😂😂
So my grandpa told me about the first time he watched this: He kept hitting the TV because it was in black and white and they advertised this as the first colored movie. He didn't realize that the color came in later in the movie 😂😂😂
Yeah!
🤣😂😆🤣😂😆
The first ten times I watched it, it was all in black and white (not even sepia at the start and the end). Most people in the 50s and early 60s did not have color TV.
@@flarrfan It was a brand new "color tv" that's why he was hitting it. 😆
Lmao
To me, one of the funniest things to come from the movie is actually a line from another movie. In Beetlejuice, that one guy says "don't mind her, she's still mad because somebody dropped a house on her sister." It's just such an elegant burn.
Otho was his name... Classic
Am I the only one that thinks Ashleigh is really pretty and cute? Lol
@@Vickytoriahirt1234 She resembles my aide who comes 2ce a week. I Love it! :)
@@Vickytoriahirt1234 Her husband does too. ;)
There was a similar line in the TV show becker. Somebody asked him what happened to his ex wife and he retorted with "a house fell on her sister, i haven't seen her since" lol
Ashleigh: "I've always wanted to go to a psychic. I tried once, and she wasn't home..."
Me: She knew you were coming, LMAO! 🙃😉
Hahaha awesome yes she just didn’t answer the door
I thought this, too. :-D
Good thing, going to a Demonic led person is a bad road to go down.
Thought the same exact thing!!!! As soon as she said it I said I bet she saw you coming
Why do psychics want you to call, then ask for your credit card info? Shouldn't they know?
The scene where Dorothy leaves the house and everything turns color in one shot, was an entirely practical effect. The set was painted sepia tone, along with Dorothy, who was Judy Garland's double. Once she opened the door, she stepped out of frame, and Judy Garland, who's in color steps in. It's an extremely simple effect, but works so well.
I thought I knew all the effects in this movie, having read trivia on it my she life, but somehow I didn't know this. And now I think it's my favorite effect. That is so freaking awesome.
Really? Damn that’s clever beyond imagining.
I thought it was just a film change as they couldn't afford the colour film for the entire shoot
Yep. Amazing isn't it. Apparently there were loud intakes of breath and even cheering in some cinemas when she opens the door to reveal the colour.
🤦🏻♀️ smh
"I tried once to go to a psychic, but she wasn't home." Clearly she was a real psychic, and she dodged that bullet! ;-)
The Avengers:
Nick Fury: “... And I would like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys.”
Thor: “Monkeys? I do not understand.”
Steve Rogers: “I do. I understood that reference.”
And now you too understand that reference!!! 😁💙💙💙
“This man is dancing his little heart out.
Oh, he don’t have one.”
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
That made my day. Never change, Ashleigh :)
bet you and nobody else noticed the scarecrow carrying a gun? yup he carried a .38 caliber revolver in the movie. If you dont believe me look it up
When I tell you I laughed so hard lmao
Personally I come back for the laugh! 🤣
Just an FYI re Margaret Hamilton who played the wicked witch, in real life she was a total sweetheart. I had an older friend who taught school in the sixties near where Margaret Hamilton lived. Her students were scared of the witch as well, so my friend wrote Hamilton, explained the situation and invited her to visit her class. Hamilton accepted, explained to the kids what acting was all about, told tales of her experience making the film, and won the kids over with her charm. Apparently Hamilton was overwhelmed by the attention and was brought to tears. Hamilton was a wonderful woman, as was my friend. RIP Gerry
There was a lot of recasting in this movie.
1. Ray Bolger was originally supposed to play the tinman and Buddy Ebsen was supposed to play the scarecrow, but Bolger wanted to play the scarecrow so he and Ebsen switched roles. Then Ebsen had a severe allergic reaction to the aluminum dust used to make the tinman's makeup and had to spend six months in an iron lung, so the part of the tinman went to Jack Haley.
2. Shirley Temple was originally supposed to play Dorothy, but she was under contract with United Artists, and they wouldn't release her from her
contract, so that part went to Judy Garland, whose real name was Frances Gumm. She was an unknown at the time and the studio changed her name to Judy Garland because they thought it sounded more glamorous.
3. W.C. Fields was originally supposed to play the Wizard, but he wanted too much money, so that part went to Frank Morgan.
4. Gale Sondegaard was supposed to play the Wicked Witch of the West, but they decided she was too glamorous, so they asked Margaret Hamilton, to play the Wicked Witch.
I wish Ashleigh would do reactions for both Under the Rainbow & The Wiz.
The overall biggest lesson of this movie was that everything the characters wanted they already had. They just didn’t know it. Even the wizard. Once he was found out the good people of Oz still listened to him, respected him & obeyed him. They believed in him. Dorothy has to realize that no matter how gloomy her life on the farm was, she was surrounded by people who loved her & she had no fears there. There’s no place like home. The scarecrow was always smart. Figuring out what to do. Always coming up with a plan. The tin man was always emotional. He wore his preverbal heart on his sleeve. He cared, he cried, he showed fear, joy, excitement. He had emotions all along. And the “cowardly” lion was always courageous when he truly needed to be. The gifts they were given were only to make them feel as though they finally had something they desired yet had all along but didn’t realize it. The wizard felt important & powerful having bestowed these things upon them all. Because just like professor Marvel, he was a fraud who didn’t believe in himself but desperately wanted others to believe in him. I never thought they could make a prequel to this movie that’d do the original any justice. But I highly recommend you watch “Oz the great and powerful “ soon. It’s pretty good.
I agreed with everything you said until you started talking about the...let's say...not good prequel.
🎵 Oh, Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man
That he didn't, didn't already have....🎶
1/ The brown and white parts of the film is Sepia (pronounced C-P-Ah), the brown filter is added to the monochrome film to make things including people look more natural.
2/ The twister special effect is considered by many Storm Chasers (an actual job) to be one of the most realistic looking tornados ever shown in a movie which is impressive for a movie made in 1939.
3/ The actress playing Glinda was 54 years old at the time, I was surprised to learn this as I thought she was decades younger than that.
The color is called sepia, but when it's applied to film it's called sepia tone.
(sēp'ē-ə) SEEP-ee-uh
If I remember correctly, the tornado was done using a fan blowing through a silk stocking... kinda like one of those inflatable wavy-arm guys, only upside-down
Billie Burke (Glinda) was a brilliant comic actor, and was the widow of stage impresario Florenz Ziegfield (who produced the Ziegfield Follies).
One of the VERY few times "it was all a dream" has truly worked for a story and still felt satisfying.
It's the story that started the trope. It's just that very few have managed to replicate it properly.
@Brad1980 In the context of the books yeah, but the movie kind of plays things out differently in that respect I'd say.
@Brad1980 It was a dream in the movie. That's one of the things they changed from the books. For example, how'd she wake up in her bed in her house when it was still in Oz?
however, Toto with a warrant out for his arrest is still true ....
Naah, I felt ripped off the first time I saw it when I was three years old. Like she went through all that for nothing? Return to Oz was awesome because it vindicated Dorothy's journey
Margaret Hamilton started as a schoolteacher, and she Judy Garland were great friends on set.
If anything, Margaret Hamilton was the nicest person to Judy Garland in the whole production...or the *only* person who was nice to her.
“How can you cry if you don’t have a heart?” And that’s the whole moral of the story. Everyone already had what they thought they were missing.
Also Technicolor was invented in 1917. But it was prohibitively expensive to use for decades. So no major color films were made until the 1930s and then only rarely. When Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind were both released in Technicolor in 1939, audiences began demanding color for all big spectacle films. That year was a major turning point for color.
Well yes and no, the original story is a metaphor for American politics. The Scarecrow represents the American farmer who needs education, the tin man being American industry needs a heart, and the COwardly Lion is the President of the United states and the Wizard of Oz is the Secretary of the Treasury who could give people these things. At least that's how it were explained to me.
@@effigytormented by who?
@@effigytormented i heard that the story was a treatise of the benefits of a " silver standard " money system over the " gold standard " money system.
The Econ interpretation exists, but is not definitive. It can be read as a story of moving from adolescence to adulthood.
@@effigytormented Trivia! The book wasn't a metaphor, but a professor in the 60s(?) was looking for a way to better teach the silver standard and stuff to his students so he was the one who made the connections.
The Wizard Of Oz improves when you watch other movies from the era. People don't realize how technically advanced this movie was. It is leaps and bounds ahead of its time, and like you said, is extremely watchable today. Glad you finally got to see it!
nah metropolis is better. It may be more technologically advanced but that just makes it the marvel or avatar of that generation.
Fun facts about the movie:
In the Munchkin Land scene, the actress who played the wicked witch got slightly burned as they lit the pyro prematurely while she dropped through the floor to "disappear" in the flame and smoke. She took six weeks to heal.
Toto (real name Terry) was a female and made $125 a week, while the Munchkin actors (mostly all little people) got $50/week. Toto got accidentally stepped on by a stage hand, injuring her paw and she recuperated at Judy Garland's house. Judy loved the dog and wanted to adopt her but her owner declined, as Terry was a busy actress who was in several movies- she ended up with 18 acting credits in all.
Oh..btw. The brownish color whose name you're searching for is sepia.
heres another fact, bet you and nobody else noticed the scarecrow carrying a gun? yup he carried a .38 caliber revolver in the movie. If you dont believe me look it up
another fact is the producers were evil messed up people, Judy got severly addicted to amphetamines and sleeping pills the rest of her life due to this movie they gave her uppers to do the dancing and acting 12 hours a day then downers to sleep, then more uppers to wake up. They also said she was fat and made her loose 12 pounds and only fed her little tiny dinners, no breakfast or lunch, unless you consider speed a meal
I was scrolling down for a comment to mention sephia. I kept saying it at the screen
The green makeup the witch wore had copper in it. So when the actress playing the witch got burned, her face got the worst of it due to the copper in the green makeup heating up and melting to her skin.
The snow is asbestos.
the 2 best things about this movie: for the transition shot between the sepia and the colorful oz, they literally painted the farmhouse room and the body double in sepia tones; and the entire movie matches up perfectly to pink floyd's dark side of the moon
My Grandfather took my Grandmother to see this movie on their first date. :-) He was 21, and she was 18.
That… is beautiful! 🤗
:') I file this under W for "wholesome".
@@KRAFTWERK2K6 what he or she left out is that grandma & grandpa were in the back row and remember nothing about the movie, if you get my drift...
jk, I too think it's very sweet 😇
That is so wholesome.
Really? Did you HAVE TO go there? If you're just kidding, why ruin a nice, wholesome mental moment for every reader by injecting some unneeded sexual overtones into it? It was 1939, pre-WW2 United States. I can guarantee very little of that "stuff" was happening in the theaters back then. Decent morality actually meant something back then, and we could sure use a lot more of that right now.
Have you ever heard of a play called “Wicked”? THIS is what THAT is based upon. Buddy Ebsen (Jed Clampett from Beverly Hillbillies) was the original Tin Man, but became deathly ill from the silver paint, so Jack Haley replaced him. There were several musical numbers filmed that didn’t make the final cut. The history behind The Wizard of Oz is very rich. I’m so glad you watched it 😊👍
well, Wicked is more based on teh book than the film I think, but yes.
Oh I heard Wicked is being made into an upcoming film.
Those cut scenes are quite remarkable. Especially the extended dance scenes with Scarecrow & Tinman. None of them add much to the story, or move the plot along, so I get why they made those cuts. They're still wonderful to see.
I always liked it when the guard said “that’s a horse of a different color”, and then they go inside OZ and see the horse change colors.
I'm a bit of a nerd, and grew up reading my mom's Oz books. Later, I researched the movie. They used Jello powder to get the color on the horses!
@@darcistephenson5359 And one of the biggest problems they had shooting that scene was that the horse kept licking the Jello off... because yum! :)
The first time I ever saw this movie as a kid, color tv's were just coming out. We all gathered at our neighbor's house for an Oz party to watch it. When that door opened, there was a gasp you we just knew could be heard around the world. It was amazing. It became a holiday tradition to repeat every year. What a wonderful memory. Thank you for watching it with me in this way. :)
This used to play on TV every year, so it really became ingrained in people's minds. It's always surprising when I hear people haven't seen it.
My mom originally watched it on a black and white TV, and when her uncle bought a color TV they were invited over to watch. She was really surprised when it switched to color. My dad was actually not scared of the witch, but of the flying monkeys.
This is also the movie, in Avengers, that references the flying monkeys that Steve Rogers is able to recognize.
I had the same surprise as a kid when we finally switched from a b&w television to a color one.
I was just telling my daughter that for my entire childhood this was considered a movie for the holidays. We watched it about Thanksgiving time every single year.
Yeah, the flying monkeys were what scared me as a kid too!
Ashleigh doesn't get that reference yet.
@@intodust420 That's interesting! Where I lived, Wizard of Oz always aired right around Easter.
Fun fact
Margaret Hamilton (the wicked witch of the west) was super nice and very generous to children's charities and schools, but the character was so scary that when she was on sesame street, the episode only aired once and was never seen again. Her guest appearance on mister Rogers neighborhood was all about Hollywood and make believe in the movies. They were just perfect together.
Edit:
She was seriously burned by the fireball in the munchkin village scene.
I believe she also did a commercial for Maxwell house coffee.
For her spectacular exit she was to step on a trap door, swirl her cape, the trap door would drop her below the stage, burst of flame through the opened trap door, then close the trap door while the fire burned away. Unfortunately the trap door started dropping her but the flame started before she was clear. Her costume and makeup caught fire. The scene in the movie was the original, as it was never reshot.
Her makeup was also SUPER TOXIC!
@@chrisbrown3907 She did several commercials for Maxwellhouse, and was their spokesperson for years. All as herself, no makeup, haha!
I remember her on Mr Rogers
The annual primetime network airing of this movie was like a national holiday for kids. There was no home video, streaming, etc. that allowed us to watch whatever we wanted whenever we wanted, so we would do whatever it took to be there in front of the TV when it came on. No movie ever seemed quite so magical. Today it's still one of my three favorite movies of all time, along with "King Kong" (1933) and "Shane." I enjoyed your appreciative reaction.
My mom had lost her purse and got a phone call from the person who found it offering to meet her at a store. My sister and I begged to stay home alone at ages 6 and 4 because The Wizard of Oz was going to start…. Whyyyy did it have to be THAT day. Decades later and I still remember.
"King Kong" (1933) (for sentimental reasons) is my #1 favorite of all time!
I love that Peter Jackson brought the original King Kong figure to the premiere of his remake and put in the giant creepy valley of the bugs scene the original 1933 script didn’t have the budget for.
I think the last movie of that calibre is Home Alone.
My annual favorite movie is The Sound of Music
Thank you so much for getting the part where Glinda tells her only bad witches are ugly but has been asking her if she is a good which or a bad witch. So many people miss that!
Nothing to miss really. She says only bad witches are ugly, but that doesn't automatically mean only good witches are pretty.
So, only good witches are pretty, only bad witches are ugly. OK, if Glinda can't figure out if Dorothy's good or bad, based on looks, then good ol' Dot must be quite 'ordinary' looking for a resident of Oz.
Oh, and by the way, Toto is actually the REAL hero in this story. Look at all he does - Escape Miss Gulch, be a faithful companion to Dorothy throughout, escape the witch's castle & get help for Dorothy, expose the Wizard for who he really is, and cause Dorothy to use an 'alternate way' of getting home by jumping out of the balloon at the end. He's also right by her side when she wakes up. Love me some Toto.🥰
It is a weird detail but for some reason I absolutely adore the matte paintings that fill out the Oz shots. They don't look real but they are perfect for the landscape of a dream, creating this beautiful, almost hyper-real world you want to explore. It's the kind of magic you don't see in modern movies because computers have largely made matte paintings obsolete.
I have always thought the 1st glimpse of the Emerald City was breathtakingly beautiful.
My favorite is the one in the back when she meets the Scarecrow :)
They don't look real because they're not supposed to. Remember, this is a FANTASY film. Everything in color is a dream sequence, thus, the cartoonish aspect of all the characters & scenes. It's a children's book brought to life.
In Blake’s defense, The Wicked Witch scared the crap out of kids when this came out and for years after. To the point that Mr Rogers did an early episode decades later on his show where the actress the played the Witch was aa guest and they explained/showed the makeup process to demystify her scariness for kids.
The witch didn't bother me when I was a kid, it was the flying monkeys that scared me.
@@BleydTorvall Yes! The flying monkeys and specifically the SOUND they make - WOO! WOO! WOOOOO!! and when they rip the scarecrow to pieces! Terrifying!
Beat me to these points!
I doubt that L. Frank Baum would have liked this movie. He specifically wrote it as a wonder tale - without terror.
Also, growing up in the 60s I watched this many times on my parents' black and white television set. I didn't see the big color reveal until I saw the movie on the big screen in a revival house theater.
@@BleydTorvall My cousin's husband is still freaked out by the flying monkeys and he's in his 50's.
@@paulgunderson4721 "wrote it as a wonder tale - without terror"
Did you even read the books!? There are wolves who get hacked to pieces.
The stories are an American take on Grimm Tales. They're supposed to be scary so the positive messages stick with the kid
"Over the Rainbow" was voted the greatest song of the 20th century in a poll conducted by the National Endowment of the Arts and the Recording Industry Association of America. Your comment that there cannot be songs this good is spot on. MGM actually pulled the song out of the movie. Their executives said it slowed the movie down. The producer threatened to quit if they didn't put it back in.
not Splish Splash?
MGM chief executive Louis B. Mayer thought it "slowed down the picture," was far over the heads of its targeted child audience, and sounded "like something for Jeanette MacDonald, not for a little girl singing in a barnyard". Fleming, producer Mervyn LeRoy, associate producer Arthur Freed, and Roger Edens, who was Judy Garland's vocal coach and mentor, fought together to have the song reinserted back into the film and they eventually won.
It's kind of comforting to know that after a massive world war, the mapping of the human genome, and the creation of a global information network, that studio executives are still just as stupid and clueless as they ever have been. The more things chance, the more they stay the same.
7:54 “What in the acid trip is that?” OMFG!! I had to pause the video to laugh at that, and took me a full two minutes to write this comment from laughing and wiping tears from my eyes.
"The dead guy in the tree" has been an urban legend for a long time, but it was just a bird that got loose. Also, Frank Morgan, the Wizard, played 5 characters: Mr. Marvel, the crying guard, the coach driver, Oz and the man behind the curtain.
The jacket Mr. Morgan wore as "the wizard" had been owned by Frank L. Baum
never seen a bird shaped like a man, let alone the removal in the anniversery release.
@@DemonicGoddess i saw a documentary about it. One of the cranes (looked like a peacock to me) wandering free on set swung it's long neck down and people thought the sudden snap of movement was an actor hanging himself in the background
It got removed and it very much looked like a man why would they remove a bird
@@ztm454 because it looked like a hanging man?
I totally get not having seen some classic films, but so much of this story is just part of the general cultural knowledge that my brain melted a little bit when you were surprised to learn that the witch died from water, or that the giant Oz head wasn't real. 😂
Yeah, for a while it was on TV all the time, it's like Hot Fuzz on ITV2 now!
Right?! Like, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" has become such a popular expression when referring to con-artists / professional liars / phony politicians and religious leaders, etc. I always assume that type of stuff makes it near impossible to not know at least that part of the movie.
@@Wawagirl17 it's an 80 year old beloved movie, it's going to have leaked into the culture!
Like dang, man. Those things are referenced/joke about in every other comedy show even to this day.
The other thing this movie is famous for, is the absolute Sh*tstorm that was the shoot, with the Wicked Witch getting third degree burns from the pyros during her exit, the first TWO actors who played the tinman getting poisoned by the silver makeup, the Munchkins getting drunk and Judy Garland being kept on a diet of coffee and cigarettes to keep her thin for the whole of shooting.
All these years later, the moment when you see OZ in full Technicolor still holds up. Can you imagine seeing that for the first time, in the theater, in 1939?
From what I've read, many people ran screaming from the theater or fainted. Not unlike the reactions years later during The Exorcist
My farther told me it was a oooooo aaaaaaa moment when he saw it in 1939.
I can't believe this film is nearly 83 years old, wow.!!!
A REAL CLASSIC MOVIE.!!!
Interesting fact; In the original books, the Emerald City isn't actually emerald, the Wizard makes everyone wear green tinted glasses that make everything look like emeralds.
Because the city was made of crystal, it would shine so bright they couldn’t see and the green glasses helped
Damn didn't know that! Nice job, Wiz! Trick those dupes! You're a politician's politician. 😂
@@ladygray6081 It's been a while since I read it, but I'm pretty sure that was just the excuse, the real reasonwas to make it seem nicer than it really was. The movie is great, but the books are far superior from a storytelling perspective. They have better worldbuilding, better characters, etc.
@@goldilox369 He was a travelling stage magician from the US, so he was used to duping people. Oz the Great and Powerful is a kind of prequel film following the Wizard upon his arrival in Oz. It's more a prequel to the books, though, rather than the movie (since the movie makes Oz just a dream), though it takes inspiration from the movie.
And in the book, the ruby slippers are actually silver, aren't they? I think they just wanted to show off a color because of the Technicolor.
Fun fact: The tin man, the scarecrow, and the lion all already had the attributes that they wanted to get from the wizard. The scarecrow was incredibly intelligent and always came up with the plans that everyone used throughout the movie. The tin man was very emotional, he was crying at the movie and clearly was a bit of a romantic. and while the Lion gets scared pretty often, he still do what he had to do to help his friends so that showed his bravery. What the wizard helped them deal was realize what they already had.
But Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man that he didn't already have.
Which is interesting because in the book the wizard did give the three what they wanted. Supposedly the ending in the movie version was a statement against the (1930's) progressive movement.
And bravery or courage is not lack of fear, but fighting through it.
@@merlynjep Same line went through my head. lol
@@Logan_Baron Exactly. Courage is facing what you fear, not the absence of fear.
"Over the Rainbow" came dangerously close to being cut from the movie. The studio head thought it slowed the movie too much, but the film makers fought to keep it in.
Personal experience:
This and Heidi were both considered Thanksgiving movies when i was a kid. Why? Because one of the networks would broadcast them on Thanksgiving day to keep the kids from bugging mom in the kitchen and dad watching the NFL on the other networks. That's why.
Except for that time the preempted the end of the Raider game with the movie Heidi. Dad WAS PISSED!
Back when there were only three channels, this movie was shown every year on Thanksgiving. I remember watching it on TV for the first time in the mid-1970s. Then the following year you might be with different friends and family, but you would still gather and watch it all over again. In my family, as I recall, we'd make popcorn (the non-microwave kind) and wait with great expectation for the movie to start. With all the commercials, the damn thing ran for three hours, but it was a tradition to tune in and watch this. Every year a new generation would get hooked on The Wizard of Oz. It truly was a part of the national culture. Now, everything is splintered and we watch what we want to when we want to, via streaming. The technology available to us is amazing, and I wouldn't want to go back to the old days. But I also acknowledge it is sad what we have lost. I mean, my goodness, there are people who have NEVER EVEN SEEN THIS MOVIE!
WoO was Easter. King Kong was Thanksgiving. Sometimes Mighty Joe Young too. 🤘
@@MrRezRising Yup.
@@HemlockRidge From Wiki. Did some digging.
The 1959-1962 broadcasts occurred in autumn between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Beginning with the 1963-64 season, these special presentations were seen in the first quarter of the year as well as around Easter and Passover. The film was not broadcast in the U.S. in 1963, 1992, 1995, or 1997.
I don't know if was different in different regions. Like RR, I was used to seeing Wizard every Thanksgiving as I grew up in the 80s. Until Ted Turner bought it up, I believe. Ten Commandments ran every Easter.
@@FanboyFilms IDK. I just know that when I was little, I was watching WoO while eating from my Easter Basket.
A TRUE classic never goes out of style and _The Wizard of Oz_ fits that description perfectly. The behind-the-scenes of this film and its impact on the legend that is Judy Garland is so heartbreaking.
Yeah, she lived on a diet of.... several packs of cigarettes per day... That poor girl was abused like crazy by the studio system.
Yes, she was abused w/ the studio system, & she also had an overbearing stage mother that didn't help the situation. And her career peaked in Wizard if Oz at age 16.
The meme of the supposed "Hanging Munchkin" was in the back of the scene where they pick up the Tin Man and encounter the Wicked Witch. If you look beyond the cottage at the trees, you'll see movement in the very back of the set near the matte-painted wall. What people claim was a munchkin hanging himself was actually a swan spreading his wings and shaking them. And the color you are trying to remember from the beginning is Sepeatone.
Speaking as a photographer, the word is: "Sepia,"
@@Otokichi786 You are right, I was hoping spellcheck would catch that. My spelling is horrible.
@@JohnWilsonComicsGuy I have found the TH-cam "spell checker/highlighter" to be wrong as often as it flags mifspeiled words. (Especially foreign languages, too!;)
It was an emu, not a Swan.
Summary in newspaper TV guide for this movie: “teenage runaway travels abroad, kills the first person she meets before banding together with 3 locals to kill again”
The beginning of this movie was filmed in sepia tones. When Dorothy first saw Oz the transition to color made audiences gasp at the change. They hired around 122 little people to be the munchkins. According to legend, these little people would get rip-roaring drunk and had wild parties that were X-rated. True or not, their antics of the little people were portrayed in the 1981 film Under The Rainbow. Bert Lahr's suit was actually made from the skins of two lions. The "horse of a different color" was colored by using flavored gelatin. Reportedly they had to work hard to keep the horses from licking it off.
When I was a kid, this movie was on TV every year. In those days, though, we had a black and white set. I can remember my mom (who had seen it in the movie theaters as a kid) trying really hard to explain to us how in Oz everything was in color and it was really cool, but we had to use our imaginations.
@@turbulentlobster Me Too! I didn't understand the "Horse of a different color" line for years.
Under The Rainbow, an under-appreciated comic gem. "Zee pearl isht in zee Rivaaa."
My mum was six when she saw the film, and the transition to colour was one of her favourite childhood memories.
Nick over at Nickflix gasped as well-- in mid sentence. He's such a little kid.
Just a quick shout out to thank you for this review. The WOZ was my late wife's very favorite movie, and as sad as I sometimes become watching it with our three kids over the years since her passing, having wonderful reviews like yours makes it all better! You're awesome Ashleigh and congrats because you are almost at 100,000 subs!!!
If I could subscribe a few more times, I would.
This movie has been shown on tv for decades at thanksgiving when they knew families would be together and want to watch a family friendly movie. It’s not really thanksgiving themed but is a tradition for a lot of people at thanksgiving.
To misquote a familiar meme: "It's not Thanksgiving until Dorothy lands on the Wicked Witch of the East!";)
Interesting fact: The man who directed The Wizard of Oz, Victor Fleming, also directed most of Gone With The Wind. Two massive films in one year.
Margaret Hamilton, who played the witch, got badly burnt during a season. Also she was a school teacher before being an actress and spent most of her life working for children's charity. A lovely lady by all accounts.
😊
The Good Witch Of The South: In the novel, Glinda IS the Witch Of The South, and doesn't appear until near the end when the group travels to seek her advice in getting Dorothy home. The Witch Of The North that greets Dorothy and gives her the slippers is a different character, Tattypoo. Also, there are a LOT of books - in the novels Oz is a real place, and Dorothy eventually moves there permanently with her aunt and uncle. c:
The books are way darker too aren't they.
The books are different. Kind of why we haven't have a decent adaptation. It would be hard to make General Jinjur and her army not a sexist stereotype
@@tj_2701 One scene they skip over is right aftwr they pick up the lion where the party have to cross a gully and have to pass these creatures that are bears that stand on their hind legs and have lobster claws for hands! They also glossed over getting out of the poppies. There were a village of mice that help them by carrying them out of the field.
When I was a kid in the late 70's early 80's, and before movie rentals took off, this movie would only come on CBS once a year, (hosted by Angela Lansbury for many years) and I never ever missed it. It was my favorite day of the year!
Yep, my cousins and sisters and I used to watch it together at our grandmother's house every year!
We always watched it on TV too. And if you missed that day you had to wait an entire year for it to come around again.
@@mcjim256 about the same time was Cicil B. DeMil's The Ten Commandments in two nights.
Oh, yeah, we always piled into the tv room for that. It was as central to my childhood as it was to my dad's.
BBC one, for years put the wizard of oz on for new-years eve to fill the time while your waiting for the countdown.
FYI, Judy Garland was 16 when she did this movie. At the beginning, the 40 years referred to when the book was written. So approx 1899, and 40 years to the movie in 1939. When I was a kid, I also thought she was going to die when the sand ran out, but I think it was intended simply as a time piece. When the sands ran out, the witch would come back and kill her. As for the flying monkeys, yeah, they were terrifying when I was a kid. Somewhere in that time (when I was young), McHale's Navy and other WWII related shows and movies were big and I remember coping with the monkeys by imagining I had a twin .50 cal machinegun mount under the tree line so I could shoot down all the monkeys as they came flying down.
This is one of those movies where you don't know if Oz is real, or just her hallucination after hitting her head. The witch was the mean lady on the bicycle. The wizard was Professor Marvel. And of course the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion were the farm hands. But there were later books and animated films where Dorothy returned to Oz.
You can also do some trivia searching regarding the actors who played the Munchkins and the shenanigans that went on. Glad you liked it!
Part of the issue with the munchkins was that they needed so many little people that they were just any random person of the right size. Only a small portion were professional performers with singing, dancing, and acting skills. Most were just whoever they could get to do it. Put that many random people not used to being on set in one place, shenanigans are guaranteed.
The books though were clear the Land of Oz was a real place.
I used to have a Cairn terrier named Ruby she was the coolest dog and she did not give two f's . She went from living in apartments to living in the country when I got her and she was always out in the woods chasing something down and being a good old country dog. She lived until the ripe old age of 18 and died of old age.❤❤
Little fact: Buddy Ebsen (Beverly Hillbillies, Breakfast at Tiffany’s) was originally the Tin-Man. But the aluminum makeup gave him a reaction so he spent 2 weeks in the hospital. Jack Haley replaced him and they reshot scenes they already filmed with Ebsen. You can still hear Ebsen’s voice during “We’re Off to See The Wizard”.
And speaking of Jack Haley, I always thought it was interesting that his son Jack Haley Jr ended up marrying Judy Garland's daughter Liza Minnelli.
I was looking for this fact!!
It wasn't an allergic reaction - this is a story the studio put out, and Ebsen was still mighty pissed about it when I heard an interview with him shortly before he died. It was the chemical composition of the make up which almost killed him. They changed it up for Jack Haley.
Also, Buddy Ebsen was originally cast as the Scarecrow and Ray Bolger was cast as the Tin Man. Bolger's fame was mostly as a dancer, and he was worried that the heavy tin costume would restrict his dancing moves, so he persuaded Ebsen and the producers to let them trade roles. Then, Ebsen was almost killed by inhaling the aluminum dust that was part of the makeup for the Tin Man costume and had to be hospitalized. Jack Haley, his replacement, got a safer, aluminum paste makeup, which didn't endanger his life but did give him a nasty eye infection.
@@markpekrul4393 yeahhhhh... if I'm not mistaken the makeup contained lead and he got lead poisoning.
"What in the acid trip is that"....Ashleigh that was such a classic line that had me laughing! I love your reactions and this movie is such a big deal so glad you finally watched it. I got to see it in the theater (my local would run it every few years in the 60s) and the witch with her flying monkey things always scared me. The witch putting them all 'in a kind of death sleep' using a poppy field and Glinda waking them up with 'snow' sure seem like references to certain popular drugs to me. There is a lot of lore and fun facts behind this classic so look into it more.
I just came in to say the same thing because hippies in 1970s used to drop acid and watch Wizard of Oz but with no sound but with Dark Side of the Moon playing
@@juriskrumgolds5810 Yes 😁
I thought the snow woke them just from being cold. BTW, supposedly that fake snow was made from asbestos!
Poppies are where are you get opium from. A downer. ‘Snow’, slang for cocaine, is an upper. Glinda knew what she was doing ❄️
so glad someone referenced the drug symbolism in the poppy field. Yes, poppies are where opium comes from, which would have definitely put them into a hazy dreamlike, "sleep" state, and "snow" is, as someone pointed out, slang for cocaine, which would have woken them right up. This movie is "trippy" looking for many reasons :)
"Do we see a witch of the south?"
Not in the movie, but in the book, Glinda is the good witch of the south, and we don't see here until the end. The witch she meets when she first arrives in Oz in the book is an unnamed good witch of the North. Also in the book, it's not a dream, it really happens. Last summer I played the wicked witch of the west in a local production of the wizard of oz.
Books ruin films. People need to stop reading them and just watch films instead. No, I am not entirely joking. Have grown tired of the complainers listing their gripes about how films never follow the books. Books don't have a time constraint, but films have to be edited for time and therein lies the problem but readers never stop bitching about it.
In Oz great and powerful doesn't Glinda turn into Witch of the East ?
@@thomast8539 Who was bitching?
@@thomast8539 OP was answering a question Ashleigh had during the review. It's a wonderful movie, and the books are their own thing.
@@Coxmaul no, Glinda and Evanora (Witch of the East) fight and Glinda crushes her necklace with the jewel, taking her powers and her good looks. Then the apes fly her off to the East (I'm assuming.) Also, I assume if they made a sequel Theodora would have given her sister her ruby ring and gave her powers again.
This is the first I've seen of your videos, and I have to tell you: it was so much fun to see your reaction to this movie. I'm 20 years old, and I barely saw it for the first time, like, last year. I'm a really big fan of old hollwood musicals (and especially Judy Garland), so of course I had to see this movie.
You mentioned at one point how the Scarecrow falls repeatedly throughout the movie. Well, I read somewhere- before I saw the movie- that one of the actors in it was a physical comedian...it didn't take long to figure out who that was.😅 Ray Bolger, who played the Scarecrow, was known for being very physically gifted and funny.
I also have to agree with you about how gorgeous Dorothy is. What's so sad is that Judy Garland, who played Dorothy, never believed she was beautiful because she was constantly told by MGM execs that she wasn't. There's only one movie she made called "Meet Me in St.Louis" in 1944 that she claimed she felt beautiful in. I agree with you; she is so pretty here, but she is stunning and gorgeous all the time. I encourage you to watch more of her movies.❤❤❤
Little fact: Margaret Hamilton who plays the Wicked Witch of The West got third degree burns on her face and second degree burns on her hands during her exit from Munchkinland. The flames rose too soon before she descended under the stage. They had to remove her makeup with alcohol because it was copper based. She had a green tint to her skin long after they were done filming. She was also so terrifying to children that they cut down her lines significantly in the final cut. She also appeared on a 1976 episode of Sesame Street as the witch. The production got so many complaints from parents whose kids were terrified. They pulled the episode and it hasn’t aired once since 1976.
Margaret Hamilton also appeared on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood in costume, but out of makeup, to help kids not be scared of her performance or of witches in costume. By most accounts, Hamilton was a very nice person and reportedly the only person on-set in this movie that was nice to Judy Garland.
She also had an appearance at Mister Rogers Neighborhood :)
My grandmother met Margaret Hamilton and said she was one of the sweetest, kindest people she's ever met.
The Thanksgiving feel is because this movie was once shown annually on prime time TV around this time. Before the era of recording shows, this was always a holiday treat.
Not everywhere... it was shown every May where I grew up.
@@thomast8539 You must be younger than me. In the 1960s, CBS showed it in prime time ever year around this time. I think this changed in later decades, especially when Ted Turner got the rights. Then TBS or TCM would show film God knows when.
I was trying to remember too…..I think The Wizard of Oz was always on around Thanksgiving/Xmas time, and The Sound of Music was always on around Easter. They were evens you made sure you were watching growing up. Something to look forward to.
@@NotData 1956 MGM sold the tv rights to CBS.
Wiki: The 1959-1962 broadcasts occurred in autumn between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Beginning with the 1963-64 season, these special presentations were seen in the first quarter of the year as well as around Easter and Passover. The film was not broadcast in the U.S. in 1963, 1992, 1995, or 1997.
I must have been VERY very young when i saw this film for the very first time but i vividly remembered a lot of things. Like the amazing twister scene, the transition from Monochrome to Color (The german TV broadcast master back then wasn't sepia but black and white and color) and the yellow brick road and the incredible sets. Dunno how young i was. Probably 4 or so. Then a few years later i saw it again and i was like re-living a distant dream. It was absolutely pure magic and i was amazed at how much i could still remember just from ONE time watching. THAT is how much this film impressed me as a lil boy. And as i grew up i had no idea how old that film already was. I'd always assume it was from the 60s or so but my god was i blown away when i realized it was from the late 1930s. This film really is a loveletter to everyone, old and young, who never give up dreaming about positive things and friendship. It stood the test of time and keeps captivating audiences of all new generations. THAT film is the most wonderful thing you could ever achieve with the medium of motion pictures.
It is the first movie I ever remember watching.
Ashleigh you made watching this movie fun again I love you're look at everything as if it's brand new and that child innocence never lose it
The movie transitioning from sepia to color was HUGE! when it first came out. The color was extremely expensive, so most movies were in Sepia or Black and White. If I remember right, the studio almost canceled the film because of it, but a surprise secret viewing showed that the audience loved it so they went for it.
Before, we only had color in lousy real life. 😔
@@greatestscott6599 Theres a great scean in City Slickers where Billy Crystals character is talking about his father and going to a baseball game for the first time. That was the first time he say a proffessional base ball game in color because their tv at home was still in black and white.
I love how enchanted you are by this. I feel like there was never a time in my life that I didn't know about the Wizard of Oz because it's so famous, but you get to see it with fresh eyes.
Yeah the color aspect was still a huge deal at the time which is a lot to do with why the colors in Oz are so garish and vibrant. They wanted people to be dazzled by the new technology. They even changed her magic footwear from "silver shoes" to "ruby slippers" because they thought the red would pop more on the screen.
What's funny is that I have no recollection of her going to the psychic at the beginning. I know I saw the movie several times as a kind, but I guess that scene left no impression on me.
Gone with the Wind came out the same year in color and was also a Very Big Deal!
"Tried to see a psychic once but she wasn't home."
If she couldn't predict you were coming, that's probably for the best.
To answer your question about the munchkins, yes they are all little people. In fact it was the largest gathering of little people in history at the time, about 100+ and many had never met another little person before. It became so impactful and meaningful to them that since then they have had reunions and created little people conferences and support groups from this.
One of the more positive things that came from this movie
There are stories about the munchkins getting into much mischief, i.e. drunken parties, etc. while filming.
Some were actual children too
If you can find it. I highly recommend the 2019 anniversary addition of this film. It was remastered from the original Technicolor negatives. Technicolor used 3 different rolls of film. One for each color channel. They were able to scan the original film and clean it digitally. When they put the three films together they aligned each frame so that every pixel matched up exactly. This gives the film a better appearance than even the original version (where the three films were lined up mechanically with sprockets). It's an amazing restoration. The amount of detail it brings out is stunning.
It's genuinely breathtaking
Did all that mess up the synchronization with Dark Side of the Moon?
@@i.marchand4655 I don't think so, but I haven't checked to be sure. ;)
@@i.marchand4655 I think it made it even better
The "goose" was some kind of stork or egret. The "body" of meme lore was just another big bird they had wandering in the background on set (or maybe the same one). It was far in the background, and thanks to some of the tree branches someone thought it looked like a hanging body. And once the "shocking thing you didn't notice in kids film" factoid started circulating, no amount of facts would shut it down. There was always someone new for the OMG! reaction.
Same thing with the "ghost" on the set of Three Men and a Baby. It was a cardboard stand-up display of Ted Danson's character, who was a model and an actor.
I believe it's a Sandhill Crane
This actually isnt true, the original video depicting the body has been proven to be edited. It is actually just a bird tho
Yeah the quality back in the day was not as good as today (obviously) So it did kinda look like a person hanging lol
My friends and I watched for that scene over and over back in the 80s and you could see what looked like a shadow standing on something and then the something tip over or fall off and it could have been someone hanging. As glad as I am that no one actually committed suicide it is still a little disappointing that it was just a bird in the background.
Ashleigh is Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Man, Lion and the Wizard, all rolled into one!
And Beans is Toto, of course! :)
To answer the question, Scarecrow by far. First, I love his dialogue. There's a scene where he says, 'some people without brains do an awful lot of talking'. That line is so relevant nowadays, that I almost dare to say that it might have been prophetic. Secondly, for not having a brain, he's the only one that thought to bring a gun when going after the Witch.
It’s also just fun to watch the man who played him. The way he moved around was so dramatic and fun to watch.
"Dorothy straight spitting fire!" Words I never thought that would describe this movie. 😆
“10 out of 5 stars for Toto’s acting abilities!”
That’s what the studio thought, too. That’s why he made more per week than the munchkins.
Oh no. It says a lot about he history of Hollywood that I believe this without question.
100% true. Saw a documentary about all the shady and downright life threatening things the producers did to the talent. Shocking stuff
$250 per week vs $50 per week. Then again, there were 130 Munchkins and 1 dog. It did, however, lead to an advocacy group representing little people(Yes, SJWs, that's what it was called) in the industry.
I adore Judy Garland, and I think you'd also really enjoy "Meet Me in St. Louis", a later musical of hers. She introduces the song "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" in that film.
Oh my gosh, yes! I love that movie and it's perfect for the holidays!
She would love it, but her patrons don't...so, it is gonna be a long time before she sees it.
My favorite Judy Garland film. Vincent Minelli fell in love with her when he was directing it, you can tell by how beautifully she's filmed; every frame is a love letter.
9:47 "Do we see the witch of the south?"
Not in the movie, but in the original book that the movie was based on. In fact, Glinda is the witch of the south in the book, whereas the witch of the north is a different character. The witch of the north is the one that sends Dorothy to see the wizard, and then we never see her again. Glinda (the witch of the south) then shows up at the end to tell Dorothy that the silver shoes (not ruby slippers) can send her home. (Also, it's not a dream in the book.)
They had to change it because rough and sing the South and a witch would infer that somehow the South was evil.
If you read Gregory Maguire's novel _Wicked_ (the one the Broadway play is based on), the two things that always make me laugh is the ends he goes through to avoid a) describing the color of the magic shoes, and b) making explicit exactly what region(s) Glinda is the good witch of. He tries simultaneously stay in canon with *both* continuities, and so it's a lot of fun seeing the various contortions involved in handling the contradictions between the book and the movie if you know what to look for.
@@formulah113 Citation? I'm pretty sure they just collapsed the two Good Witches into one to simplify the story. In the book the journey to visit Glinda involves a whole episode about people made out of china (i.e., porcelain) which is completely omitted in the movie.
@@colej.banning2419 That's interesting especially considering that the continuity of just the Oz books themselves is full of contradictions. For example, money is mentioned in Oz in the first couple of books, but later, it is stated that there is no money in Oz. And "nobody can die in Oz" is stated in one of the later books, as if the author had forgotten that Dorothy killed two witches in the first book, so this statement later gets amended to "nobody can die in Oz unless they just can't go on living"... which is kind of a meaningless statement, I think. And then, there are the conflicting stories about the origins of Princess Ozma and the role that the Wizard of Oz played in overthrowing the previous ruler of Oz... but as none of that is mentioned in "The Wizard of Oz", I'll just stop here.
I remember one time I was watching Japanese animated adaptation of the story on TH-cam, and the comments were pretty much filled with “That witch with the traffic cone hat is not Glinda!”
I laughed so hard I spit out my coffee when you said, "I went once (to see a psychic), but she wasn't home."
"The Wizard of Oz" was my late sister Dorisanne's favorite movie. Whenever the movie was on, she demands everyone in the room to be quiet.
Love and miss you, Sis.
The film is based on a children's book by L Frank Baum, which has 13 sequels, all of which are sheer genius. They're the kind of children's' books which include plenty of stuff that's fun for the grown-ups who read them to their kids. Highly recommended.
Oh, and in the books, Oz isn't just an hallucination that Dorothy has while unconscious. It's an actual place, a 'fairy land' far away that she actually travels to. The movie version is clever, but a huge departure from the books.
I remember my parents getting me this movie for christmas when i was 7 and i watched it and was probably the only one that wasn't really scared of the movie except seeing the wizard for the first time but i enjoy singing the songs they are so so good. Tin man being my favorite he's such a sweet loveable character with the biggest heart you can find and i think we all need people like him Scarecrow and Lion that when things are bad your friends will always be there for you and would sacrife their own life to save yours
Pretty much everyone in my generation saw "The Wizard of Oz" because it was broadcast every year on one of the three networks. It was basically an annual television event not unlike some of the stop-motion Christmas movies, Peanuts, Grinch, etc.
So nearly everyone in that era saw it, usually several times over a number of years, and that's why older people are surprised when younger people haven't seen it.
VCRs killed the magic.
@@MrRezRising I think VCRs and cable both changed everything in terms of everyone seeing the same thing at the same time. When you only have three commercial networks plus public television, you watch what's on when it's on, and hopefully you have good reception.
They did a theatrical release of it when my nieces and nephews, all about Ashley's age now, were between 7-10 years old. I took them all to see it and they HATED it. That was pretty disappointing. Not to mention expensive. I just about had to find a co-signer to buy them all popcorn and sodas, and then they didn't even like the movie.
@@marknash65 Born in 1970, VCRs were proof to me that there was a God. Life changed forever, for the better, but yeah, the magic was the price.
For certain live events, I specifically watch live bc of the shared experience feeling, but nowadays it's rare.
All I can say is goodbye, farewell, and amen.
"Stop-motion Christmas movies, 'Peanuts,' 'Grinch"? Are you referring to the Rankin-Bass stop motion movies? "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and the original "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" were Animated features.
The word you were looking for in the beginning was sepia toned 😁
Also... what I've read was that the poppies were "opium" which made them tired and then Glinda sprinkled the "snow" on them which was cocaine to wake them up 🤷🏻♀️ AND there was definitely something that looked like a body hanging in the forest on my vhs version from my childhood, I looked for it in my teens when I first heard about it. CRAZY!
Love your reactions ❤
There definitely was NOT a body in your version. You've seen the edited clip and you're implanting the memory in your own head. The background was a painted, FLAT backdrop. There was no 'tree' for someone to hang from. The shape in the background is a crane and it is seen in multiple shots and there are documented photographs of the actors and the director with the crane, and documented evidence of the film borrowing the bird and a bunch of other animals from the local zoo to liven up the set and make it seem more exotic.
No one killed themselves in the background. It's a myth that has been debunked over and over and over again. Stop perpetuating the lie. If you want to talk about a scandal around the film, focus on the things that actually happened. Like the rampant abuse of poor Judy over her weight, the fact that the Tinman had a horrible reaction to the makeup, and the Lion's costume was so hot he collapsed multiple times.
Focus on the actual reality instead of a made up internet hoax that has been not only disproven but ADMITTED TO BE FALSE by the person who made the original fake edit.
The opium poppies aren't simply metaphor. When the poppies are ready for harvest the air would be thick with pollen, which would certainly have a narcotic effect on anyone who inhaled it (note that Scarecrow and Tin Man, who don't breathe, are not affected). The falling snow, while waking them up through cold, would also go some way to clearing the pollen out of the air.
For that reason I felt the "snow" as cocaine metaphor was unnecessary and likely untrue, but apparently medicinal cocaine was used at the time as a treatment for opium addiction, so there may be something in it after all.
@Palitato the first actor they got to play the Tin Man was Buddy Ebsen he was the one that had a horrible reaction to the paint they had to change the paint and the actor
The brown colour is known as 'Sepia'. Some squid squirt ink, original sepia was squid ink.
4:33 That is one of the postures for riding an old bicycle it known as 'Sit up and beg'.
In 'Airplane' one of Johnny's ad libs was 'Oh Aunty Em it's a twister, it's a twister!'
7:50 This is Technicolor, it is very distinctive, no other colour process looks quite like it.
14:09 Opium orginally comes from poppies (Morphine and Heroin are also Opiates, which are very addictive) that's why the poppies send them to sleep, it's a metaphor. The snow wakes them...you try sleeping when it's cold and damp (unless you're suffering from hypothermia, then it's a very bad idea).
17:15 There is an episode of 'The Simpsons' where Mr. Burns has flying monkeys. He open the window and says 'Fly my pretties' the monkeys jump out of the window and crash to the ground and Burns says 'Continue the research'.
In one of the Marvel movies someone makes a Wizard of Oz reference and Captain America goes 'I got that reference!' because most references people make are to things while he was frozen so he doesn't get them.
“Why is he crying if he doesn’t have a heart?”
EXACTLY!
"I tried to go to a psychic once, but she wasn't home."
Never trust a psychic who has to close because of unforeseen circumstances.
What about one that sees you coming and hangs out the "closed" sign? lol
You absolutely have to delve into more Judy Garland movies!!!! “Meet Me In St. Louis”, “Live Finds Andy Hardy”, “For Me and My Gal”, “Thousands Cheer”, “Girl Crazy”, “The Harvey Girls”, “Easter Parade”, “In The Good Old Summertime”, “Summer Stock” …,,. Many Many great songs came fr. These movies 🥰
YES! And don't forget "The Pirate"
Judy Garland was the best female singer ever! Her voice was the best.
Frank Baum was the author of the Wizard of Oz series and he dedicated his life to writing for young children. All of the books in series are phenomenal. He even took consideration to some suggestions made by his fans. Children couldn’t wait for the next book and the next…. I got them on Audible and enjoy listening to them.
Eventually they all live in the castle along with Auntie M, the books are so good!
Yes, the biggest difference from the movie to the books is, it all really happens, not a dream! Dorothy comes and goes from Oz a few times, and both Uncle Henry and Aunt Em eventually get to Oz.
Which all completely changes the meaning of the story. The book is about a fantastical escape from the misery of depression era poverty, while film tells you that's just a dream and the best thing is to put up with what you've got.
I just found your channel and you are the absolute funniest reviewer I’ve seen! I couldn’t stop watching you. 😂 I’ve watched this since I was a child and was terrified when I was younger, of the Wicked Witch. Never watched this movie and laughed so hard because of you! Keep going because you’re so much fun to watch!
She was terrifying when you see her on the bike in the tornado turn into the witch & that music & the rest of the movie. Margaret Hamilton was the best.
Ashleigh channeling Ethel Merman as Dorothy.
I just love how when she finally escapes Oz to get back to her reality, it's just as dusty dull and grey as when she left.
Have ya been to Kansas 🤣
@@mcjim256 Yes, loved the Ball of Twine in Cawker. Pretty much corn in ever direction.
@@EdwardGregoryNYC I have been there!
Hey, when I was five years old there were parts of this movie that made me hide behind my Dad's chair too! Interesting fact, the coat that the wardrobe department supplied for Frank Morgan to wear as professor Marvel was judged to be too new and tidy for the part so someone was sent out to buy another one at a used clothing store. It was eventually discovered from a name tag in the lining that the coat had been made for L. Frank Baum.
Cool story, thanks.
Yeah, when I was about 5 and they met the Tin Man and the witch appeared on top of the hut was when I ran around behind the couch to hide. I feel ya, bro! Years later and I've seen this movie twice in the theater on the big screen, one time in jacked up 3D!
I have long suspected that the Baum's coat story was the sort of made-up studio publicity that was common in those days. It is a series of improbable events: that Baum's family, who lived ten miles or more from Culver City, would have sold his frock coat to a Culver City second-hand store (or that it would be re-sold in the intervening twenty years and just happen to end up there); that the coat would still be identifiable as Baum's, twenty years later (and that no intervening owner discovered it, or knew it but sold it anyway); that this coat would just happen to get purchased for just this film and - surprise - turn out to be Baum's. I wonder how many frock coats like that you could find in second-hand stores in 1939?
It's a great story, but it defies belief.
@@majkus You make sense on all points, except about identification of it as Baum's. If wealthy enough to have a coat MADE FOR YOU, you'd often get a sewn in tag with embroidery of your name.
Basically, you're probably correct. The truth is always more boring than we'd wish life to be.
@@majkus I have never heard this story. I agree that it was probably studio propaganda, just like the later propaganda story that they didn't know the ending of Casablanca and were writing it as they were making it.
I am a grown ass man of 65 and The Wizard of Oz is still my favorite movie of all time. I’m gay, too, but that’s beside the point. This movie embodies everything that a fantasy for children should; wonderful characters, beautiful scenery, memorable songs. I remember being about eight years old and after having seen this movie numerous times, I had the epiphany of figuring out the Scarecrow, the Tinman and the Lion were the farmhands back in Kansas. The wonderment of this has kept this movie in my heart my entire life. It’s a rite of passage much like discovering the truth about Santa. Kinda sad, but what a wonderful movie!
@Doug Spooner Doug, there's a common stereotype that gay men love musicals/musical theatre. He's joking by saying "Of course I love it, I'm gay!" And goes on to say that the movie stands on its own merits as a piece of art. It's just a funny aside to mention he's gay, it is tangentially relevant. Hope that helps.
@Doug Spooner never heard the phrase “friend of Dorothy”?
@@mrhomes204 I was about to mention the same thing!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friend_of_Dorothy
@@donald4312 Wasn't Judy Garland commonly seen as a gay icon?
Anyway, I'm a straight dude of 44 and I love Wizard of Oz.
@@Kylopod She absolutely was.
Up until some time in the 80s or 90s (I think), The Wizard Of Oz came on television ONCE a year very close to Easter. It was a very special event! I can remember being 4 or 5 years old and SOBBING in fear of the witch, I was inconsolable. She was the best witch of all time. My little pre-school self couldn't handle her threatening Dorothy AND Toto. It broke my heart an horrified me. Her mocking Dorothy when she cried for Auntie Em....it was too much for me. I love this movie and it is impossible to get tired of it. Only Judy Garland could have played Dorothy - she was such a likable girl - everybody loves Dorothy.
A few years back I was working as a volunteer at the Plaza Classic Film Fest... and this was one of the films. I'd seen this film dozens of times (I'm in my 50s and waited every year for this to come on TV, then had the VHS of it for a while). Anyway, I had never seen it on the big screen and it was amazing! I wondered how little kids that hadn't grown up with it would react. They were laughing at the lion, and cheering when Toto got away, and they were even singing along with yellow brick road! Such an experience.
The "goose" in the background was a species of Crane that was just allowed to wander the set. The "hanging man" urban legand was actually one of the onset cranes spreading it's wings.
Exactly. Stupid that people think someone could wander onto the set unnoticed. Doubt the fake trees in the background could support any weight
And it was digitally removed from newer editions (only on VHS)
Somewhere on TH-cam, you can find the "extended version" of Scarecrow's "If I only had a Brain", where he does a LOT more dancing. That guy could dance!
The actress who played the Wicked Witch was also famous for being Mrs. Olsen in the Folger's Coffee commercials. She also made a guest appearance on Mr. Rogers, to teach the kids the difference between a wicked witch and an actress playing a wicked witch.
Yes, the Munchkins are all little people.
The thing the Scarecrow says when he gets is diploma is completely wrong. It's possible that it was written correctly in the script and he just garbled it.
A possible follow-up to this movie you might consider watching is The Wiz (1978). It's not a sequel or a prequel or a reboot. I guess you'd call it a reinterpretation.
Actually, Margaret Hamilton played a character called Cora who ran a general store and sold Maxwell House coffee. Mrs. Olson of Folgers fame was another actress, Virginia Christine, but the ads were around at the same time.
You forget Return to Oz
@@johnbarnes830 No, I don't.
Not really comparable but definitely worth a watch. Great iconic music and characters but the actual movie is not that great. Very enjoyable as a spectacle though. The MUSIC really makes that film very memorable. Definitely worth a watch but nowhere NEAR the greatness of the original 1939 film.
@@cashflowhustles Agreed. I know of nothing that ever spun off of TWoO that was as good. But The Wiz is at least an interesting take on it, with good music and big-name stars.
I seem to remember a cartoon version as well, with completely different songs.
I’ve watched so many reactions to this and yours is by far my favourite!!! You noticed all the right things & laughed at all my fave bits🫶🏽💗
Okay, the snow and poppies scene was a reference to the effects of opium which is made from poppies. At the time when the book was written, users would inhale it in opium dens, then sleep on bunks or cots provided for them. When the movie was filmed (during the Great Depression) opium dens were becoming rarer, but many still used them to get away from their troubles. An opium daze was difficult to wake from, and many died in their sleep. The snow was used to wake the characters because the police slosh cold water on the sleepers to wake them enough to arrest them.
The author of the Oz books Frank L Balm was addicted to opium for many years. Many think that is how he came up with such fantastical stories to tell his kids his bed time stories that he ended up writing down to make the Oz books.
I always assumed that the snow either killed the poppies or scrubbed the vapors they were inhaling from the air.
Just wanted to say thank you for your content. It gives me and my daughter time to bond, and she just loves you because she is also a redhead. Keep on keeping on and we cant wait to see whats next.
Ashleigh, you HAVE to watch the "sequel" the return to OZ from the 80s. (in 80s fashion its way more darker than the first movie, but a lot more accurate to the book!) its one of my all time fav. fantasy movies and in the likes of labyrinth and the neverending story.
I wouldn't say that it was more accurate. It takes elements from two different Oz books, one of which doesn't even have Dorothy in it, and mashes them together in an awkward way.
@@ericstoverink6579 It essentially mashed in a bunch of stuff from the other books AND the 1939 movie - like how it included the ruby slippers from the movie when they were silver in the original book. It's clear they were TRYING to make Return to Oz a pseudo-sequel to the MGM movie even though Return was made by Disney, but yeah, it's definitely an acquired taste.
I do love that movie.
Yes, very underrated. I just picked it up on Blu-Ray to replace my DVD.
I agree completely! Return to Oz is so great. Misunderstood but fantastic. Plus is pure 80’s.
Ever since I was 5, this was the next big event for us after Christmas! It aired each year sometime in February I think. This was the 60's and we all knew it was coming soon and we're so excited waiting for it🤗
Used to be Easter weekend in Idaho.
Two things I'll say about the Wizard of Oz: When I was a kid, my family would watch this movie every Christmas when it would come on TV (this was the 1960's) and the wicked witch scared the crap out of me every time. Also, we watched on a B&W TV so I was in my mid-20's before I knew that the movie went from Sepia to Technicolor when she gets to Oz.
I also saw it every year on CBS, but I was thinking it was always the beginning of spring. We also did not have color tv.
I remember when I was a kid in the '60's, each time before the network aired this movie (once a year), there was a "trailer" featuring Danny Kaye dancing down the Yellow Brick Road to explain to viewers that the scenes in Kansas were in black-and-white and that there was No Need to Adjust Your Set. 🌈
My sister was terrified of the flying monkeys!
This movie wasn't aired for Christmas. It aired on Thanksgiving. It was a tradition to watch it on Thanksgiving because the movie came out on Thanksgiving day 1939.
@@dwcinnc It was Thanksgiving.
This movie will always have a special place in my heart. When I was 4, my folks rented a VCR for my sister's 7th birthday sleepover party (this is back in 1980 when those were brand new and very few people had them) along with 2 videos. Annie and The Wizard of Oz. This was the first movie I ever saw, I'd never even been to a movie theater at that point as we lived in a small mountain community and the nearest theater was down in the valley. So, yeah. Lots of nostalgia for me on this one. Memories of sitting entranced on a rug in front of a roaring fire and being utterly amazed when the film went from sepia to color, all the wonderful characters, the songs, everything. It was a magical experience.
"He was dancing his heart out, wait he doesn't have one." Love it. I would also recommend watching Madtv's spoof of the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy gets pissed at Glinda because she knew the whole time how Dorothy could get home.
Then there's the "Futurama" episode, "Anthology of Interest II," where Leela chooses to become a Witch, only to be done in by...Zoidberg!
"if I was a child I'd be very scared of her". FACTS! I was terrified of the Wicked Witch of the West.
My first time trick or treating a teen girl was dressed as her and I saw her and took off running. Threw my pumpkin, candy went everywhere hahaha. The girls mother brought her over to apologize I guess (the girl hadn't done anything bad) and I said I was fine but after she walked away I begged my mom and dad to please take home and I didn't really even want candy. Lol