The WizardofOz is one of series of books by author L. Frank Baum. The first book was released in 1900. You should look online at the original book illustrations. Actor Buddy Ebsen was originally cast to play the Tinman but he was allergic to the silver body make-up. There were a lot of behind the camera issues concerning staff and make-up. Many cast issues have improved as child welfare, labor laws were changed with the formation of strong actors unions.
The green guards are Winkies. They come from Winkieland, which is a part of Oz. The witch captured them and made them her slaves. That's why they were happy with her death.
"It's just pigs." Reminds me of watching WIZARD OF OZ with my dad. It was almost the only film to elicit a comment from my monolithic father, who grew up on an Oklahoma dustbowl farm during the Depression. When Dorothy walked atop the pigpen fence and fell in, screaming, and Zeke rescued her, I asked why Zeke looked terrified. Dad turned to me and said, "He's right ya know . . . Them hogs'll EAT ya."
My great-uncle used to raise pigs. When going to visit as a kid, I wanted to go outside and look at them. He would always give me a stern warning to not get too close for that very reason.
It's so great to see the movie through the eyes of a young person who's never experienced it. It reminds you why it's so great and so enduring. It's hard to believe it was released 85 years ago.
This movie was released in 1939. My mom, whose name was also Dorothy, saw this in the theater when it came out and she said the audience gasped when she opens the door to Munchkinland. When I was growing up it was on TV, only once a year, to make it a special event, and we'd sit around the TV and watch together. Priceless. BTW, one of the original pairs of ruby slippers just sold at auction for 28 Million Dollars!
Margaret Hamilton was the wicked witch. She had been a school teacher before becoming an actress. Some of her scenes were cut because they were considered too terrifying, She was very concerned about children getting frightened while watching the movie. In the 60's she appeared on the children's show "Mr. Rogers Neighborhood' in the witches costume and explained to the children that this was all just make believe,
She did commercials for Maxwell House in the 1970s when I was a kid. She played Cora who ran a general store. The only brand of coffee she sold was Maxwell House.
I find it an interesting commentary that those who are under 40 (give or take) have such a hard time suspending reality to enjoy this movie. Those of us older (I'm 63) can remember every childish feeling we had watching The Wizard of Oz. "Seeing" this as a child and not an adult trying to make sense of everything, to see "Stranger Danger" where we would never have considered that aspect, or to guess what's coming next, is a joyful privilege for us. If I could give any piece of advice to under 40-year old reviewers, it would be to "Remember your child inside. Don't think. Just experience."
When I was growing up in the 1960s, there was hardly anything like a fantasy genre. The school library carried books with stories in which inevitably the creatures were crooks in masks a la Scooby-Doo. Then the Lord of the Rings books came to America, which sparked Lin Carter's Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, plus reprints of Conan and Lovecraft, which in turn influenced Dungeons and Dragons and innumerable RPGs, which became innumerable video and online games . . . anyway, I would have thought later generations would find the "suspension of disbelief" much easier nowadays, having grown up with so much fantasy media. There was one annoying factor, way back when, in that many films, including OZ, tacked on an "it was all a dream" ending to the original stories.
@@michaelwinkle4480 Great history memory! I wasn't into Fantasy or SciFi (or horror like Lovecraft), but had friends and partners who were. You are so right! With gaming so prevalent, it's hard to understand how suspending disbelief with a joystick is possible, but not with a bowl of popcorn in their laps. Nice to meet another "Cusper."
@@michaelwinkle4480 yes the "dream" thing is pretty annoying; alas, Louis B. Mayer didn't think that audiences could handle Oz being reality. Allegedly in one alternate ending, Dorothy finds the ruby slippers still on her feet - but MGM even nixed that.
@@michaelwinkle4480 Yes, before the late 60s and early 70s, comic books and pulp fantasy novels were popular but (among elite groups) despised art forms, largely due to a rejection of the totalitarian fantasies of the 1930s and the overall cussedness of World War II. "Just the facts, ma'am" was the watchword back then. There was even an active campaign against comic books in 1950s America. That started changing with "Lord of the Rings," and when I was in school in the 1970s, fantasy was big business. But I still remember adults who thought non-realistic literature was pernicious garbage, and you can see that attitude in pure form in "A Miracle on 34th Street," where Doris is attempting to raise her child with no fairy tales or fantasy.
In the book, the Ruby Slippers were Silver Shoes (not slippers), which Dorothy chose to wear because they looked like they would stand up well for her long journey to the Emerald City. Denslow's illustrations show a low heeled shoe with a wide strap below the ankle (with a bow sometimes), and slightly turned-up fairy-tale toes. Dorothy's blue-and-white dress is directly from the book.
When I was a kid back in the 70s it was a big deal when this movie was on TV. There was no home video or On Demand back then. So the once or twice a year this was aired on network TV, you made sure to watch it. And it's still as magical as ever.
Buddy Ebsen, who starred in the Beverly Hillbillies, was cast as the tin woodsman. but had to drop out because he was allergic to the silver makeup. 1939 may be the best year for movies, ever.
There was a lot of drama surrounding the Ruby Slippers. There's a few existing pairs, but the pair that's in the best condition was stolen from a museum and for years no one knew where they were. It was kinda funny when they were finally found, the FBI did a press conference and it was treated like a successful drug bust or something. I mean in their defense I'd be proud too if I was part of the team that helped find them.
I choose to believe that Dorothy's experience isn't a dream, but rather a trip into the multiverse! She's transported to a parallel universe, hence why she runs into alternate "versions" of the people from her life on the farm.
To add on to that theory, since we never see the Witch of the East's face, did Dorothy kill her counterpart upon arriving, steal her shoes and essentially take her place in that world for a while? 🤔
Multiverse or not, Dorothy's experience was much more than a mere dream, and she was clearly transformed by it, which I suspect almost never happens in dreams. That's why I have no problem with the "just a dream" element in this case.
26:27 I am now 60 years old and have seen this film countless times and have never noticed this near break of character by Miss Garland. This is a great reaction, watching you be fascinated by this timeless classic was great. So far I have watched this twice, and I know there will be more. Thanks so much. New sub
L. Frank Baum, the author of the books (there were many sequels too) had been an editor of a small town newspaper where he had heard of such an incident, although I believe it was a mile or so - clearly the inspiration.
Wicked is set before, during, AND after the events of The Wizard of Oz. I can't wait to see your reaction to Wicked because it helps to put the events of this film into perspective. Both this and Wicked are such good films. I'm so excited for Wicked Part 2 to release because the first part is amazing. I'm sure you'll love it!
In the 1900 L. Frank Baum novel, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz (and sequels), Oz was a real place - in book 6, Dorothy moved her aunt and uncle there, as they were having financial problems in Kansas, but were able to live like royalty in Oz. Baum also had FOUR witches. The Good Witch of the North was not given a name and she looked like a grandma, not a Billie Burke. After Dorothy, et al, discover the wizard is a fake, they have to travel to the Good Witch of the South, Glinda, a beautiful woman with red hair, who finally sends Dorothy home. The Wicked Witch of the West does not show up in Munchkinland and in the drawings of her (the books were lavishly illustrated, giving us an idea of what Baum saw his characters), she looks really weird, carrying an umbrella (I guess to keep from getting wet), and one eye was a telescoping one, letting her see for miles. (Yes, weird.) MGM changed some of these facets of Oz and has become the version of which most people think of Oz. Baum had thrown in a backstory of sorts in the books which changed as he felt like it in subsequent stories. Basically, there had been a royal family of Oz, and when the wizard landed, he deposed them to put himself in charge. Part of how he did this, he had Mombi (introduced in the second book, Marvelous Land of Oz) hide the real rightful heir, Ozma. (Mombi made her into Tip, a young boy, whom she made into her servant, perhaps the first trans character of a sort in all of literature.) Ozma becomes a major character from then on, although Glinda does show up from time to time. Wicked draws more from the MGM movie in some respects, also from the books, and then makes up its own version. So there is the books version, the MGM version, and the Wicked/book/MGM universe. And other authors have made up lots of other stories feeding off the overall concept. MGM bought the rights to the first book. Disney purchased them to the other 13 Baum ones (other authors continued his ideas after his death in 1919). In 1985, Disney made Return to Oz, which is a very clever blend of the second and third books, Marvelous Land of Oz and Ozma of Oz. Return had to work really hard not to step on the MGM rights (even going so far as paying a lot of money to use the idea of ruby slippers - they were silver in the book but red really pops in technicolor). Many Oz fans, myself included, consider this the closest to Baum's concepts - such as Dorothy being only an 8-10 year old girl, not the 16-17 yo Judy Garland strapped in to play 14 yo. Many were stunned to see this version of Oz, which came across as darker than the MGM movie but then again, there were some real dark moments in the books. (Love, love, LOVE Return to Oz.) Disney later did Oz, the Great & Powerful, with James Franco playing the wizard as a young man as he first gets to Oz. Now I like Franco but I think he was totally wrong to play a younger version of the bumbling Frank Morgan. Also, I find the movie just over CGI'ed to death. Movies like the Muppet version and the all-Black movie, the Whiz, bump Dorothy's age UP, to mid 20's. And Disney's Oz, the G&P movie doesn't even include her. Personally, ignoring this element, I think, of the Baum version, intended for YOUNG children, takes away a lot of the charm of the story. The original books have long been in the public domain and can easily be found on Google for free - including with the wonderful original illustrations. As children's stories, they are a quick and easy read. You can also just type in the name of a character and "Oz" into the Google search function to see for yourself the period (and later) illustrations.
There is also the Mad TV alternate version of the MGM movie where Dorothy turns on Glinda for not telling her sooner about the slippers. Very funny. Just type "Mad tv" and "Wizard of Oz" into the TH-cam search function.
There were several really serious accidents, including the woman playing the Wicked Witch, and later her stunt double in a different scene, getting really burned. The original tin woodsman had aluminum dust for his tin color. He breathed this in and almost died - and another actor replaced him (and they changed to mix the dust into the makeup to make a paste). NONE of these incidents wound up in the movie, of course. There is a stupid legend that a Munchkin hung himself in the background of the tin woodsman's cabin, due to the low-resolution of early tv's when the movie was first broadcast in the mid-'50's. In the high resolution version on the big screen seen in theaters all over the world in the 1939, 1949 and 1955 releases, it is clearly an exotic bird which gets startled by the three characters turning and coming toward it. There are so many reasons why this hanging didn't happen, and ever stronger reasons why if it had, it never would be included in the final cut. (They did several retakes of each scene - to think such a body would not have been discovered in the MONTHS between filming and the film's release is nuts. They were also editing and re-editing the movie right up until its release, plenty of time to fix this, reshoot or just edit it out by cutting the scene short.) This scene was filmed WEEKS before the Munchkin actors arrived in the studio. Random people would get stopped long before they stepped into the set as it was a CLOSED set. The three actors would have only been a few feet from said tree while he was supposedly hanging himself, with the director up 30 feet in the air on a boom looking down, and stagehands all over the place including on catwalks above the set.) In later years, partially due to her experiences making this movie, Judy Garland became substance-dependent. She would go on late night talk shows, slurring her words, and told exaggerated tales of how rowdy and drunk the Muchkin actors were off the set. Yet she never ONCE told this story of a hanging Munchkin, nor did anyone else connected with making the movie - and there are so many stories and books about the whole process.
Something a lot of people don't pick up on is, "Poppies will make them sleep." Ask yourself, "Where does opium come from?" The Wicked Witch is getting them stoned. 🙃
17:10 Yes, that was this scene. She had a lot of pain later in life from these injuries. Keep in mind this was shot in the 1930s, and there was not the safety requirements that there are today. For instance, the tin man, his silver paint was actually toxic. There are a ton of stories like this on the set. Not to mention, I believe the dog was paid more than the munchkins. Which is kind of sad.
As a child I had to leave the room after the tinman/off to see the wizard scene. The witch scared me so much, throwing the ball of fire at the scarecrow. And you should do "Return to Oz". Nothing like this one, but great in it's own right. The scene where Mombi's head intones "Dorothy Gale!" is my favorite.
Since you asked, "Wicked" is intended as a prequel, showing us the life and times of the Wicked Witch of the West, in this revision named Elphaba. What's strange is that the book and musical almost entirely based on the movie's version of events and not the original book.
it's worth mentioning, regarding Wicked, is that it's meant to be a prequel, but is essentially a fanfiction drawing on both this movie and the original Oz novels. they aren't strictly part of the same continuity
There are some great TH-cam videos of interviews with Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch of the West. In them, she talks about her role and the movie. Also, you can see her appearance on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, where she helps children understand that she was playing a role and that they shouldn't be scared after seeing the movie.
awh that's great! i'll check it out thank you! oh wow that's so sweet! how funny that she's actually a lovely lady haha! just shows her ability and talent! thanks for watching :)
A definite classic, & it does me good to see the younger generations finally enjoying it! BTW… I actually got to meet Jerry Maren (The green-clad member of the munchkin lollipop guild, in the center of the trio.) over 20 years ago. Nice guy, who signed an autograph for my Uncle. (Wizard of Oz is his favorite flick.) BTW… If you would like to see the great Margaret Hamilton in another terrific witch character, you should watch a favorite Abbott & Costello comedy, “Comin’ round the Mountain”! Fun & funny flick, for sure! (I think it is available on TH-cam.) Enjoy! 😁
My mother saw this in the theater in 1939. She said when the door opened and transitioned into technicolor,… the whole audience gasped in awe. What a moment that must have been. One of my all time favorites. Should have won the Oscar!!!!!!
Thanks for your reaction. The lyricist and unofficial script writer for the movie was EY Harburg, a magician with words. I think you would enjoy his other work. Finnian's Rainbow is another musical (imperfectly) made into a movie. The musical that was really made for young creative folks by you is called Tick, Tick, Boom, about "Rent" composer Jonathan Larson's attempt to get his first musical made while working as a waiter in 90's NY.
@stephenr3910 he was of a generation of great progressive Jewish songwriters. He went to high school with the Gershwins and wrote his most famous songs with Harold Arlen, son of a Cantor. He was a great man. I think you might enjoy Yip singing Over the Rainbow th-cam.com/video/eNiXnzh3abk/w-d-xo.htmlsi=7-DpnM2RKiHPodaW
I wouldn't consider "Wicked" a prequel to this movie. More of an Elseworlds/What-If/AU. If you think of it as a prequel you'll be frustrated by inconsistencies and character assassination, you have to treat it as a separate thing to really enjoy it.
Now you need to see "The Wiz". It si a 1978 film that tells the same story with a new score. It is not a great film, but worth seeing for a different perspective on the story. It also stars Diana Ross and Michael Jackson. An interesting piece of trivia is that years later Judy Garland's daughter, Liza Minnelli, married the Tin Man's son
Parts of this film are not black & white but sepia - which are muted brown tones that create a softer, warmer, more nostalgic atmosphere and better fits the location and time of this story (the Great Depression and Dust Bowl era.) Black & white has more stark contrasts and sharper delineations and is more concerned with using lighting and shadows. There were many films which preceded this that had both color and either black & white or sepia sequences. However, this film has been more established as a classic film than those, is nearly perfect technically, and was one of the best to be focused on intense use of color to tell the story, or be symbolic and achieve extremely saturated Technicolor.
You should look up Mr. Roger's Neighborhood where he interviews the lady who plays Miss Gulch/Wicked Witch (I can't remember her name right now). Kids were so terrified of her performance that he used her to teach about acting and how actors can pretend to be bad, but really be nice people.
Great analogy - perfect analogy. And the Disney Sleeping Beauty is quite different than the original medieval tale (as Disney changed ALL of these early grim stories, including those by the appropriately named Grimm brothers.
I would argue that Maleficent is an *attempt* but a failed one. Wicked doesn't change the actual events of the story, just recontextualizes them. Maleficent completely changed the story altogether, to the point it makes you wonder, if this is the true story then where the original come from?
Instead of saying, "I can't believe they could do all this in 1939", you should be saying, "Oh my God, I have been such a chronological snob!" and vow never again to suppose that movies were rubbish before Star Wars or whatever. L. Frank Baum, who wrote The Wizard of Oz (and thirteen sequels and several other peripherally-related books) tried his hand at making movies in the early day of Hollywood. He embraced the special effects technologies available at the time-stop-motion animation, miniatures, double-exposures and cross-fades-and the work stands up very well, once you are accustomed to the conventions of silent films and the limitations of cameras at the time. Indeed, the scene in "His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz" (1914) in which the princess's heart is literally frozen by a coven of witches, is creepy and effective more than a century later, and that storyline was recycled into the next Oz book, "The Scarecrow of Oz" (1915). You can see Baum's surviving films here on TH-cam. They didn't do well commercially, partly because there was not yet a real audience for what we now call "family films".
11:50 The way the camera zoomed through the doorway and then Dorothy stepped into the scene indicates that your theory is correct. 17:10 The actress was burnt -- not in that take but the following attempt. 20:10 Yes, the three farmhands became the three companions, Miss Gulch became the Wicked Witch of the West -- I view the witch seen in the tornado as the Wicked Witch of the East, and the con man (Professor Marvel) became the Wizard -- and the actor played several roles in the Emerald City. 32:00 That horse was the "horse of a different color". Recall the doorman saying, "That's a horse of a different color! Come on in!" 33:40 Did anyone notice the soldier's whiskers in the scene?
Tornadoes are funny things, they will sometimes pick things up and put them down some where else without much damage done and other times they will completely obliterate stuff. May parents both grew up in Kansas and my dad has a saying, “It’s not THAT the wind is blowing, it’s WHAT the wind is blowing, that makes it the most dangerous.” My best bet is that since the farm was the only one in the immediate area and since it was dust bowl Kansas, there just wasn’t anything else big to hit the house and uncle Henry must have built stuff like my grandpa and that thing was solid lol. If you want to make an argument for science and not just movie magic 😅
Your mistrust of Prof. Marvel was unwarranted. The movie informed us of his good character when he laughed good-naturedly at Toto stealing his lunch. Edited to add: You're not alone. I've noticed a lot of reactors misjudge Prof. Marvel at first. I grew up watching The Wizard of Oz every year back in the '60s.
It may be that today’s audiences are more suspicious, distrustful, or expect “plot twists” with people lying. And today’s audiences often react negatively to adult characters and assume adults have bad intentions or evil agendas. The reliance on “community” that existed in decades prior and the basic premise that most people are good-hearted is not part of today’s media.
Loved your reaction. Most lines and phrases from this movie have become a part of western culture than perhaps any other. This movie is like a coloring book. "Just some pigs". Pigs in a sty, if given a chance, will literally bite you to death then eat you. Funny how your postmodern sensibilities immediately didn't trust the professor, while in those days people were much more civilized, kind, and considerate, especially of children. Some tornado's in America can actually lift a house with people in it and drop it some distance away. So even though the movie exaggerates the distance, this type of thing can happen. If the transition from black and white gave you chills imagine how people in 1939 felt, most of whom had never seen color films before If you were disturbed by the wicked witch imagine how we children felt seeing this movie.
thank you so much for watching with me!! And i appreciate all of your thoughts! I can imagine the nightmares the witch gave the children my goodness! Probably the scariest character around at the time! ❤️
Thank you for this reaction! The Wizard of Oz was the first musical I was in, and I had the pleasure to play Professor Marvel and the Wizard himself. Years later, I did the musical again with my nephew; I was the Emerald City Guard, and he was a Munchkin. I remember seeing Wicked, and I really can’t wait to see the film soon!!! I highly recommend these other Oz films: Return to Oz, Oz the Great and Powerful, The Wiz, Dorthy and the Witches of Oz, The Muppets Wizard of Oz, Legend of Oz: Dorothy’s Return, Tom and Jerry’s Wizard of Oz, Tom and Jerry’s Return to Oz, and Tin Man. 👧🏼🐺🧠❤️✊🫧🧹🌈🩵💚💖
No, they are not children. They are adults. Adults that happen to be short for their entire lives. Yes their are people in this world who can not get very tall even as adults.
One of the greatest movies ever, IMHO, and nearly forgotten today. The opening scenes in the Globe Theatre are fabulous, the sketchy sets and gaudy colors later on are downright surreal, and the big battle scene is one of the best of its kind ever filmed. (It was made as a patriotic movie in 1944/45, which explains why the last couple of the narrator's lines, telling how Henry's son lost France again, is conveniently removed.)
Kudos for conquering your fear of old movies! 😱 This is indeed a wonderful classic. If you enjoy screwball comedies, two of the best were made just just a few years earlier. “Bringing Up Baby” and “The Philadelphia Story”. Black and white and belly-laughs aplenty… (Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant-plus James Stewart in TPS). A little forward in time, if you haven’t watched “The Sound of Music” you should. Another timeless classic. Last, a recommendation just for you. Contemporary film for me-before your time for you-Blake Edward’s “Victor/Victoria”. Have a change of undies handy ’cause you’ll wet them laughing. The tag line for the movie is “a woman, pretending to be a man, pretending to be a woman.” Say, what? More than laughs ensue! Julie Andrews, James Garner, Robert Preston, Lesley Ann Warren (1982). The movie was an adaptation of the Broadway play… Apropos great female leads, on *The Carol Burnett Show* there are wonderful segments with Julie Andrews and Maggie Smith amongst others. The show may be old, the staging IS dated but the comedy is timeless-and Carol was bold & fearless defying convention, societal expectations, the residual stink of Jim Crow, and she drove the CBS censors half-mad (fortunately, Rowen & Martin’s Laugh-In was airing around the same dates, and the Smothers Brothers (razor sharp political satire) aired along side it-both more outré entertainment upon which the censors could gnash their teeth). Bottom line was Carol got away with a surprising amount, and we are the beneficiaries. Probably not fit for reacting but book-mark it for yourself. 🌝
Hello! Hello! My full reaction is up on Patreon, Wicked will be there soon! patreon.com/TristanAtkinson
The WizardofOz is one of series of books by author L. Frank Baum. The first book was released in 1900.
You should look online at the original book illustrations.
Actor Buddy Ebsen was originally cast to play the Tinman but he was allergic to the silver body make-up.
There were a lot of behind the camera issues concerning staff and make-up. Many cast issues have improved as child welfare, labor laws were changed with the formation of strong actors unions.
The green guards are Winkies. They come from Winkieland, which is a part of Oz. The witch captured them and made them her slaves. That's why they were happy with her death.
"It's just pigs." Reminds me of watching WIZARD OF OZ with my dad. It was almost the only film to elicit a comment from my monolithic father, who grew up on an Oklahoma dustbowl farm during the Depression. When Dorothy walked atop the pigpen fence and fell in, screaming, and Zeke rescued her, I asked why Zeke looked terrified. Dad turned to me and said, "He's right ya know . . . Them hogs'll EAT ya."
Yes! My mother grew up on a farm and said the same thing. You are the only other person I know to ever say that.
My great-uncle used to raise pigs. When going to visit as a kid, I wanted to go outside and look at them. He would always give me a stern warning to not get too close for that very reason.
It's so great to see the movie through the eyes of a young person who's never experienced it. It reminds you why it's so great and so enduring. It's hard to believe it was released 85 years ago.
This movie was released in 1939. My mom, whose name was also Dorothy, saw this in the theater when it came out and she said the audience gasped when she opens the door to Munchkinland. When I was growing up it was on TV, only once a year, to make it a special event, and we'd sit around the TV and watch together. Priceless. BTW, one of the original pairs of ruby slippers just sold at auction for 28 Million Dollars!
Margaret Hamilton was the wicked witch. She had been a school teacher before becoming an actress. Some of her scenes were cut because they were considered too terrifying, She was very concerned about children getting frightened while watching the movie. In the 60's she appeared on the children's show "Mr. Rogers Neighborhood' in the witches costume and explained to the children that this was all just make believe,
She did commercials for Maxwell House in the 1970s when I was a kid. She played Cora who ran a general store. The only brand of coffee she sold was Maxwell House.
I find it an interesting commentary that those who are under 40 (give or take) have such a hard time suspending reality to enjoy this movie. Those of us older (I'm 63) can remember every childish feeling we had watching The Wizard of Oz. "Seeing" this as a child and not an adult trying to make sense of everything, to see "Stranger Danger" where we would never have considered that aspect, or to guess what's coming next, is a joyful privilege for us. If I could give any piece of advice to under 40-year old reviewers, it would be to "Remember your child inside. Don't think. Just experience."
When I was growing up in the 1960s, there was hardly anything like a fantasy genre. The school library carried books with stories in which inevitably the creatures were crooks in masks a la Scooby-Doo. Then the Lord of the Rings books came to America, which sparked Lin Carter's Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, plus reprints of Conan and Lovecraft, which in turn influenced Dungeons and Dragons and innumerable RPGs, which became innumerable video and online games . . . anyway, I would have thought later generations would find the "suspension of disbelief" much easier nowadays, having grown up with so much fantasy media.
There was one annoying factor, way back when, in that many films, including OZ, tacked on an "it was all a dream" ending to the original stories.
@@michaelwinkle4480 Great history memory! I wasn't into Fantasy or SciFi (or horror like Lovecraft), but had friends and partners who were. You are so right! With gaming so prevalent, it's hard to understand how suspending disbelief with a joystick is possible, but not with a bowl of popcorn in their laps. Nice to meet another "Cusper."
@@michaelwinkle4480 yes the "dream" thing is pretty annoying; alas, Louis B. Mayer didn't think that audiences could handle Oz being reality. Allegedly in one alternate ending, Dorothy finds the ruby slippers still on her feet - but MGM even nixed that.
@@michaelwinkle4480 Yes, before the late 60s and early 70s, comic books and pulp fantasy novels were popular but (among elite groups) despised art forms, largely due to a rejection of the totalitarian fantasies of the 1930s and the overall cussedness of World War II. "Just the facts, ma'am" was the watchword back then. There was even an active campaign against comic books in 1950s America. That started changing with "Lord of the Rings," and when I was in school in the 1970s, fantasy was big business. But I still remember adults who thought non-realistic literature was pernicious garbage, and you can see that attitude in pure form in "A Miracle on 34th Street," where Doris is attempting to raise her child with no fairy tales or fantasy.
In the book, the Ruby Slippers were Silver Shoes (not slippers), which Dorothy chose to wear because they looked like they would stand up well for her long journey to the Emerald City. Denslow's illustrations show a low heeled shoe with a wide strap below the ankle (with a bow sometimes), and slightly turned-up fairy-tale toes. Dorothy's blue-and-white dress is directly from the book.
When I was a kid back in the 70s it was a big deal when this movie was on TV. There was no home video or On Demand back then. So the once or twice a year this was aired on network TV, you made sure to watch it. And it's still as magical as ever.
It was usually in March every year.
Buddy Ebsen, who starred in the Beverly Hillbillies, was cast as the tin woodsman. but had to drop out because he was allergic to the silver makeup.
1939 may be the best year for movies, ever.
There was a lot of drama surrounding the Ruby Slippers. There's a few existing pairs, but the pair that's in the best condition was stolen from a museum and for years no one knew where they were. It was kinda funny when they were finally found, the FBI did a press conference and it was treated like a successful drug bust or something. I mean in their defense I'd be proud too if I was part of the team that helped find them.
whatttt hahah that's too funny! they must be worth a LOT of money though so i suppose it was theft at a high level! how funny! HAHA thanks for sharing
I choose to believe that Dorothy's experience isn't a dream, but rather a trip into the multiverse! She's transported to a parallel universe, hence why she runs into alternate "versions" of the people from her life on the farm.
To add on to that theory, since we never see the Witch of the East's face, did Dorothy kill her counterpart upon arriving, steal her shoes and essentially take her place in that world for a while? 🤔
Multiverse or not, Dorothy's experience was much more than a mere dream, and she was clearly transformed by it, which I suspect almost never happens in dreams. That's why I have no problem with the "just a dream" element in this case.
To be fair I would run away with my dog for her safety too, it wouldn’t even be a question 🥲 Dorothy had it right even back then, a dog is a child
26:27 I am now 60 years old and have seen this film countless times and have never noticed this near break of character by Miss Garland. This is a great reaction, watching you be fascinated by this timeless classic was great. So far I have watched this twice, and I know there will be more. Thanks so much. New sub
40:16 where did the axe come from?
@@Wellchthe tin man, although made without a heart, has a built-in axe carrying slot in his left leg. ❤
There have been instances of a tornado moving a house several yards more or less intact.
L. Frank Baum, the author of the books (there were many sequels too) had been an editor of a small town newspaper where he had heard of such an incident, although I believe it was a mile or so - clearly the inspiration.
The scene where Dorothy is locked in the witch’s castle made my uncle cry when he was little. He thought she wasn’t going to get home. 🥺
Wicked is set before, during, AND after the events of The Wizard of Oz. I can't wait to see your reaction to Wicked because it helps to put the events of this film into perspective. Both this and Wicked are such good films. I'm so excited for Wicked Part 2 to release because the first part is amazing. I'm sure you'll love it!
oh wowww that's incredible! i'm sooo excited to check it out!! oh it's in two parts?? thanks so so much for joining me for this, hope you enjoyed :)
In the 1900 L. Frank Baum novel, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz (and sequels), Oz was a real place - in book 6, Dorothy moved her aunt and uncle there, as they were having financial problems in Kansas, but were able to live like royalty in Oz.
Baum also had FOUR witches. The Good Witch of the North was not given a name and she looked like a grandma, not a Billie Burke. After Dorothy, et al, discover the wizard is a fake, they have to travel to the Good Witch of the South, Glinda, a beautiful woman with red hair, who finally sends Dorothy home. The Wicked Witch of the West does not show up in Munchkinland and in the drawings of her (the books were lavishly illustrated, giving us an idea of what Baum saw his characters), she looks really weird, carrying an umbrella (I guess to keep from getting wet), and one eye was a telescoping one, letting her see for miles. (Yes, weird.)
MGM changed some of these facets of Oz and has become the version of which most people think of Oz. Baum had thrown in a backstory of sorts in the books which changed as he felt like it in subsequent stories. Basically, there had been a royal family of Oz, and when the wizard landed, he deposed them to put himself in charge. Part of how he did this, he had Mombi (introduced in the second book, Marvelous Land of Oz) hide the real rightful heir, Ozma. (Mombi made her into Tip, a young boy, whom she made into her servant, perhaps the first trans character of a sort in all of literature.)
Ozma becomes a major character from then on, although Glinda does show up from time to time. Wicked draws more from the MGM movie in some respects, also from the books, and then makes up its own version. So there is the books version, the MGM version, and the Wicked/book/MGM universe. And other authors have made up lots of other stories feeding off the overall concept.
MGM bought the rights to the first book. Disney purchased them to the other 13 Baum ones (other authors continued his ideas after his death in 1919). In 1985, Disney made Return to Oz, which is a very clever blend of the second and third books, Marvelous Land of Oz and Ozma of Oz. Return had to work really hard not to step on the MGM rights (even going so far as paying a lot of money to use the idea of ruby slippers - they were silver in the book but red really pops in technicolor). Many Oz fans, myself included, consider this the closest to Baum's concepts - such as Dorothy being only an 8-10 year old girl, not the 16-17 yo Judy Garland strapped in to play 14 yo. Many were stunned to see this version of Oz, which came across as darker than the MGM movie but then again, there were some real dark moments in the books. (Love, love, LOVE Return to Oz.)
Disney later did Oz, the Great & Powerful, with James Franco playing the wizard as a young man as he first gets to Oz. Now I like Franco but I think he was totally wrong to play a younger version of the bumbling Frank Morgan. Also, I find the movie just over CGI'ed to death.
Movies like the Muppet version and the all-Black movie, the Whiz, bump Dorothy's age UP, to mid 20's. And Disney's Oz, the G&P movie doesn't even include her. Personally, ignoring this element, I think, of the Baum version, intended for YOUNG children, takes away a lot of the charm of the story.
The original books have long been in the public domain and can easily be found on Google for free - including with the wonderful original illustrations. As children's stories, they are a quick and easy read. You can also just type in the name of a character and "Oz" into the Google search function to see for yourself the period (and later) illustrations.
There is also the Mad TV alternate version of the MGM movie where Dorothy turns on Glinda for not telling her sooner about the slippers. Very funny. Just type "Mad tv" and "Wizard of Oz" into the TH-cam search function.
There were several really serious accidents, including the woman playing the Wicked Witch, and later her stunt double in a different scene, getting really burned. The original tin woodsman had aluminum dust for his tin color. He breathed this in and almost died - and another actor replaced him (and they changed to mix the dust into the makeup to make a paste). NONE of these incidents wound up in the movie, of course.
There is a stupid legend that a Munchkin hung himself in the background of the tin woodsman's cabin, due to the low-resolution of early tv's when the movie was first broadcast in the mid-'50's. In the high resolution version on the big screen seen in theaters all over the world in the 1939, 1949 and 1955 releases, it is clearly an exotic bird which gets startled by the three characters turning and coming toward it.
There are so many reasons why this hanging didn't happen, and ever stronger reasons why if it had, it never would be included in the final cut. (They did several retakes of each scene - to think such a body would not have been discovered in the MONTHS between filming and the film's release is nuts. They were also editing and re-editing the movie right up until its release, plenty of time to fix this, reshoot or just edit it out by cutting the scene short.) This scene was filmed WEEKS before the Munchkin actors arrived in the studio. Random people would get stopped long before they stepped into the set as it was a CLOSED set. The three actors would have only been a few feet from said tree while he was supposedly hanging himself, with the director up 30 feet in the air on a boom looking down, and stagehands all over the place including on catwalks above the set.)
In later years, partially due to her experiences making this movie, Judy Garland became substance-dependent. She would go on late night talk shows, slurring her words, and told exaggerated tales of how rowdy and drunk the Muchkin actors were off the set. Yet she never ONCE told this story of a hanging Munchkin, nor did anyone else connected with making the movie - and there are so many stories and books about the whole process.
Something a lot of people don't pick up on is, "Poppies will make them sleep." Ask yourself, "Where does opium come from?" The Wicked Witch is getting them stoned. 🙃
I think its quite obvious. But I appreciate your point for those who may not.
@@RonnieGI didn’t 🤦🏽♂️
... and the snow wakes you up.
Sometimes people forget the poison part
17:10 Yes, that was this scene. She had a lot of pain later in life from these injuries. Keep in mind this was shot in the 1930s, and there was not the safety requirements that there are today. For instance, the tin man, his silver paint was actually toxic. There are a ton of stories like this on the set. Not to mention, I believe the dog was paid more than the munchkins. Which is kind of sad.
As a child I had to leave the room after the tinman/off to see the wizard scene. The witch scared me so much, throwing the ball of fire at the scarecrow. And you should do "Return to Oz". Nothing like this one, but great in it's own right. The scene where Mombi's head intones "Dorothy Gale!" is my favorite.
Who else wants to see T watch "Return to Oz?"
This movie came out every year at my birthday, which I thought was a birthday gift to me, especially
Yes. Judy, has a wonderful voice
yes, she killed someone, but, It was for Shoes
Since you asked, "Wicked" is intended as a prequel, showing us the life and times of the Wicked Witch of the West, in this revision named Elphaba. What's strange is that the book and musical almost entirely based on the movie's version of events and not the original book.
Now that you’ve seen this incredible film you have to react to The Wiz from 1978 with Diana Ross and Michael Jackson. It is wild!
it's worth mentioning, regarding Wicked, is that it's meant to be a prequel, but is essentially a fanfiction drawing on both this movie and the original Oz novels. they aren't strictly part of the same continuity
There are some great TH-cam videos of interviews with Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch of the West. In them, she talks about her role and the movie. Also, you can see her appearance on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, where she helps children understand that she was playing a role and that they shouldn't be scared after seeing the movie.
awh that's great! i'll check it out thank you! oh wow that's so sweet! how funny that she's actually a lovely lady haha! just shows her ability and talent! thanks for watching :)
A definite classic, & it does me good to see the younger generations finally enjoying it! BTW… I actually got to meet Jerry Maren (The green-clad member of the munchkin lollipop guild, in the center of the trio.) over 20 years ago. Nice guy, who signed an autograph for my Uncle. (Wizard of Oz is his favorite flick.)
BTW… If you would like to see the great Margaret Hamilton in another terrific witch character, you should watch a favorite Abbott & Costello comedy, “Comin’ round the Mountain”! Fun & funny flick, for sure! (I think it is available on TH-cam.)
Enjoy!
😁
lmfao at how quick you turned on Glinda lol
My mother saw this in the theater in 1939. She said when the door opened and transitioned into technicolor,… the whole audience gasped in awe. What a moment that must have been. One of my all time favorites. Should have won the Oscar!!!!!!
There's a similarly cool moment in the screen version of "Oz the Great and Powerful" (2003), when the movie shifts from 2D to 3D.
Thanks for your reaction. The lyricist and unofficial script writer for the movie was EY Harburg, a magician with words. I think you would enjoy his other work. Finnian's Rainbow is another musical (imperfectly) made into a movie. The musical that was really made for young creative folks by you is called Tick, Tick, Boom, about "Rent" composer Jonathan Larson's attempt to get his first musical made while working as a waiter in 90's NY.
He also wrote, "Buddy Can You Spare a Dime" which was about people struggling during the Great Depression.
@stephenr3910 he was of a generation of great progressive Jewish songwriters. He went to high school with the Gershwins and wrote his most famous songs with Harold Arlen, son of a Cantor. He was a great man. I think you might enjoy Yip singing Over the Rainbow th-cam.com/video/eNiXnzh3abk/w-d-xo.htmlsi=7-DpnM2RKiHPodaW
I wouldn't consider "Wicked" a prequel to this movie. More of an Elseworlds/What-If/AU. If you think of it as a prequel you'll be frustrated by inconsistencies and character assassination, you have to treat it as a separate thing to really enjoy it.
Yes, this movie had more than its fair share of mishaps during production, but nobody died. That's an urban myth.
Now you need to see "The Wiz". It si a 1978 film that tells the same story with a new score. It is not a great film, but worth seeing for a different perspective on the story. It also stars Diana Ross and Michael Jackson. An interesting piece of trivia is that years later Judy Garland's daughter, Liza Minnelli, married the Tin Man's son
Parts of this film are not black & white but sepia - which are muted brown tones that create a softer, warmer, more nostalgic atmosphere and better fits the location and time of this story (the Great Depression and Dust Bowl era.) Black & white has more stark contrasts and sharper delineations and is more concerned with using lighting and shadows.
There were many films which preceded this that had both color and either black & white or sepia sequences. However, this film has been more established as a classic film than those, is nearly perfect technically, and was one of the best to be focused on intense use of color to tell the story, or be symbolic and achieve extremely saturated Technicolor.
You'll probably like Judy's Carnegie Hall concert that she did in the 60s. I got a cassette back in the pre-CD era with excerpts from it.
You should look up Mr. Roger's Neighborhood where he interviews the lady who plays Miss Gulch/Wicked Witch (I can't remember her name right now). Kids were so terrified of her performance that he used her to teach about acting and how actors can pretend to be bad, but really be nice people.
no place like home
Congratulations on picking up on how the characters on the farm set up their Oz versions in the first part of the movie It's a perfect screenplay
thank you so much!! hope you enjoyed my reaction i absolutely loved watching this masterpiece!
Wicked is to The Wizard of Oz as Maleficent is to Sleeping Beauty. It’s a different perspective.
oh interestingggg thank you for that! hope you enjoyed my reaction :)
Great analogy - perfect analogy. And the Disney Sleeping Beauty is quite different than the original medieval tale (as Disney changed ALL of these early grim stories, including those by the appropriately named Grimm brothers.
I would argue that Maleficent is an *attempt* but a failed one. Wicked doesn't change the actual events of the story, just recontextualizes them. Maleficent completely changed the story altogether, to the point it makes you wonder, if this is the true story then where the original come from?
Your editing is spot on.
Toto, real name Terry, was also in another classic 1939 film, The Women.
Instead of saying, "I can't believe they could do all this in 1939", you should be saying, "Oh my God, I have been such a chronological snob!" and vow never again to suppose that movies were rubbish before Star Wars or whatever. L. Frank Baum, who wrote The Wizard of Oz (and thirteen sequels and several other peripherally-related books) tried his hand at making movies in the early day of Hollywood. He embraced the special effects technologies available at the time-stop-motion animation, miniatures, double-exposures and cross-fades-and the work stands up very well, once you are accustomed to the conventions of silent films and the limitations of cameras at the time. Indeed, the scene in "His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz" (1914) in which the princess's heart is literally frozen by a coven of witches, is creepy and effective more than a century later, and that storyline was recycled into the next Oz book, "The Scarecrow of Oz" (1915). You can see Baum's surviving films here on TH-cam. They didn't do well commercially, partly because there was not yet a real audience for what we now call "family films".
11:50 The way the camera zoomed through the doorway and then Dorothy stepped into the scene indicates that your theory is correct.
17:10 The actress was burnt -- not in that take but the following attempt.
20:10 Yes, the three farmhands became the three companions, Miss Gulch became the Wicked Witch of the West -- I view the witch seen in the tornado as the Wicked Witch of the East, and the con man (Professor Marvel) became the Wizard -- and the actor played several roles in the Emerald City.
32:00 That horse was the "horse of a different color". Recall the doorman saying, "That's a horse of a different color! Come on in!"
33:40 Did anyone notice the soldier's whiskers in the scene?
This movie was released about 6 years prior to the liberation of the death camps in Germany, Austria, and Poland. That’s how old this is.
woahhhh when you put it like that that’s CRAZZZZY! thanks for watching, hope you enjoyed :)
Tornadoes are funny things, they will sometimes pick things up and put them down some where else without much damage done and other times they will completely obliterate stuff. May parents both grew up in Kansas and my dad has a saying, “It’s not THAT the wind is blowing, it’s WHAT the wind is blowing, that makes it the most dangerous.” My best bet is that since the farm was the only one in the immediate area and since it was dust bowl Kansas, there just wasn’t anything else big to hit the house and uncle Henry must have built stuff like my grandpa and that thing was solid lol. If you want to make an argument for science and not just movie magic 😅
8:48--Kansas
Sepia and white
Buster Keaton did the leaning bit even earlier.
Great reaction - hope you also react to 1985’s “Return to Oz” and 2013’s “Oz the Great and Powerful.”
Fun fact, Judy Garland was huge advocate for the gay community, to the point that "friend of Dorothy" became a slang term for gay people in the 1950s.
Your mistrust of Prof. Marvel was unwarranted. The movie informed us of his good character when he laughed good-naturedly at Toto stealing his lunch. Edited to add: You're not alone. I've noticed a lot of reactors misjudge Prof. Marvel at first. I grew up watching The Wizard of Oz every year back in the '60s.
It may be that today’s audiences are more suspicious, distrustful, or expect “plot twists” with people lying. And today’s audiences often react negatively to adult characters and assume adults have bad intentions or evil agendas. The reliance on “community” that existed in decades prior and the basic premise that most people are good-hearted is not part of today’s media.
Loved your reaction. Most lines and phrases from this movie have become a part of western culture than perhaps any other. This movie is like a coloring book. "Just some pigs". Pigs in a sty, if given a chance, will literally bite you to death then eat you. Funny how your postmodern sensibilities immediately didn't trust the professor, while in those days people were much more civilized, kind, and considerate, especially of children. Some tornado's in America can actually lift a house with people in it and drop it some distance away. So even though the movie exaggerates the distance, this type of thing can happen. If the transition from black and white gave you chills imagine how people in 1939 felt, most of whom had never seen color films before If you were disturbed by the wicked witch imagine how we children felt seeing this movie.
thank you so much for watching with me!! And i appreciate all of your thoughts! I can imagine the nightmares the witch gave the children my goodness! Probably the scariest character around at the time! ❤️
You should definitely watch one of the documentaries about the making of the film.
The snow was asbestos
Christmas time - if you haven't seen it, you ought to watch and react to the 1946 movie, It's A Wonderful Life.
There were quite a few other 1930s movie that were in color. This was not the first
Thank you for this reaction! The Wizard of Oz was the first musical I was in, and I had the pleasure to play Professor Marvel and the Wizard himself. Years later, I did the musical again with my nephew; I was the Emerald City Guard, and he was a Munchkin. I remember seeing Wicked, and I really can’t wait to see the film soon!!! I highly recommend these other Oz films: Return to Oz, Oz the Great and Powerful, The Wiz, Dorthy and the Witches of Oz, The Muppets Wizard of Oz, Legend of Oz: Dorothy’s Return, Tom and Jerry’s Wizard of Oz, Tom and Jerry’s Return to Oz, and Tin Man.
👧🏼🐺🧠❤️✊🫧🧹🌈🩵💚💖
No, they are not children. They are adults. Adults that happen to be short for their entire lives. Yes their are people in this world who can not get very tall even as adults.
The backgrounds remind me of the 1944 Henry V ;-)
One of the greatest movies ever, IMHO, and nearly forgotten today. The opening scenes in the Globe Theatre are fabulous, the sketchy sets and gaudy colors later on are downright surreal, and the big battle scene is one of the best of its kind ever filmed. (It was made as a patriotic movie in 1944/45, which explains why the last couple of the narrator's lines, telling how Henry's son lost France again, is conveniently removed.)
Damn, that blue coat works for you. Phwoar etc.
Wicked is before Dorothy comes to Oz
Kudos for conquering your fear of old movies! 😱 This is indeed a wonderful classic.
If you enjoy screwball comedies, two of the best were made just just a few years earlier. “Bringing Up Baby” and “The Philadelphia Story”. Black and white and belly-laughs aplenty… (Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant-plus James Stewart in TPS).
A little forward in time, if you haven’t watched “The Sound of Music” you should. Another timeless classic.
Last, a recommendation just for you. Contemporary film for me-before your time for you-Blake Edward’s “Victor/Victoria”. Have a change of undies handy ’cause you’ll wet them laughing. The tag line for the movie is “a woman, pretending to be a man, pretending to be a woman.” Say, what? More than laughs ensue! Julie Andrews, James Garner, Robert Preston, Lesley Ann Warren (1982). The movie was an adaptation of the Broadway play…
Apropos great female leads, on *The Carol Burnett Show* there are wonderful segments with Julie Andrews and Maggie Smith amongst others. The show may be old, the staging IS dated but the comedy is timeless-and Carol was bold & fearless defying convention, societal expectations, the residual stink of Jim Crow, and she drove the CBS censors half-mad (fortunately, Rowen & Martin’s Laugh-In was airing around the same dates, and the Smothers Brothers (razor sharp political satire) aired along side it-both more outré entertainment upon which the censors could gnash their teeth). Bottom line was Carol got away with a surprising amount, and we are the beneficiaries. Probably not fit for reacting but book-mark it for yourself. 🌝
It was a book series
Great to share the movie that has terrorized all American 4-year-olds since 1939. But everyone remembers it fondly.
oh wow! i can't totally see that! Thank you for watching with me :)
I've never understood the meaning or message of this film. But I enjoy the film all the same.
43:22 evil girl with her foul cat.
8:01 What's an "adlert"? A warning about false advertising?
oh hahah oopsie that’s a spelling error on me… meant to say alert HAHA
2nd and 3rd degree burns.
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