“Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”
Dorothy
Introduction
Christmas time always brings back memories of old movies, and one that remains a firm favourite is the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. It is a film that has been recreated in many different forms, including the highly popular stage show Wicked at the Apollo Victoria Theatre in London and a newly released film of the same title. The original movie starring Judy Garland is a mythical story of good versus evil involving Dorothy, her dog, Toto, being whisked away by a tornado that rips through the family’s Kansas farm and whisks the house to Dorothy’s dream world somewhere over the rainbow. A bright, magical world that is so cleverly brought about by the director Victor Fleming, beginning the film in black and white and moving to colour. Fleming left filming halfway through to work on Gone with the Wind.
Unfortunately, Dorothy makes a mortal enemy of a wicked witch when the house falls on the hag’s sister. Now, befriended by a scarecrow without a brain, a tin man with no heart and a cowardly lion–and protected by a pair of enchanted ruby slippers–Dorothy sets off along a yellow brick road for the Emerald City to beseech the all-powerful Wizard of Oz for his help to return home. Winner of Academy Awards for Best Music, Song “Over The Rainbow” and for Best Music, Original Score. A special Oscar for “the Best Juvenile Performer of the Year” was awarded to Judy Garland.
I didn’t know that
The film itself and its making of it contain some interesting facts. The Wizard is supposed to represent the President of the United States. He makes it appear to others that he is a great and powerful being, but in reality, this power is just an illusion; he is actually relatively powerless. The film had four directors and didn’t profit at the box office until it was re-released in 1949. The rich allegory delves into power, identity, and societal control complexities. The Yellow Brick Road symbolises the gold standard. “The phrase ‘gold standard’ is defined as using gold as the standard value for a country’s money.
In one of the most expensive productions of the time, asbestos was used in the film when the scarecrow was set alight, some of the cast fainted from the oppressively hot set due to the vast amount of lighting, and there were 300 large birds on the set, hired from Los Angeles zoo for the Orchard scene. These birds included golden pheasants, a South American toucan, a Sarus crane, and an African crane, which can be seen in the film. When Dorothy, the Scarecrow and the Tin Man skip down the yellow brick road, a Sarus crane makes its presence known by spreading its wings. Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch of the West, was severely burnt when a trap door scene went wrong. The actress received first-degree burns to her face and hands. This wasn’t the first film. Two previous silent films were made in 1910 and 1925.
The ruby slippers Judy Garland wore in the film were recently sold at auction for $28m (£22m). They are one of the four surviving pairs from the film. Professional thief Terry Jon Martin used a hammer to smash the glass case and snatch the slippers, believing their insured value of $1m must be because they were covered in actual gemstones. But when he took them to a “fence” – an intermediary who sells stolen goods to discreet buyers – he discovered they were just glass. So he gave the shoes to someone else. It wasn’t until 2018 that the FBI recovered the boots in a sting operation. What happened to them in those 13 years is still not known. Martin was convicted in 2023, and by now in his 70s and in a wheelchair, was issued with time served.
