The Wizard of Oz

Oz the Great and Powerful will be released in theaters in March. And there are other productions (like Wicked) in the works that deal with Oz. One look at these productions should convince you that they owe just as much to Frank Baum's original story as to Victor Fleming's 1939 version.

The Wizard of Oz travels through time unhindered, and still remains a holiday classic favorite. There are aspects of the film that you may not know.

Much as been said about the fact that the famous Over the Rainbow sequence was almost cut from the picture at the last minute. Fortunately, it was decided otherwise. However some scenes, although filmed and edited, were indeed deleted from the film.

Every time Dorothy meets a friend on her way to Oz, he gets to sing "If I only had ..." and then goes into an extended dance routine. From the very first meeting with the scarecrow, the dance was drastically cut short. Originally Scarecrow was to interact with a crow which stole some straw off him, and he was to fly through the air with the help of a (slightly visible) cable. The sequence was preserved and is featured in That's Dancing! which was directed by the Tin Man's son Jack Haley Jr..

Buddy Ebsen and cast

Jack Haley was not the first choice for the part which was originally played by Buddy Ebsen. The latter was poisoned by the aluminum makeup used on his face.He was in such a bad shape that the production had to change the actor as well as the makeup. But Ebsen had pre-recorded his tracks and his voice can still be heard in choruses. Even Jack Haley's take was also shortened, as was Ray Bolger's.

For good measure, the cowardly lion's song If I Were King of the Forest was also cut short.

Haven't you ever wondered what the witch meant when she says she sent a "little insect" to take care of Dorothy and her friends? This line of dialog refers to a deleted musical sequence called the Jitterbug named after an insect which attacked our heroes. The full soundtrack has been preserved although the track presented on the DVD is the rehearsal track with Dona Massin standing in for Judy. (She was the film's choreographer and appears as the woman grooming the lion in the film). The footage is now lost, however the scene is presented in the special features of the Blu-ray illustrated with color home movies of a camera rehearsal by composer Harold Arlen. 

Dorothy, when trapped by the witch, was originally supposed to sing a reprise of Over The Rainbow while crying. Unlike other musical sequences, and due to the nature of the scene, the track was not pre-recorded but Judy sang live with a piano accompaniment to favor her acting over the singing. And she does give an extraordinary performance although we can only judge by the preserved soundtrack, since the footage is now also lost.

A reprise of Ding Dong the Wicked Witch is dead was appropriately planned near the end of the film but here again, only the final soundtrack remains and a snippet of the scene is visible in the original trailer.

Finally, there's an alternate track available for the short end titles on the soundtrack which reveals that many key sequences were longer when they were scored. These include the cyclone, the appearance of the Witch of the West, her return on the rooftop (where she used to turn the Tin Man into a bee hive) the spell in the poppy field, etc.

You may not know this, but the off-screen voice of Juliet singing "Wherefore art thou Romeo?" during "If I Only Had A Heart" is Adriana Caselotti, who had recorded the voice of Disney's Snow White only two years earlier.
Anyway, the restoration is quite beautiful and you want to see this on Blu-ray!

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That's all for today folks!