Visual Cohesion – Snakje

This is a post for those still supporting good movies. Because good things are never too old! The Wizard of Oz follows a schoolgirl Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland) who lives on a Kansas farm with her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry, but dreams of a better place “somewhere over the rainbow.”
The innocent thinking of being in a wonderful world is the dream of every single person on Earth. How we wish our mind can go back to such a peaceful state without needing to worry about your work, exams and relationships.

Remember her? Dorothy Gale from wizard of Oz played by Judy Garland.

Somewhere, over the rainbow, way up high, There’s a land that I heard of once in a lullaby. Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue, and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true….

Listen to the song here.

The characters and cast of the movie:
Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale
Ray Bolger as Hunk/The Scarecrow
Jack Haley as Hickory/Tin Man
Bert Lahr as Zeke/Cowardly Lion
Billie Burke as Glinda the Good Witch of the North
Margaret Hamilton as Miss Almira Gulch/Wicked Witch of the West
Frank Morgan as Professor Marvel/The Doorman/The Cabby/The Guard/The Wizard of Oz
Charles Grapewin as Uncle Henry
Clara Blandick as Auntie Em
Terry the Dog as Toto

Productions and Interesting happenings!

The following are adapted from Wikipedia,
Casting The Wizard of Oz was problematic, with actors shifting roles repeatedly at the beginning of filming. Ray Bolger was originally cast as the Tin Man, and Buddy Ebsen was to play the Scarecrow switched roles because Bolger, unhappy with being assigned the role of the Tin Man. He convinced producer Mervyn LeRoy to recast him in the role of the Scarecrow. Ebsen did not object to the change; he recorded all of his songs, went through all the rehearsals as the Tin Man, and started filming with the rest of the cast. However, nine days after filming began, Ebsen suffered a reaction to the aluminum powder makeup he wore as the Tin Man; the powder had coated his lungs from his breathing it in as it was applied daily. By that point in critical condition, Ebsen had to be hospitalized and left the project. MGM did not publicize the reasons for Ebsen’s departure until decades later in a documentary about the movie, and even his replacement, Jack Haley, did not initially know the reason.
The makeup used for Jack Haley was quietly changed to an aluminum paste makeup; although it did not have the same dire effect on Haley, he did at one point suffer from an unpleasant reaction to it.

In another related case,
Filming also proved to be dangerous at times. Margaret Hamilton was severely burned in the Munchkinland scene when she was to disappear in a puff of fiery smoke. When she returned from the hospital, Hamilton refused to do the scene where she flies on a broomstick billowing smoke, so the directors chose to have a stand-in, Betty Danko, perform the scene instead. Danko was also severely injured doing the scene after a malfunction occurred during filming.

Other than that,
One of the songs played in the movie was almost permanently deleted was “Over the Rainbow”. MGM had felt that it made the Kansas sequence too long, as well as being too far over the heads of the children for whom it was intended. The studio also thought that it was degrading for Judy Garland to sing in a barnyard. Producer Mervyn LeRoy, uncredited associate producer Arthur Freed, and director Victor Fleming fought for its inclusion, and eventually won. The song went on to win the Academy Award for Best Song of the Year. In 2004, the song was ranked #1 by the American Film Institute on the 100 Greatest Songs in American Films list.

Now to the production,
Credits have to be given to their effort to create the wonderful piece of work. It was considered one of the most advanced film techniques and photo shooting at that time. All of the Oz sequences were filmed in three-strip Technicolor. The opening and closing credits, as well as the Kansas sequences, were both filmed in black and white and colored in a sepia tone. Publicity for the film mentioned the Technicolor but not the black-and-white or sepia, thus making it sound as if the entire film had been made in color.
Sometimes color and sepia would be juxtaposed in the film within seconds of each other. At one point, Dorothy sees her Aunt Em on the Wicked Witch of the West’s crystal ball; she is then replaced by a vision of the Witch. Aunt Em appears only in sepia-toned black-and-white, while the Witch appears in the crystal ball in full Technicolor.

Here is a short clip of the movie.