November 25, 2025 • 54 mins
Abby sits down with Alex to talk through all things Wizard of Oz. From L Frank Baum's books which date back to 1900, to the 1939 classic MGM film and so much more.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:19):
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode
of the Lunatics Radio HourPodcast.
My name is Abby Brinker, andtoday I am sitting here with my
friend Alex Goleman.
SPEAKER_02 (00:30):
Hey, hey, hey.
SPEAKER_00 (00:31):
Welcome back, Alex.
SPEAKER_02 (00:32):
Oh, it's so good to be back.
SPEAKER_00 (00:34):
And today we are talking about a topic that I
knew you would be perfect totalk to about because, as
friends, we have often talkedabout this.
I think we both have a littlebit of a different and unique
perspective on some of the vasthistory that is associated with
the Wizard of Oz.
So I'm really excited to talkthrough this with you.
SPEAKER_02 (00:53):
I'm excited to be here.
Let's do it.
SPEAKER_00 (00:55):
I want your perspective on this right away
because I have always had thisseed in the back of my head that
the production of the movie from1939, The Wizard of Oz, was
riddled with all of thesehorrifying things.
For example, there was a rumorthat came to me in the 90s as a
child that you could see amember of the cast or a crew or
(01:17):
whatever, that you know, thedifferent versions of the rumor
said a different thing,committing suicide in the movie.
SPEAKER_02 (01:23):
Hanging themselves.
SPEAKER_00 (01:24):
Hanging themselves.
SPEAKER_02 (01:24):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (01:25):
You heard that too.
SPEAKER_02 (01:26):
Oh, absolutely.
I went through and I paused thevideo.
Just did I, yes.
Just trying to make out whatanyone was talking about.
SPEAKER_00 (01:32):
And I thought I saw it.
SPEAKER_02 (01:34):
Yeah, you know, I remember that lore.
Yeah.
And then I remember it couldhave been a bird who was in the
background.
And honestly, after pausing itfor many, many times, I feel
like I didn't see either thing.
SPEAKER_00 (01:50):
Well, we will reveal today what it was.
SPEAKER_02 (01:52):
Oh, how exciting.
SPEAKER_00 (01:54):
But how fascinating that this rumor about this movie
from the 30s came to it's just,it's such a funny thing.
And I'll say this there is a lotof dark.
Dark in like an abusiveproduction sense of the word
that we're going to talk aboutwith the movie.
We're also going to talk aboutsome hard topics in today's
episode, including some abusiveconditions, especially centered
(02:17):
around food and dieting and theuse of pills to control people.
There's also, and I've anyonewho follows us on Patreon knows
this, I did a whole series lastyear when I read the original
book, which is a delightfulread.
It's a children's novel.
We're going to talk a lot aboutit today, but so much in it is
so creepy and freaky and likehorrifying in like, again, like
(02:38):
a delightful way.
I did a whole audio series onthat on Patreon, but I just find
there to be so much around earlyOz in different forms that's
worth talking about on this showand feels relevant to this show.
Even if you might think, oh, theWizard of Oz isn't horror.
There's still some dark stuff toget into.
But then also, of course, whenyou think about Alphabet, which
(02:59):
I think I know way more peoplein 2025 are familiar with that
character than previouslybecause the movie has had such a
vast, you know, response.
And she's a witch.
And it's really cool to talkabout and think about how this
character is 125 years old.
I don't know, to think about howher origins versus where she is
now and how popular she is.
SPEAKER_02 (03:22):
I I do feel like sort of the central question
that even Glinda asks in themovie, and I think she asks it
in the book too, are you a goodwitch or are you a bad witch?
Yeah.
That speaks volumes even.
I I feel like uh the book openeda door to a good witches
existing and and being part ofthe conversation.
(03:46):
But to your point about themovie being sort of riddled with
all of this, you know, abuseallegations or whatever whatever
whatever we want to talk aboutthere.
It's so interesting when thecentral motif for the piece is
good and evil, wickedness, andall of that.
Yes.
It it makes you want to lookdeeper into what's happening and
(04:09):
see, you know, like, oh, findingfinding examples of it, I guess,
is what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_00 (04:15):
A hundred percent.
And also, if you really want toget dark with it, which we will
by the end of this, there's suchsimilarity, I think, to what's
happening in the United Statesright now.
And listen, I'm not trying tominimize it by comparing it to a
Broadway musical, but truly,there is so much similarity to
what's happening in the theUnited States right now.
(04:36):
And I think you leave wicked ina sense, and you feel empowered,
I hope, to question authority.
And to be aware that, like, toyour point of like what's good
and evil, like we have to besomewhat fluid as we learn more
about things, and you know, andit's just like a dark time, and
it feels really relevant whenyou think about what's what
we're going through right now asa country.
SPEAKER_02 (04:56):
And things aren't binary, right?
Like, and that's that'ssomething that I think even
wicked, which takes it takes theemotional stakes of Wizard of Oz
and and raises them.
I think we can agree on that forsure.
Uh-huh.
But it also sort of colorspeople differently.
But but it does, right?
(05:16):
It sort of fills in shades ofbetween.
SPEAKER_00 (05:19):
Yes.
SPEAKER_02 (05:19):
That aren't just you're not only good, you're not
only bad.
SPEAKER_00 (05:23):
Yeah.
I do think that's something thatfeels missing right now from us
as a country.
It's like you're on this side orthat side.
And the truth is we're allpeople who have been consuming
media and echo chambers.
And, you know, I think the morewe humanize people, the better.
Yeah, 100%.
So anyway, we're gonna get intoall of it.
We're gonna talk abouteverything from the original
books, which came out in 1900,to Wicked in its film versions,
(05:48):
which the second one is now veryrecently in theaters.
So here we go.
Let's get into it.
Starting off with our sources abiography article by Colin
Bertman, Judy Garland filmed TheWizard of Oz under grueling
circumstances, a history.comarticle, Seven Surprising Facts
About the Wizard of Oz movie byElizabeth Yuko, The Dark Secrets
(06:09):
Surrounding the Wizard of Oz byColin Russell for Far Out
magazine, a Time article was TheWizard of Oz Cursed, The Truth
Behind the Dark Stories aboutthe Judy Garland Classic, a
Smithsonian National Museum ofAmerican History article by Ryan
Lintelman, The Technicolor Worldof Oz, a Far Out magazine
article by Jacob Simmons, TheStory Behind the Shah, The
(06:32):
Wizard of Oz, and Dorothy'sTechnicolor Dream.
And of course, as always, wewill link all of these sources
in the description of thisepisode so you can check out the
source material as well.
In 1900, L.
Frank Baum's novel, TheWonderful Wizard of Oz, was
released.
The original book was famouslyillustrated by W.
W.
Denslow, and the illustrationsare quite striking, and I highly
(06:54):
recommend you take a look.
SPEAKER_02 (06:56):
Very memorable.
SPEAKER_00 (06:57):
Very memorable, and actually, I believe you might
know this because I am justgonna say a fact that might not
be true.
Some of the characters in Wickedthe Musical are inspired by
those illustrations, I believe.
SPEAKER_02 (07:10):
The costumes, at least.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (07:12):
Yeah.
It's really cool when you readthe book and you're like, oh, I
saw that in the play.
SPEAKER_02 (07:17):
Yeah, no, notably it's the one short day people.
Those characters.
The big, yeah, like the kookycharacters that come out.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (07:25):
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was a children's novel,
and it's a pretty fast and funread, which I recommend.
You read, you read the first fewbooks.
SPEAKER_02 (07:33):
Yeah, I I did have the box set of them, um, but I
can only confidently rememberthree.
The first three.
SPEAKER_00 (07:40):
That's fair.
I read one, and it was like I Isaid at the beginning, super
fun.
And it's fast.
Like I you can read it as anadult in very enjoyable.
A sitting or two, yeah.
The novel tells the story prettymuch as we know it, but there
are some really fun and freakydeviations, and I think that's
honestly why I had so much funreading the novel, because we
(08:02):
know the story so well.
Like, regardless of what age youare, if you you know the movie
so well, you know Wicked, a lotof people know Wicked.
And so when you read theoriginal, you're like, oh, I
see, I see how we got where weare, but there's some really fun
stuff that's a little bitdifferent, and it's I don't
know, it's like very charming toread through those little
original, you know, it's not adeviation because it's the
(08:25):
source material, but like thesevery quirky little beats that
don't exist anywhere else.
SPEAKER_02 (08:30):
Yeah, and and if you're like me and you like when
you find something you're reallyinto, you have to know every
little detail about it.
When you go back to the booksafter, I mean, name a more
iconic movie that has survivedthe test of time.
Like every everyone knows theWizard of Oz.
Truly.
But then all of a sudden there'sthese books where there's all
(08:51):
these little details that aren'tin the movie for whatever
reason, and you feel like you'refinding Easter eggs that you'd
never even knew existed.
SPEAKER_00 (08:59):
Yeah, and one of the the an example of that, which I
I don't know why this is thething that stuck with me.
Because there's some reallyweird moments, but this one,
there's this chapter near theend of the novel where Dorothy
and you know, crew stumble uponthis, I think it's called like
the dainty China Village.
SPEAKER_01 (09:20):
Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00 (09:21):
And it's it's literally like porcelain people
that are made out of China, youknow, plates, kind of that kind
of material, like porcelain.
And something happens and theylike crack someone, and it's
horrifying in a way, whereyou're like, wow, this was a a
porcelain being that you likeshattered and broke the leg off
of because you were incompetent,not paying attention.
(09:44):
I have so many questions aboutthe logistics of a porcelain
figure that's walking and movingaround.
SPEAKER_02 (09:49):
There there is a lot of uh casual violence in the
Wizard of Oz.
It's something that I havethought.
I mean, like we opened with ahouse landing on a lady, right?
Like that that's just that'sjust the beginning.
And then and then there arelittle bits, it seems like
everywhere she goes, there'slittle things that just are off.
(10:11):
Like when she goes to the Chinavillage and and someone gets
cracked, which sounds horrible.
SPEAKER_00 (10:17):
Yeah.
The other one that I again islike burned into my brain is
that when the wizard is givingthe brain, and now I'm gonna
mess it up, but like the brainand the heart, there's like
these surgical scenes thathappen where he like puts things
into their bodies and it's quiteintense.
And I did this on Patreon, Ilike read from the chapter
(10:37):
because it's all public domainnow.
But it's just like, yeah, toyour point, it's like way more
violent or way much more like,and then I opened up his body
and put a fake brain in therebecause I was a fake with you
know, and you're like, Oh, thatwouldn't happen in a children's
book today.
SPEAKER_02 (10:51):
And and you can you can see how it missed the cut of
the movie.
You were just like, uh, I guesswe don't need to do that.
SPEAKER_00 (10:57):
Yeah, yeah, that might upset the audience.
The first novel was soincredibly successful that Baum
went on to write 13 sequels.
So there's 14 books in total.
There was a time when Baumwanted to branch out and write
other things, but nothing soldas well as the Os series, so he
kept going back to it as a wayto kind of keep making money, of
course.
But what inspired him to writesuch fanciful and whimsical
(11:21):
material?
His son would later say that hisfather was largely inspired from
his own life.
We do know that growing up, Bombhad nightmares about a scarecrow
chasing him across an openfield.
SPEAKER_02 (11:32):
Oh, spooky.
That is scary.
SPEAKER_00 (11:34):
Yeah, I would write a book about it too.
And just before the scarecrowwould grasp for his neck, he
would dissolve.
Like the scarecrow would justdissolve back into hay.
SPEAKER_02 (11:44):
That is I'm gonna have a nightmare about that now.
SPEAKER_00 (11:48):
In the early 1880s, there was also a fire during a
production of Bomb's playMatches, which is ironic, I
suppose.
A spark from a kerosene lanternstarted the blaze.
So some people also point tothis as inspiration for the
scarecrow's biggest fear, whichof course is fire.
The play The Wizard of Ozdebuted on June 16th, 1902, at
(12:11):
the Chicago Grand Opera House,marketed as a musical
extravaganza.
So this is a musical version ofThe Wizard of Oz, not of Wicked,
just to clarify for everybody.
Baum drafted the script and iscredited as the book writer, but
ghostwriter Glenn McDonough wasbrought on to shape and polish
and, you know, really refine thestory.
(12:33):
A lot of the original music waswritten by Paul Tahines.
The original cast boasted twopopular comedy stars of the
time, Fred Stone and David C.
Montgomery.
By the end of January 1903, itmade its way to Broadway.
So even from its original,right, the the first book came
out in 1900.
By three years later, there wasa Broadway show.
SPEAKER_02 (12:53):
They needed more.
They needed more.
SPEAKER_00 (12:56):
We can't get enough ever.
SPEAKER_02 (12:57):
No.
SPEAKER_00 (12:58):
So you're for are you familiar with the Wizard of
Oz play?
SPEAKER_02 (13:24):
Oh, oh, Abby.
I I did play the Scarecrow inwell, see, my senior class video
was The Wizard of Oz.
Meaning we went around and diddifferent scenes of the Wizard
of Oz in my high school.
SPEAKER_00 (13:42):
Okay.
SPEAKER_02 (13:42):
Um and I played the Scarecrow in that.
unknown (13:45):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (13:45):
Okay.
That's super fun.
So so you're familiar.
SPEAKER_02 (13:49):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (13:50):
And do you know?
I mean, is that I don't know,you know how plays work more
than I know.
Would that be like the samematerial as this from 1903, or
do you think it's been updatedor different over the years?
SPEAKER_02 (14:01):
Well, uh the play that we did was definitely
inspired by the movie and hadsongs from the movie, Somewhere
Over the Rainbow and and thingslike that.
SPEAKER_00 (14:12):
Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_02 (14:13):
Um, so no, I don't think it's the same play.
SPEAKER_00 (14:17):
I wonder if anybody is still I you know, I don't
know, just be curious like whatis the latest version that was
ever produced of this 1903 play?
SPEAKER_02 (14:26):
Like, did it endure and and how much of it, how much
of it exists in the movie,right?
SPEAKER_00 (14:32):
Yeah, very true.
SPEAKER_02 (14:33):
Yeah, I wonder if any of the songs are from the
musical.
SPEAKER_00 (14:36):
So I just looked it up because I didn't know.
The 1903 Broadway musical, TheWizard of Oz, and the 1939 MGM
film share a few character namesand story ideas, but they are
almost completely differentworks.
SPEAKER_02 (14:49):
There you go.
SPEAKER_00 (14:50):
The music is not the same.
The Wizard of Oz, in its filmversion, was released in 1939 by
MGM.
The cultural impact of thismovie was immeasurable.
I mean, it's still it's stillimpacting us today.
But this iconic film wasn't thefirst cinematic version of this
story.
It was actually a remake.
There were two silent filmversions that predate the
(15:13):
classic, one from 1910 and theother from 1925.
But the 1939 movie made a splashfor many reasons.
One of them being theTechnicolor transition from
sepia to a fully saturatedcolor.
SPEAKER_02 (15:27):
Yeah, that's like one of the best moments of any
movie ever created.
SPEAKER_00 (15:31):
Yeah.
And I'm gonna nerd out aboutTechnicolor a little bit because
I went in a little bit of arabbit hole about this because I
was interested in it.
SPEAKER_02 (15:40):
Oh, great.
SPEAKER_00 (15:41):
So let's talk about that.
SPEAKER_02 (15:42):
Yeah, lay it on me.
SPEAKER_00 (15:44):
So the camera used was the Technicolor DF24 beam
splitter motion picture camera.
And there was actually, I saythe camera, but there was many
of these cameras used at thesame time.
And I saw, I went to the AcademyAward, is that what it's called?
The Academy Award Museum in LA.
And they have a whole Wizard ofOz kind of artifact section.
SPEAKER_02 (16:04):
Oh, it's very cool, yes.
SPEAKER_00 (16:06):
And they have some of those cameras there, and
they're huge.
Like you should look up thecameras because they're so
different than cameras today,obviously.
But it's cool.
If you're ever in LA, I highlyrecommend that.
But The Wizard of Oz was not thefirst movie made in color.
That accolade belongs to a filmcalled The World, The Flesh, and
the Devil from 1914.
SPEAKER_02 (16:25):
1914?
SPEAKER_00 (16:27):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (16:27):
Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00 (16:29):
It used a different, it wasn't technicolor, it used
something called Kinema with aK.
Kinema color process.
And I guess that footage islargely lost, which seems to be
the case because of how uh I Idon't know if this is the case,
but a lot of early film footagethat's lost is because of how
flammable the chemicals were.
SPEAKER_01 (16:47):
Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (16:49):
The first technicolor film was a short
from 1917 called The GulfBetween.
The first animated feature,which I know nobody asked, but
it's a fun fact, with sound andcolor was Disney's Snow White
from 1937.
So Snow White with Color cameout two years before The Wizard
of Oz.
So color wasn't like it wasn'tevery movie, but it wasn't, you
(17:10):
know, it was it was around.
SPEAKER_02 (17:11):
Yeah, I'm sure it was expensive and yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (17:13):
It's kind of the same thing with sound.
Like the first movie with soundwas The Jazz Singer from 1927,
but there was still it took alittle bit of time before it
kind of was broadly adaptedbecause people were used to
silent films and because, youknow.
SPEAKER_02 (17:27):
They didn't want it yet.
SPEAKER_00 (17:28):
Yeah, and it was expensive to your point.
SPEAKER_02 (17:30):
I I think of the sort of rough CGI, um, fully CGI
movies that we got to sort oflead us into what is now just
animation.
SPEAKER_01 (17:43):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (17:44):
And now looking back at those movies, they feel so
dated at the time.
And I remember being even achild and sitting through some
of them and being like, Do Ilike this?
Do I like what this looks like?
I don't know if I do.
SPEAKER_00 (17:58):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (17:58):
But now it's everywhere.
That's what it is.
SPEAKER_00 (18:01):
Yeah, it's interesting.
And I wonder, obviously,animation is such a core, I feel
like, for our childhood becauseso much of what we consumed as
kids was animated, and then youfeel like you grow up and you
watch live action and Disney andPixar, and you know, all of
these studios do so muchanimated.
But I wonder, like, one of mybig critiques, I think, with
(18:21):
films that rely so heavily onCGI is that it doesn't age well.
SPEAKER_02 (18:25):
Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00 (18:26):
You know, even if you watch The Lord of the Rings,
or some of these movies thatwere so groundbreaking 10 or 20
years ago, you're like, oh, itlooks like a video game now.
Like it doesn't look like we'vecome so far beyond it, and it'll
be interesting with AI and othertechnologies in this day and
age.
I don't know.
I just I wonder.
I wonder how it will all workout.
SPEAKER_02 (18:45):
Yeah, I know.
I know.
Well, it goes to show howquickly technology advances too.
Although you can't be even whenyou're watching an action movie
from the 80s, they're not usingany sort of computers.
I mean, maybe they are.
Fact check me.
But but they're relying largelyon these sets and these huge,
(19:05):
um, huge scenery pieces that areare basically the the source of
excitement that um that'shappening that even when you
watch those back, they feel alittle bit more fun and
authentic, yeah, genuine.
I don't know.
SPEAKER_00 (19:22):
I like this comes up with horror all the time because
so much of horror, right?
There's so many, you have tohave either a practical effect
or a special effect, becauseyou're trying to achieve
something that's not possible inthe normal world.
You're trying to cut offsomebody's head or whatever.
And they could be very fun towatch silly, bad horror movies,
of course.
But like there's movies that usepractical effects that age so
(19:45):
much better, even if they'refrom the 60s or they're from the
40s, or than movies from the 90sthat tried to use CGI.
Like you watch it back andyou're kind of like to your
point about being authentic, I'mout.
Like I know that that's a movie,and I would much rather watch a
practical effect version ofthat.
SPEAKER_02 (20:01):
Wow, like and talk about the Wizard of Oz versus
like Oz and the Great andPowerful.
What was what was that moviefrom like with Mila Kunis and Oz
the Great and Powerful from2013?
SPEAKER_00 (20:12):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (20:13):
Yeah.
And right, and you compare, youcompare how even the witches
look in both of them.
And it it's almost notcomparable.
I mean, I would much ratherwatch the Wizard of Oz movie.
SPEAKER_00 (20:25):
Yeah, I'm yeah, it's such a good point.
I would much rather watch theoriginal from the 30s.
So MGM's first color film wasThe Uninvited Guest from 1924.
And in 1938, a year before Ozwas released, MGM actually won
an honorary Academy Award forits use of color in the movie
Sweethearts.
But Oz was really the firstmovie to use color like for
(20:49):
marketing as a way to drawaudiences, like a gimmick,
right?
And it was successful.
Even though the film wasreleased during the Great
Depression, it's still, as weknow, one of the greatest
successes in all of cinema.
Quoting from the Technicolorarticle by Ryan Lintelman,
quote, Technicolor wasn't a typeof color film.
Instead, it was a process inwhich a specially modified
(21:12):
motion picture camera recordedthe same scene through colored
filters on three differentstrips of film.
These strips were then processedseparately and used to print
colors onto each finished printof the film sent to theaters.
If a movie studio wanted to makea film in Technicolor, it had to
lease the company's unique moviecameras, as well as a team of
(21:34):
two experts to help operate thecomplicated machine.
The technology of the transitionfrom sepia to color was
something innovated for Ozspecifically.
This is one of my favorite funfacts about this movie.
I'd be curious if you if this isnew information for you.
So they actually did thispractically.
There's a scene which I've nowwatched a hundred times when
(21:56):
Dorothy, still in black andwhite sepia, right?
She goes to open the door, andthen she opens the door in Oz.
Everything's colored, and she asshe exits, she is in color.
And we we pick her up, right, inthe world of color.
This was done.
This wasn't done inpost-production by shooting half
of this scene because there'sthere's a continuous shot,
right?
There's no contactic.
(22:19):
They painted uh Judy Garland'sstunt double in sepia.
You only see her from behind,but she's wearing a paint, a
fully painted sepia dress.
They paint the set of the house,and it's just in the world, and
they just shoot it normally.
SPEAKER_02 (22:32):
Wow.
No, I did not know that.
SPEAKER_00 (22:34):
It's so cool.
SPEAKER_02 (22:35):
It's so impressive.
SPEAKER_00 (22:36):
Yeah, and when you go to watch it, you're like, oh,
it's really quick.
Like it's it's one kind of shotright behind her head.
You know, it's not but it's soinnovative and yeah, that's cool
problem solving.
Yeah, and they made such a cool,powerful effect.
I'm gonna quote from the far outmagazine article by Jacob
Simmons, quote Originally, theplan was to use a form of
(22:57):
stencil printing in this scene,which would require the inside
of the house to be manuallytinted in every frame.
This proved to be far tooexpensive and time consuming, so
the old switcheroo was usedinstead.
It's ironic that in a filmpraised for its use of color,
great effect was made to removethe color from one of its most
famous scenes.
Thankfully it paid off, as thesequence still looks incredible
(23:19):
almost a century later.
The rest of the technicolorportions, which make up the bulk
of the middle chunk of themovie, were an absolute
nightmare.
The painstaking process tookover six months to film and took
an entire and took a serioustoll on the cast.
So now let's talk about thehorrors of the Wizard of Oz.
SPEAKER_02 (23:39):
What a good segue.
SPEAKER_00 (23:42):
The technicality of filming in Technicolor isn't
just interesting.
It helps set the stage for theplight of this production.
For instance, you need a lot oflight to film in Technicolor.
A lot of very, very, very brightlight.
According to Lintelman, MGMspent over a quarter of a
million dollars on electricityalone.
(24:03):
For many years after productionwrapped, the actors complained
about vision damage from thebright lights on set, and many
developed keelig eyes on set orkind of like pink and swollen
eyes.
Oh no.
People fainted often on set fromheat.
There were more than 150 36-inchoverhead lights, which were
always on at the same time.
When it became too unbearable,production would shut down for a
(24:26):
few hours at a time so thateverybody could cool off.
And this is in LA, right?
So it's hot.
Hot already.
It's always hot.
SPEAKER_02 (24:32):
Man, and I don't like overhead lights in my
apartment, let alone 150.
Intense overhead lights.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (24:40):
Yeah.
So because it was newtechnology, they had to like
blast it with light, and lightsare hot.
Like film lights are incrediblyhot.
You know, and we're about to getinto the makeup and the costumes
that these actors were wearing,but it was a grueling, horrible
set.
The film was directed by VictorFleming, also known for Treasure
Island from 1934, Gone with theWind, also from 1939, and Dr.
(25:05):
Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde from 1941.
Fleming was actually the fourthdirector hired for the movie,
the last to survive, after thefirst three left the project for
various reasons.
And he ended up filming sort ofthe bulk of of the film, but
actors had to change, and and soa lot of the first few produ I
think the first two or threeproduction weeks and everything
(25:26):
they filmed had to be scrappedessentially.
Oh my god.
It was just like a everythingabout this was kind of a cursed
production.
SPEAKER_02 (25:32):
Yeah, already such turnover.
That's not good.
SPEAKER_00 (25:36):
That's not good.
It's interesting that Fleming'stwo largest, most successful
films, both films that impactedcinema history forever, came out
in the same year.
Fleming was described as, quote,violently pro-Nazi by Anne
Revere.
Now Revere recanted herstatements later, and the
accuracy of her initialstatement has been disputed by
(25:58):
other people who knew Fleming.
So there's some sort of chatterthat maybe she said that because
she was upset about casting orsomething that happened, and
that he was he made some kind oflike offhand comment about like,
you know, the UK being unable tosurvive Germany and the World
War or some, but it wasn't thathe was, you know, a a supporter
(26:20):
of the Nazi Party, but that wasa rumor of the jump.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That was circulating for a whileabout him.
Fleming owned the Moraga estatein Los Angeles, which at the
time was a horse ranch.
He often hosted Clark Gable,John Barrymore, Ingrid Bergman,
Judy Garland, Spencer Tracy,Lawrence Olivier, Vivian Lee,
and more of the Hollywood elite.
(26:41):
And as we know, the Wizard of Ozfamously stars Judy Garland.
Garland, who was only 16 duringproduction, was given stimulants
and sleeping pills to regulateher energy and keep her thin.
But sadly, and contrary topopular belief, this actually
was not the first time thatGarland had been given pills.
And these pills were known inthe industry at the time as pep
(27:02):
pills.
According to Gerald Clark'sbiography, Get Happy, the Life
of Judy Garland, Garland'smother, Ethel Gum, started
giving her daughter pills at theage of nine.
SPEAKER_02 (27:12):
Oh good.
SPEAKER_00 (27:13):
And spoiler alert, she was addicted to pills until
they took her life when she was47 years old.
So her entire life, for 40 yearspractically, she was addicted to
these pills because she wasgiven them when she was nine.
Oz wasn't Garland's only filmfor MGM.
During her contract there, sheactually appeared in two dozen
MGM movies, starting in 1936when she was only 14.
(27:37):
The film, which was called PigSkin Parade, was a musical and a
comedy about football coaches.
The studio was hypercritical ofGarland's weight, and executive
Louis B.
Mayer reportedly referred to as,quote, fat little pig with
pigtails, end quote.
SPEAKER_02 (27:52):
This was her at 14.
SPEAKER_00 (27:53):
At 14.
SPEAKER_02 (27:55):
Wow.
And a little sidebar, a musicalabout football.
SPEAKER_00 (27:59):
Who was that for?
SPEAKER_02 (28:00):
Oh yeah, not uh not interested.
SPEAKER_00 (28:30):
Garland was put on a very limited diet that was
closely monitored by studioexecutives.
The first of several times thatthis happened during her career.
Her diet was chicken soup,cottage cheese, black coffee,
cigarettes, and diet pills.
Yum.
SPEAKER_02 (28:46):
Wow, yeah, that's all the food groups, I think.
SPEAKER_00 (28:50):
During the production of Oz, memos were
sent between studio executivesmonitoring Judy's food intake.
By the time production ended onThe Wizard of Oz, Judy was fully
addicted to barbituates andamphetamines.
Garland co-starred in many filmswith Mickey Rooney, who was also
forced to take pet pills.
Quoting from Judy herself as shetold biographer Paul Donnelly,
(29:12):
quote, They had us working daysand nights on end.
They'd give us pills to keep uson our feet long after we were
exhausted.
Then they'd take us to thestudio hospital and knock us out
with sleeping pills.
Mickey sprawled out on one bedand me on another.
Then, after four hours, they'dwake us up and give us the pet
pills again, so we could work 72hours in a row.
(29:33):
Half of the time we were hangingfrom the ceiling, but it was
also a way of life for us.
End quote.
On top of the pills and dietmonitoring, the studio
controlled Garland's body inanother way during the
production of Oz.
Judy was forced to wear corsetsand they strapped down her
breast in order to make herappear younger than she was.
Because the character is meantto be nine.
SPEAKER_02 (29:54):
Nine.
SPEAKER_00 (29:55):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (29:55):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (29:55):
Which is how that character is portrayed in every
other version of Oz.
SPEAKER_02 (29:59):
Yeah, and they were considering uh Shirley Temple
then, too, right?
It was kind of between them.
SPEAKER_00 (30:06):
Yeah, and Shirley Temple would have been eleven in
1939.
So that would have been a moreage-appropriate, you know, for
the way that the role waswritten.
Of course, I wouldn't wantShirley Temple to go through as
an 11-year-old, but Judy Garlanddid, but yeah.
I'm not wishing that on her.
She was also famously slapped bydirector Victor Fleming for
giggling on set.
(30:27):
Now there are different versionsof this story, but it was well
known that Judy adored Bertlar,who played the Cowardly Lion.
Bert had been a vaudevilleperformer, and Judy thought he
was warm and hilarious.
Like she had kind of a specialfriendship with him.
And there was this scene theywere filming, right, where the
group meets the cowardly lionfor the first time, and right he
becomes he's scared.
And then he cries and all that.
(30:49):
And she couldn't get over it.
Like she thought it was thefunniest thing, and she would
burst out laughing every time hewould go to cry because you know
he was a very famous vaudevilleperformer and he was very good
at what he was doing.
Well, director Victor Flemingwas frustrated by this.
The production was behindschedule and over budget.
There was a lot of eyes on thisproject.
SPEAKER_02 (31:07):
And a lot of very bright lights on the city.
SPEAKER_00 (31:09):
A lot of lights, yeah.
Tempers were running high.
So eventually he took Judybehind one of the set trees and
slapped her on the face.
She did not laugh in the nexttake.
Now, there's some versions ofthis that, you know, I think
paint him as more of an angryperson, and then some that this
was sort of a gentle tactic thathe very thoughtfully, you know,
(31:29):
whatever.
But I'll say this.
Afterwards, Victor said out loudthat his number two, you know,
some other guy on set shouldpunch him in the face for what
he did to her.
Like he felt he immediately waslike, You should punch me for
that.
And Judy overheard this and saidthat she would rather kiss him
on the nose instead.
SPEAKER_02 (31:46):
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (31:47):
So, you know.
SPEAKER_02 (31:49):
If if it's either or she chose the the nose.
SPEAKER_00 (31:55):
She rose above in the way that Victor didn't.
SPEAKER_02 (31:57):
Yeah.
It goes to show, yeah, g justgive pills to nine-year-olds and
they'll grow up just fine.
SPEAKER_00 (32:03):
Yeah, that's right.
It's hard to imagine thatdespite being constantly fed
uppers and downers, only eatingsoup, cottage cheese, and
coffee, and being forced intobody modifying shapewear, Judy
Garland, at the age of sixteen,was still able to give one of
the most iconic performances inclassic film history.
A testament to her talents,despite the horrible and abusive
(32:26):
working conditions that sheendured.
There's also this is a littlebit of a side quest, but there's
also a very strange coincidencethat I think we need to talk
about.
According to the History.comarticle, so Balm's coat, so the
writer, the original writer of1900 novel, his coat was
accidentally used in the movie.
SPEAKER_02 (32:46):
Accidentally?
SPEAKER_00 (32:47):
Accidentally.
The wardrobe department waslooking for the perfect costume
for the Professor Marvelcharacter, right?
They were looking for a veryspecific coat and kind of
racking through all of theoptions at thrift stores.
According to the movie'spublicist, Mary Mayer, they
wanted Grandeur Gone to Seed, atattered version of a once
beautiful coat, right?
So they finally found theperfect jacket, a black Prince
(33:10):
Albert velvet coat with a purplecollar.
And on set, the actor FrankMorgan, who played Professor
Marvel, you know, kind ofbetween sets on a hot day, took
it off and turned the collarinside out and saw that L.
Frank Baum's name was writtenwithin.
After an investigation, theproduction confirmed with the
tailor who made the coat andBaum's widow that it was
(33:32):
actually his.
SPEAKER_02 (33:33):
That's spooky.
SPEAKER_00 (33:34):
Isn't that crazy?
SPEAKER_02 (33:35):
Yeah, that's pretty that's pretty strange.
SPEAKER_00 (33:38):
But there's a lot of other um wardrobe-related issues
that were not quite so charming.
Actor Bert Lar, who played thelion, had to wear a costume that
was made from a real lion'shide.
SPEAKER_02 (33:51):
Oh, uh.
SPEAKER_00 (33:53):
Yeah.
Not great.
The costume also weighed closeto 90 pounds.
The actor struggled with theweight and the lack of
ventilation.
Lar would sweat so badly thatthe costume would need to be
dried at the end of each filmingday.
Because remember, in thesebright lights that people are
passing out actively in all thetime, he's in a 90-pound costume
(34:14):
that's made of real lion's high.
SPEAKER_02 (34:16):
Yeah, he's wearing a lion.
Yeah.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (34:19):
It's horrifying.
For a period of time, the actorwasn't allowed to eat solid food
on set because his makeup tooktoo long to reapply.
Finally, after eating onlymilkshakes and soup, he
requested that his makeup justbe redone after lunch, and they
agreed to that.
SPEAKER_02 (34:33):
That that seems fair.
SPEAKER_00 (34:34):
Like, oh my god.
Why is the default that we'lljust have to endure?
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (34:40):
Although soup and milkshakes sounds pretty nice.
SPEAKER_00 (34:44):
What a life.
SPEAKER_02 (34:45):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (34:45):
But the Tin Man costume was equally problematic.
It was almost impossible to sitdown while wearing the costume.
The actor had to lean against aboard if he wanted to rest
because he couldn't bend hisknees, so he was just kind of
stuck vertically.
SPEAKER_02 (35:00):
Method acting.
SPEAKER_00 (35:02):
But even worse, the silver paint caused such a bad
allergic reaction in actor BuddyEpson that he was rushed to the
hospital and the character wasrecast to Jack Haley.
So that was one of the bigresets of the production.
I mean, he had like a near-deathreaction to the silver paint.
SPEAKER_02 (35:21):
Yeah.
And I mean, you're in thatsilver paint.
SPEAKER_00 (35:25):
A lot.
A lot.
For months, yeah.
I mean, nowadays, right, youfilm a movie, it takes about
like I mean it depends on themovie, but just from when Alan
goes away on movie shoots, fiveweeks?
This took six months.
SPEAKER_02 (35:38):
So long.
SPEAKER_00 (35:38):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (35:39):
I mean, they're doing a lot of things manually,
too.
Of course.
SPEAKER_00 (35:42):
The technology is much different.
But it's it's quite the in inthis director head, he came out
with uh The Wizard of Oz and uhGone with the Wind the same
year, like two epic movies.
SPEAKER_02 (35:53):
Yeah, that's kind of great.
Those those are two movies thathave really stood the test of
time that people still love.
And they came out the same Ididn't realize it's the same
year.
Yeah.
That's pretty much.
SPEAKER_00 (36:04):
Oh, I wonder which one was it Gone with the Wind
that won the Academy Award?
SPEAKER_02 (36:08):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (36:10):
Must have been, right?
SPEAKER_02 (36:11):
Yeah.
I mean, right?
SPEAKER_00 (36:13):
I mean, I would have voted for Oz.
Let's see.
It was the 11th Academy Awardsin 1938.
SPEAKER_02 (36:18):
11.
SPEAKER_00 (36:19):
They used to be uh hosted at the Biltmore Hotel.
Oh wait, hang on.
Do I need to look at 1940?
It was the 12th Academy Award.
SPEAKER_02 (36:28):
It was the 12th.
SPEAKER_00 (36:29):
Let's see, who won?
Gone with the Wind.
SPEAKER_02 (36:32):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (36:32):
Better luck next time.
SPEAKER_02 (36:34):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (36:34):
The green copper paint worn by Margaret Hamilton
portraying the wicked witch ofthe West was also an issue.
The actor actually suffered fromsecond and third degree burns
after filming the fire scene.
So there's a scene whereMargaret disappears into a cloud
of smoke through a trapdoor,which we all know and love.
But the effect in, you know, oneof the takes went off too soon.
(36:55):
According to an MGM interofficememo, she suffered from first
degree burns on her face andsecond degree on her hands.
Usually, like what they wouldtypically do is apply a salve,
which would be applied, butbecause her makeup contained
copper and was toxic, it had tobe removed first.
She later described it as theworst pain of her life, and
there's this quote about youknow about this that she
(37:18):
describes how she just had tolike sit and endure it.
Like she just had to wait forthis makeup to be removed, and
it was just like sitting in thebiggest pain and discomfort of
her life, and she was stillpretty scarred by it.
SPEAKER_02 (37:33):
Yeah, that that is a worst nightmare scenario.
SPEAKER_01 (37:38):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (37:38):
I mean, first uh a scarecrow chasing you across a
field, that's that's a nightmareA.
Yeah.
But getting burned and thenhaving to wait to take off
makeup to then get relief soundshorrible.
At work.
SPEAKER_00 (37:56):
Horrible.
Like I literally was lighting acandle yesterday with a lighter
and it burned my thumb.
And I was like, well, I guessI'm done for the day.
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (38:07):
Ow.
Oh, you know, time for bed.
That's it.
Nothing nothing good can happenafter this.
SPEAKER_00 (38:14):
But don't think, Alex, that the scarecrow got off
without any costume incidents.
SPEAKER_02 (38:18):
Oh no.
SPEAKER_00 (38:20):
Not quite as bad though.
Ray Bolger also suffered fromdeep marks and furrows on his
skin from the makeup.
Like the the hay and you know,indented so deeply in his body
that he was left kind of withscarring for a while.
SPEAKER_02 (38:33):
Wow.
Such issues with all thismakeup.
SPEAKER_00 (38:36):
Yeah, who was uh who was in charge of the her makeup
team?
SPEAKER_02 (38:39):
Well, hopefully they didn't win an Academy Award.
SPEAKER_00 (38:43):
There have been rumors that the snow used on set
was actually asbestos, but inreality, crushed gypsum was used
for the snow.
Quoting from the History.comarticle, quote, asbestos was,
however, used in another part ofthe movie.
In the scene where the wickedwitch of the West lights the
scarecrow, Ray Bulger, on fire,the actor wore a version of his
(39:05):
costume made from asbestos,quoting within the quote, men
with wet blankets and fireextinguishers stood out of
camera range in case of amishap, Stillman says,
continuing his quote, Every timethe scarecrow moved, Bulger
recalled, the straw sproutingfrom holes in his costume had to
be rearranged to exactly matchthe previous shot.
(39:25):
And all quotes.
There was also prejudice on setagainst the little people who
played the Munchkins.
For reference, Todo was paidmore,$125 a week, than any of
the cast of the Munchkins.
Garland made about$500 a week onset.
Ray Bolger and Jack Haley werepaid$3,000 a week.
SPEAKER_02 (39:46):
Oh.
SPEAKER_00 (39:47):
So there was some pay inequality happening across
the board.
SPEAKER_02 (39:50):
Yikes!
SPEAKER_00 (39:51):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (39:52):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (39:53):
Why was Toto even being paid like crazy?
SPEAKER_02 (39:57):
That is that is crazy to me.
SPEAKER_00 (39:59):
Yeah.
But let's talk about the rumorthat most of us have heard that
one of the actors playing amunchkin on set hanged
themselves, which you can see inthe background of a shot.
The truth is, for a very longtime, you could only see the
Wizard of Oz when it played onTV, right?
Now that there are remasteredon-demand versions, you can slow
down the footage and see what'sactually a very large bird
(40:22):
taking flight.
It is a bird.
It is a bird.
And to your point about it notbeing either, it's because and I
I did this too.
I would slow it, I would try towatch it when it was playing.
The quality at the time when wewere young watching this was so
bad, you couldn't make it out.
But when it was remastered, andnow that we could like pause our
TV, you could see that it's abird more clearly.
(40:44):
But at the time, it was just asmudge, like a you could see
something moving, but youcouldn't really identify what it
was.
SPEAKER_02 (40:50):
Did you ever think it was a munchkin?
SPEAKER_00 (40:53):
Yes.
SPEAKER_02 (40:54):
Okay, you did.
You saw it.
SPEAKER_00 (40:56):
I saw it and I was like, yeah, that there's a lot
of it.
Totally.
Yeah.
But I'm also someone who likevery easily believes things.
I'm very gullible and don'tquestion things enough.
Working on it.
I'm working on it.
SPEAKER_02 (41:07):
Well, I'm sure you I'm sure there's half of you
that's like, oh, some sort oflike uh uh exciting scandal.
Some sort of exciting scandal ofa beloved children's movie.
I mean, right?
SPEAKER_00 (41:21):
There's even then I was looking for the horror in it
all.
SPEAKER_02 (41:24):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (41:25):
But Alex, you might ask, why is there a large bird
on set?
SPEAKER_02 (41:30):
Oh, I guess yeah, I guess that is the next question.
SPEAKER_00 (41:33):
There were actually over 300 birds on set that
Fleming rented from the LosAngeles Zoo.
Quoting from the History.comarticle, quote, according to MGM
publicity, the studio quoteunquote rented 300 birds from
the Los Angeles Zoo so thatFleming, the director du jour,
could select a few to be in thebackground of the apple orchard
(41:54):
scene.
These birds included goldenpheasants, a South American
toucan, a Saurus crane, and anAfrican crane, one of which can
be seen in the film.
When Dorothy, the scarecrow, andthe tin man skip down the yellow
brick road, a Saurus crane makesits presence known by spreading
its wings, Stillman says.
However, over the years peoplemistook the movement of the
(42:15):
crane for something much darker.
Since the 1970s, there's been arumor of a stage hand wandering
into the background of one moviescene, he explains.
In recent times, that myth hasbecome a munchkin hanging from a
tree.
But Stillman says that a bird isbehind the confusion.
Besides, it's simply notpossible that none of the over
fifty staff behind the camerawould have ignored anything
(42:37):
ill-fated, he adds.
And it would be headlong city ifit had happened.
SPEAKER_02 (42:49):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
Like that does seem particularlyuh salacious.
SPEAKER_00 (42:54):
Yeah.
And we could we could debunk it.
So production obviously wasdifficult to say the least.
It was abusive in some ways.
Everybody was incrediblystressed and under a ton of
pressure.
It was hot.
It was plagued with disaster anddifferent costume malfunctions.
Right?
It was difficult, but I also am,you know, wonder but beyond the
(43:19):
bright light, how much of thatis unique to this movie versus
filmmaking it's a little bitmore.
Yeah, and maybe part of it islike the costumes and the makeup
were, you know, creating afantasy movie, I think, was
new-ish, you know, but still,there was a lot of stuff that
was happening all of the time onmovies like this that were
horrifying.
(43:39):
But the contents of Oz itself issomething I want to talk about
briefly because again, I thinkpretty much everybody knows The
Wizard of Oz.
One of my, you know, familyconnections to it is that my dad
was so afraid from his ownchildhood of the flying monkeys
that he refused to watch it withus growing up.
Like he did not had had nointerest in watching it.
(44:02):
But I will say he has he's hasseen Wicked Part 1 and he
survived those monkeys, which Ithink are much scarier.
SPEAKER_02 (44:09):
They certainly are more scary.
SPEAKER_00 (44:10):
Yeah.
But this film also does so much,and I'm not saying this to be
glib, but like think about thesymbol of Margaret Hamilton as
the Wicked Witch of the West inthis movie.
Her hat, like, you know,everything about the way she's
portrayed becomes iconic afterthis, especially when we're
thinking about witches.
(44:31):
And, you know, the hat and allthat is in the broom and
everything is not like this isnot the origination of these
witches elements.
But like I think it takes thelore around something like
witchcraft, right?
And brings it into one of themost famous films of all time,
and that's really interesting tome.
SPEAKER_02 (44:50):
Yeah, and and I think what you're talking about
is like the caricature of thewitch is is sort of permanently
imprinted and in this childhoodmovie, in this children's movie,
that then I mean, it'severything.
It's the stockings, it's hershoes, up to her dress, her hat.
(45:13):
It's like all of the pieces arepretty much there that you're
just like, yes, that's what awitch looks like.
SPEAKER_00 (45:20):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (45:21):
And and then it's easy to replicate that
afterwards.
SPEAKER_00 (45:25):
Yeah, and so much of this movie, like it also dabbles
in the occult with ProfessorMarvelous and his crystal ball.
And of course, he's whitewashinglike a Romani fortune teller,
but that's you know, he's notunique to that.
That's something that happened alot at that time period.
SPEAKER_02 (45:39):
Um and he's a con artist anyway, so that's exactly
what he's doing.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (45:44):
Yeah, yeah.
Um but yeah, there's a lot ofspooky stuff in this movie.
Like, it's not just it's achildren's movie, but you know,
it's interesting because my dad,right, was really uh scared of
it.
Like we, I think, grew upprobably watching this and had
seen enough other content aroundthe time that it didn't, at
least for me, like embed withinme, right?
(46:05):
It it felt aged even if it feltclassic.
But for my dad, you know, whenhe grew up many years before me,
it was horrifying.
It was a scary movie.
SPEAKER_02 (46:16):
Right, right.
SPEAKER_00 (46:16):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (46:17):
I mean, I mean, I think that's still true.
I mean, it is true, true.
It is, there are parts of itthat are scary and on purpose,
right?
SPEAKER_00 (46:25):
Yeah.
When she her guards, even,right?
Like, there's something very uhfor yeah, they I think they do a
really good job at creating realfear in those moments.
SPEAKER_02 (46:34):
Yeah, and I don't think it's a mistake that they
all like march in unison and allare like saying the same, you
know, like they're s humming thestrange s song and they're kind
of they're kind of reminiscentof another, like uh, you know,
like Nazism and all of thatthat's brewing if not like fully
happening.
SPEAKER_00 (46:55):
Totally.
SPEAKER_02 (46:55):
Um, as far as like w the war or anything, but yeah,
yeah, very true.
It's it it's scary.
SPEAKER_00 (47:02):
Yeah, it's scary.
So the the novel, right?
The source material, The Wizardof Oz, has been depicted in
other film versions of thestory.
Perhaps the most notable for along time was Return to Oz from
1985.
And you read the books, right?
So this I believe Return to Ozis based on the third book.
SPEAKER_02 (47:22):
Yeah, Ozma.
SPEAKER_00 (47:23):
Ozmus.
SPEAKER_02 (47:24):
Yeah, Ozma of Oz, right?
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (47:26):
Do you remember much about have you seen Return to
Oz?
Do you remember much about thebooks?
SPEAKER_02 (47:31):
I've seen Return to Oz.
Oh yeah.
Um that is a horror movie.
Yeah.
Straight up, straight up is notfor children.
I feel I I what I remember fromthat the most is the heads, the
hall, the hall of heads.
Yeah.
That that was particularlyupsetting.
SPEAKER_00 (47:51):
Which is based on the source material.
Which is again why I'm like, youguys read these books.
They are they are wild.
SPEAKER_02 (47:57):
Totally.
Yeah, I remember them and Iremember the chicken.
SPEAKER_00 (48:01):
What is the chicken?
SPEAKER_02 (48:02):
The chicken's her like companion.
SPEAKER_00 (48:04):
Oh uh.
SPEAKER_02 (48:04):
It's like her fr her todo.
Her toto.
Yeah.
Yeah, they're I know like that.
All the books do uh become alittle bit like, oh, here's all
the pieces, all like let'sjumble them up and get like some
new characters into it.
But um, yeah, like the chickensthe chicken's the new Toto,
particularly.
(48:24):
You know, she's a little likesassy.
Yeah.
Chicken.
SPEAKER_00 (48:28):
Yeah, yeah, that's kind of fun.
Return to Oz was released byDisney, and it's a dark fantasy,
which is set six months afterthe events of the first movie.
The film was written anddirected by Walter Merch.
Merch is primarily known forbeing a film editor and sound
designer.
He's worked on some majorHollywood films.
American Graffiti, ApocalypseNow, all three of the Godfather
(48:50):
movies, Ghost, The EnglishPatient, and The Restoration of
Touch of Evil, just to name afew.
He's been nominated for sixediting academy awards and three
for sound design.
Return to Oz was the only timethat Merch ever directed a
movie.
I find it this could be like a adeep dive for another day, but I
(49:10):
find it interesting.
There's a few cases, and somethat have come up recently when
we were doing the Friday the13th series and some in like
Pumpkinhead, for instance, wherethere's a few times where you
get like a movie that becomes acult classic, maybe, but it was
made by somebody in film.
In those other cases, likespecial effects guys that then
directed something, and you cankind of see that.
(49:32):
And I think that's true withReturn to Oz.
Like it's weird and it relies ona lot of like sound design and
visual stuff that I think merch,as somebody who does sound
design and editing, was able tosort of uniquely bring to that.
SPEAKER_02 (49:46):
Yeah, that's cool.
I mean, I the fact that hedidn't direct anything else
makes you wonder was this apassion project?
Was this something that he wasreally excited about?
I mean, uh how could you not be?
Um another Wizard of Oz movie,like that seems pretty exciting
to you know, sink your teethinto, especially as a special
(50:09):
effects person.
SPEAKER_00 (50:10):
And I don't say this to this is gonna sound
derogatory, and I don't mean itlike that.
But it's sort of like watching amovie, I feel like that's made
by somebody who specializes in adifferent part of film.
It sort of sometimes feels likewhen Ringo wrote wrote the song,
where it's like, oh, this movieis a little bit different from
other movies, and it's not bad,but it's like a little bit
different.
(50:30):
It's through the a differentlens.
SPEAKER_02 (50:32):
Yeah, a different voice, a di well, a different
perspective.
Yeah, totally.
SPEAKER_00 (50:36):
Yeah.
Like they're they're usuallylike headier, I don't know, just
like a little bit, a little bitmore visually like focused.
SPEAKER_02 (50:42):
It it certainly didn't feel as um digestible as
the Wizard of Oz, perhaps.
Well, I don't even know if youcould say that.
I don't know if like at the endof The Wizard of Oz they look
back on it and they're like,What did we do?
I mean, there's a lot of stuffhappening here.
SPEAKER_00 (50:58):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (50:59):
Yeah, but this it feels like maybe it was for fans
of The Wizard of Oz.
SPEAKER_00 (51:05):
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah, totally.
And maybe for those who read thebooks.
SPEAKER_01 (51:09):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (51:10):
Return to Oz is based on the novels by L.
Frank Baum, primarily again onOzma of Oz, which is the third
book in the series.
Except Oz is now a wasteland.
The citizens are stone, thescarecrow is in captivity, and
there are dark forces afoot.
Dorothy ends up teaming up witha new cast of characters to
attempt to defeat the wickedGnome King and restore the magic
(51:32):
and beauty of Oz.
Ozma of Oz, along with most ofthe Oz books, are freaky.
The book and movie feature anevil princess who swaps heads
and keeps a room full of heads.
Notably, Dorothy is much youngerin this movie than the original.
The actress playing Dorothy wasabout 10, which again is age
appropriate for the character.
So let's talk about the Rubyslippers really quickly.
(51:53):
The Ruby slippers are from themovie The Wizard of Oz.
They are not from the sourcematerial.
And as such, Disney, as youknow, the production company
behind Return to Oz had to getuh permission from MGM to re to
use them sparingly in Return toOz because they're canon to the
movie and not the originalbooks.
SPEAKER_02 (52:13):
That that's why in Wicked the Stage Show, they're
silver shoes.
Yeah.
Also.
SPEAKER_00 (52:19):
Fascinating.
I love these little kind of likeHollywood tidbits that you, you
know, you're like, oh, that'swhy that's silver.
Okay, so speaking of Wicked,we're going to put a pin in this
conversation because there'sbeen so much to say, and come
back next week and continuetalking about the dark lore and
history of the Wizard of Oz, butthis time through the lens of
Wicked.
(52:39):
Obviously, there's many otherfilm versions.
There's so many differentversions and adaptations of Oz
out there.
We're just talking about thehits, you know.
SPEAKER_02 (52:49):
Nothing but the hits.
SPEAKER_00 (52:50):
That's right.
Alex, thank you so much forbeing here.
SPEAKER_02 (52:53):
Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_00 (52:54):
Of course.
It's so fun to talk to you.
And we will be back next week.
Thank you guys so much forlistening.
Talk to you soon.
SPEAKER_02 (53:01):
Ta ta.
SPEAKER_00 (53:02):
Bye.
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode
of the Lunatics Radio HourPodcast.
My name is Abby Brinker, andtoday I am sitting here with my
friend Alex Goleman.
SPEAKER_02 (00:30):
Hey, hey, hey.
SPEAKER_00 (00:31):
Welcome back, Alex.
SPEAKER_02 (00:32):
Oh, it's so good to be back.
SPEAKER_00 (00:34):
And today we are talking about a topic that I
knew you would be perfect totalk to about because, as
friends, we have often talkedabout this.
I think we both have a littlebit of a different and unique
perspective on some of the vasthistory that is associated with
the Wizard of Oz.
So I'm really excited to talkthrough this with you.
SPEAKER_02 (00:53):
I'm excited to be here.
Let's do it.
SPEAKER_00 (00:55):
I want your perspective on this right away
because I have always had thisseed in the back of my head that
the production of the movie from1939, The Wizard of Oz, was
riddled with all of thesehorrifying things.
For example, there was a rumorthat came to me in the 90s as a
child that you could see amember of the cast or a crew or
(01:17):
whatever, that you know, thedifferent versions of the rumor
said a different thing,committing suicide in the movie.
SPEAKER_02 (01:23):
Hanging themselves.
SPEAKER_00 (01:24):
Hanging themselves.
SPEAKER_02 (01:24):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (01:25):
You heard that too.
SPEAKER_02 (01:26):
Oh, absolutely.
I went through and I paused thevideo.
Just did I, yes.
Just trying to make out whatanyone was talking about.
SPEAKER_00 (01:32):
And I thought I saw it.
SPEAKER_02 (01:34):
Yeah, you know, I remember that lore.
Yeah.
And then I remember it couldhave been a bird who was in the
background.
And honestly, after pausing itfor many, many times, I feel
like I didn't see either thing.
SPEAKER_00 (01:50):
Well, we will reveal today what it was.
SPEAKER_02 (01:52):
Oh, how exciting.
SPEAKER_00 (01:54):
But how fascinating that this rumor about this movie
from the 30s came to it's just,it's such a funny thing.
And I'll say this there is a lotof dark.
Dark in like an abusiveproduction sense of the word
that we're going to talk aboutwith the movie.
We're also going to talk aboutsome hard topics in today's
episode, including some abusiveconditions, especially centered
(02:17):
around food and dieting and theuse of pills to control people.
There's also, and I've anyonewho follows us on Patreon knows
this, I did a whole series lastyear when I read the original
book, which is a delightfulread.
It's a children's novel.
We're going to talk a lot aboutit today, but so much in it is
so creepy and freaky and likehorrifying in like, again, like
(02:38):
a delightful way.
I did a whole audio series onthat on Patreon, but I just find
there to be so much around earlyOz in different forms that's
worth talking about on this showand feels relevant to this show.
Even if you might think, oh, theWizard of Oz isn't horror.
There's still some dark stuff toget into.
But then also, of course, whenyou think about Alphabet, which
(02:59):
I think I know way more peoplein 2025 are familiar with that
character than previouslybecause the movie has had such a
vast, you know, response.
And she's a witch.
And it's really cool to talkabout and think about how this
character is 125 years old.
I don't know, to think about howher origins versus where she is
now and how popular she is.
SPEAKER_02 (03:22):
I I do feel like sort of the central question
that even Glinda asks in themovie, and I think she asks it
in the book too, are you a goodwitch or are you a bad witch?
Yeah.
That speaks volumes even.
I I feel like uh the book openeda door to a good witches
existing and and being part ofthe conversation.
(03:46):
But to your point about themovie being sort of riddled with
all of this, you know, abuseallegations or whatever whatever
whatever we want to talk aboutthere.
It's so interesting when thecentral motif for the piece is
good and evil, wickedness, andall of that.
Yes.
It it makes you want to lookdeeper into what's happening and
(04:09):
see, you know, like, oh, findingfinding examples of it, I guess,
is what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_00 (04:15):
A hundred percent.
And also, if you really want toget dark with it, which we will
by the end of this, there's suchsimilarity, I think, to what's
happening in the United Statesright now.
And listen, I'm not trying tominimize it by comparing it to a
Broadway musical, but truly,there is so much similarity to
what's happening in the theUnited States right now.
(04:36):
And I think you leave wicked ina sense, and you feel empowered,
I hope, to question authority.
And to be aware that, like, toyour point of like what's good
and evil, like we have to besomewhat fluid as we learn more
about things, and you know, andit's just like a dark time, and
it feels really relevant whenyou think about what's what
we're going through right now asa country.
SPEAKER_02 (04:56):
And things aren't binary, right?
Like, and that's that'ssomething that I think even
wicked, which takes it takes theemotional stakes of Wizard of Oz
and and raises them.
I think we can agree on that forsure.
Uh-huh.
But it also sort of colorspeople differently.
But but it does, right?
(05:16):
It sort of fills in shades ofbetween.
SPEAKER_00 (05:19):
Yes.
SPEAKER_02 (05:19):
That aren't just you're not only good, you're not
only bad.
SPEAKER_00 (05:23):
Yeah.
I do think that's something thatfeels missing right now from us
as a country.
It's like you're on this side orthat side.
And the truth is we're allpeople who have been consuming
media and echo chambers.
And, you know, I think the morewe humanize people, the better.
Yeah, 100%.
So anyway, we're gonna get intoall of it.
We're gonna talk abouteverything from the original
books, which came out in 1900,to Wicked in its film versions,
(05:48):
which the second one is now veryrecently in theaters.
So here we go.
Let's get into it.
Starting off with our sources abiography article by Colin
Bertman, Judy Garland filmed TheWizard of Oz under grueling
circumstances, a history.comarticle, Seven Surprising Facts
About the Wizard of Oz movie byElizabeth Yuko, The Dark Secrets
(06:09):
Surrounding the Wizard of Oz byColin Russell for Far Out
magazine, a Time article was TheWizard of Oz Cursed, The Truth
Behind the Dark Stories aboutthe Judy Garland Classic, a
Smithsonian National Museum ofAmerican History article by Ryan
Lintelman, The Technicolor Worldof Oz, a Far Out magazine
article by Jacob Simmons, TheStory Behind the Shah, The
(06:32):
Wizard of Oz, and Dorothy'sTechnicolor Dream.
And of course, as always, wewill link all of these sources
in the description of thisepisode so you can check out the
source material as well.
In 1900, L.
Frank Baum's novel, TheWonderful Wizard of Oz, was
released.
The original book was famouslyillustrated by W.
W.
Denslow, and the illustrationsare quite striking, and I highly
(06:54):
recommend you take a look.
SPEAKER_02 (06:56):
Very memorable.
SPEAKER_00 (06:57):
Very memorable, and actually, I believe you might
know this because I am justgonna say a fact that might not
be true.
Some of the characters in Wickedthe Musical are inspired by
those illustrations, I believe.
SPEAKER_02 (07:10):
The costumes, at least.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (07:12):
Yeah.
It's really cool when you readthe book and you're like, oh, I
saw that in the play.
SPEAKER_02 (07:17):
Yeah, no, notably it's the one short day people.
Those characters.
The big, yeah, like the kookycharacters that come out.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (07:25):
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was a children's novel,
and it's a pretty fast and funread, which I recommend.
You read, you read the first fewbooks.
SPEAKER_02 (07:33):
Yeah, I I did have the box set of them, um, but I
can only confidently rememberthree.
The first three.
SPEAKER_00 (07:40):
That's fair.
I read one, and it was like I Isaid at the beginning, super
fun.
And it's fast.
Like I you can read it as anadult in very enjoyable.
A sitting or two, yeah.
The novel tells the story prettymuch as we know it, but there
are some really fun and freakydeviations, and I think that's
honestly why I had so much funreading the novel, because we
(08:02):
know the story so well.
Like, regardless of what age youare, if you you know the movie
so well, you know Wicked, a lotof people know Wicked.
And so when you read theoriginal, you're like, oh, I
see, I see how we got where weare, but there's some really fun
stuff that's a little bitdifferent, and it's I don't
know, it's like very charming toread through those little
original, you know, it's not adeviation because it's the
(08:25):
source material, but like thesevery quirky little beats that
don't exist anywhere else.
SPEAKER_02 (08:30):
Yeah, and and if you're like me and you like when
you find something you're reallyinto, you have to know every
little detail about it.
When you go back to the booksafter, I mean, name a more
iconic movie that has survivedthe test of time.
Like every everyone knows theWizard of Oz.
Truly.
But then all of a sudden there'sthese books where there's all
(08:51):
these little details that aren'tin the movie for whatever
reason, and you feel like you'refinding Easter eggs that you'd
never even knew existed.
SPEAKER_00 (08:59):
Yeah, and one of the the an example of that, which I
I don't know why this is thething that stuck with me.
Because there's some reallyweird moments, but this one,
there's this chapter near theend of the novel where Dorothy
and you know, crew stumble uponthis, I think it's called like
the dainty China Village.
SPEAKER_01 (09:20):
Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00 (09:21):
And it's it's literally like porcelain people
that are made out of China, youknow, plates, kind of that kind
of material, like porcelain.
And something happens and theylike crack someone, and it's
horrifying in a way, whereyou're like, wow, this was a a
porcelain being that you likeshattered and broke the leg off
of because you were incompetent,not paying attention.
(09:44):
I have so many questions aboutthe logistics of a porcelain
figure that's walking and movingaround.
SPEAKER_02 (09:49):
There there is a lot of uh casual violence in the
Wizard of Oz.
It's something that I havethought.
I mean, like we opened with ahouse landing on a lady, right?
Like that that's just that'sjust the beginning.
And then and then there arelittle bits, it seems like
everywhere she goes, there'slittle things that just are off.
(10:11):
Like when she goes to the Chinavillage and and someone gets
cracked, which sounds horrible.
SPEAKER_00 (10:17):
Yeah.
The other one that I again islike burned into my brain is
that when the wizard is givingthe brain, and now I'm gonna
mess it up, but like the brainand the heart, there's like
these surgical scenes thathappen where he like puts things
into their bodies and it's quiteintense.
And I did this on Patreon, Ilike read from the chapter
(10:37):
because it's all public domainnow.
But it's just like, yeah, toyour point, it's like way more
violent or way much more like,and then I opened up his body
and put a fake brain in therebecause I was a fake with you
know, and you're like, Oh, thatwouldn't happen in a children's
book today.
SPEAKER_02 (10:51):
And and you can you can see how it missed the cut of
the movie.
You were just like, uh, I guesswe don't need to do that.
SPEAKER_00 (10:57):
Yeah, yeah, that might upset the audience.
The first novel was soincredibly successful that Baum
went on to write 13 sequels.
So there's 14 books in total.
There was a time when Baumwanted to branch out and write
other things, but nothing soldas well as the Os series, so he
kept going back to it as a wayto kind of keep making money, of
course.
But what inspired him to writesuch fanciful and whimsical
(11:21):
material?
His son would later say that hisfather was largely inspired from
his own life.
We do know that growing up, Bombhad nightmares about a scarecrow
chasing him across an openfield.
SPEAKER_02 (11:32):
Oh, spooky.
That is scary.
SPEAKER_00 (11:34):
Yeah, I would write a book about it too.
And just before the scarecrowwould grasp for his neck, he
would dissolve.
Like the scarecrow would justdissolve back into hay.
SPEAKER_02 (11:44):
That is I'm gonna have a nightmare about that now.
SPEAKER_00 (11:48):
In the early 1880s, there was also a fire during a
production of Bomb's playMatches, which is ironic, I
suppose.
A spark from a kerosene lanternstarted the blaze.
So some people also point tothis as inspiration for the
scarecrow's biggest fear, whichof course is fire.
The play The Wizard of Ozdebuted on June 16th, 1902, at
(12:11):
the Chicago Grand Opera House,marketed as a musical
extravaganza.
So this is a musical version ofThe Wizard of Oz, not of Wicked,
just to clarify for everybody.
Baum drafted the script and iscredited as the book writer, but
ghostwriter Glenn McDonough wasbrought on to shape and polish
and, you know, really refine thestory.
(12:33):
A lot of the original music waswritten by Paul Tahines.
The original cast boasted twopopular comedy stars of the
time, Fred Stone and David C.
Montgomery.
By the end of January 1903, itmade its way to Broadway.
So even from its original,right, the the first book came
out in 1900.
By three years later, there wasa Broadway show.
SPEAKER_02 (12:53):
They needed more.
They needed more.
SPEAKER_00 (12:56):
We can't get enough ever.
SPEAKER_02 (12:57):
No.
SPEAKER_00 (12:58):
So you're for are you familiar with the Wizard of
Oz play?
SPEAKER_02 (13:24):
Oh, oh, Abby.
I I did play the Scarecrow inwell, see, my senior class video
was The Wizard of Oz.
Meaning we went around and diddifferent scenes of the Wizard
of Oz in my high school.
SPEAKER_00 (13:42):
Okay.
SPEAKER_02 (13:42):
Um and I played the Scarecrow in that.
unknown (13:45):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (13:45):
Okay.
That's super fun.
So so you're familiar.
SPEAKER_02 (13:49):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (13:50):
And do you know?
I mean, is that I don't know,you know how plays work more
than I know.
Would that be like the samematerial as this from 1903, or
do you think it's been updatedor different over the years?
SPEAKER_02 (14:01):
Well, uh the play that we did was definitely
inspired by the movie and hadsongs from the movie, Somewhere
Over the Rainbow and and thingslike that.
SPEAKER_00 (14:12):
Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_02 (14:13):
Um, so no, I don't think it's the same play.
SPEAKER_00 (14:17):
I wonder if anybody is still I you know, I don't
know, just be curious like whatis the latest version that was
ever produced of this 1903 play?
SPEAKER_02 (14:26):
Like, did it endure and and how much of it, how much
of it exists in the movie,right?
SPEAKER_00 (14:32):
Yeah, very true.
SPEAKER_02 (14:33):
Yeah, I wonder if any of the songs are from the
musical.
SPEAKER_00 (14:36):
So I just looked it up because I didn't know.
The 1903 Broadway musical, TheWizard of Oz, and the 1939 MGM
film share a few character namesand story ideas, but they are
almost completely differentworks.
SPEAKER_02 (14:49):
There you go.
SPEAKER_00 (14:50):
The music is not the same.
The Wizard of Oz, in its filmversion, was released in 1939 by
MGM.
The cultural impact of thismovie was immeasurable.
I mean, it's still it's stillimpacting us today.
But this iconic film wasn't thefirst cinematic version of this
story.
It was actually a remake.
There were two silent filmversions that predate the
(15:13):
classic, one from 1910 and theother from 1925.
But the 1939 movie made a splashfor many reasons.
One of them being theTechnicolor transition from
sepia to a fully saturatedcolor.
SPEAKER_02 (15:27):
Yeah, that's like one of the best moments of any
movie ever created.
SPEAKER_00 (15:31):
Yeah.
And I'm gonna nerd out aboutTechnicolor a little bit because
I went in a little bit of arabbit hole about this because I
was interested in it.
SPEAKER_02 (15:40):
Oh, great.
SPEAKER_00 (15:41):
So let's talk about that.
SPEAKER_02 (15:42):
Yeah, lay it on me.
SPEAKER_00 (15:44):
So the camera used was the Technicolor DF24 beam
splitter motion picture camera.
And there was actually, I saythe camera, but there was many
of these cameras used at thesame time.
And I saw, I went to the AcademyAward, is that what it's called?
The Academy Award Museum in LA.
And they have a whole Wizard ofOz kind of artifact section.
SPEAKER_02 (16:04):
Oh, it's very cool, yes.
SPEAKER_00 (16:06):
And they have some of those cameras there, and
they're huge.
Like you should look up thecameras because they're so
different than cameras today,obviously.
But it's cool.
If you're ever in LA, I highlyrecommend that.
But The Wizard of Oz was not thefirst movie made in color.
That accolade belongs to a filmcalled The World, The Flesh, and
the Devil from 1914.
SPEAKER_02 (16:25):
1914?
SPEAKER_00 (16:27):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (16:27):
Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00 (16:29):
It used a different, it wasn't technicolor, it used
something called Kinema with aK.
Kinema color process.
And I guess that footage islargely lost, which seems to be
the case because of how uh I Idon't know if this is the case,
but a lot of early film footagethat's lost is because of how
flammable the chemicals were.
SPEAKER_01 (16:47):
Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (16:49):
The first technicolor film was a short
from 1917 called The GulfBetween.
The first animated feature,which I know nobody asked, but
it's a fun fact, with sound andcolor was Disney's Snow White
from 1937.
So Snow White with Color cameout two years before The Wizard
of Oz.
So color wasn't like it wasn'tevery movie, but it wasn't, you
(17:10):
know, it was it was around.
SPEAKER_02 (17:11):
Yeah, I'm sure it was expensive and yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (17:13):
It's kind of the same thing with sound.
Like the first movie with soundwas The Jazz Singer from 1927,
but there was still it took alittle bit of time before it
kind of was broadly adaptedbecause people were used to
silent films and because, youknow.
SPEAKER_02 (17:27):
They didn't want it yet.
SPEAKER_00 (17:28):
Yeah, and it was expensive to your point.
SPEAKER_02 (17:30):
I I think of the sort of rough CGI, um, fully CGI
movies that we got to sort oflead us into what is now just
animation.
SPEAKER_01 (17:43):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (17:44):
And now looking back at those movies, they feel so
dated at the time.
And I remember being even achild and sitting through some
of them and being like, Do Ilike this?
Do I like what this looks like?
I don't know if I do.
SPEAKER_00 (17:58):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (17:58):
But now it's everywhere.
That's what it is.
SPEAKER_00 (18:01):
Yeah, it's interesting.
And I wonder, obviously,animation is such a core, I feel
like, for our childhood becauseso much of what we consumed as
kids was animated, and then youfeel like you grow up and you
watch live action and Disney andPixar, and you know, all of
these studios do so muchanimated.
But I wonder, like, one of mybig critiques, I think, with
(18:21):
films that rely so heavily onCGI is that it doesn't age well.
SPEAKER_02 (18:25):
Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00 (18:26):
You know, even if you watch The Lord of the Rings,
or some of these movies thatwere so groundbreaking 10 or 20
years ago, you're like, oh, itlooks like a video game now.
Like it doesn't look like we'vecome so far beyond it, and it'll
be interesting with AI and othertechnologies in this day and
age.
I don't know.
I just I wonder.
I wonder how it will all workout.
SPEAKER_02 (18:45):
Yeah, I know.
I know.
Well, it goes to show howquickly technology advances too.
Although you can't be even whenyou're watching an action movie
from the 80s, they're not usingany sort of computers.
I mean, maybe they are.
Fact check me.
But but they're relying largelyon these sets and these huge,
(19:05):
um, huge scenery pieces that areare basically the the source of
excitement that um that'shappening that even when you
watch those back, they feel alittle bit more fun and
authentic, yeah, genuine.
I don't know.
SPEAKER_00 (19:22):
I like this comes up with horror all the time because
so much of horror, right?
There's so many, you have tohave either a practical effect
or a special effect, becauseyou're trying to achieve
something that's not possible inthe normal world.
You're trying to cut offsomebody's head or whatever.
And they could be very fun towatch silly, bad horror movies,
of course.
But like there's movies that usepractical effects that age so
(19:45):
much better, even if they'refrom the 60s or they're from the
40s, or than movies from the 90sthat tried to use CGI.
Like you watch it back andyou're kind of like to your
point about being authentic, I'mout.
Like I know that that's a movie,and I would much rather watch a
practical effect version ofthat.
SPEAKER_02 (20:01):
Wow, like and talk about the Wizard of Oz versus
like Oz and the Great andPowerful.
What was what was that moviefrom like with Mila Kunis and Oz
the Great and Powerful from2013?
SPEAKER_00 (20:12):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (20:13):
Yeah.
And right, and you compare, youcompare how even the witches
look in both of them.
And it it's almost notcomparable.
I mean, I would much ratherwatch the Wizard of Oz movie.
SPEAKER_00 (20:25):
Yeah, I'm yeah, it's such a good point.
I would much rather watch theoriginal from the 30s.
So MGM's first color film wasThe Uninvited Guest from 1924.
And in 1938, a year before Ozwas released, MGM actually won
an honorary Academy Award forits use of color in the movie
Sweethearts.
But Oz was really the firstmovie to use color like for
(20:49):
marketing as a way to drawaudiences, like a gimmick,
right?
And it was successful.
Even though the film wasreleased during the Great
Depression, it's still, as weknow, one of the greatest
successes in all of cinema.
Quoting from the Technicolorarticle by Ryan Lintelman,
quote, Technicolor wasn't a typeof color film.
Instead, it was a process inwhich a specially modified
(21:12):
motion picture camera recordedthe same scene through colored
filters on three differentstrips of film.
These strips were then processedseparately and used to print
colors onto each finished printof the film sent to theaters.
If a movie studio wanted to makea film in Technicolor, it had to
lease the company's unique moviecameras, as well as a team of
(21:34):
two experts to help operate thecomplicated machine.
The technology of the transitionfrom sepia to color was
something innovated for Ozspecifically.
This is one of my favorite funfacts about this movie.
I'd be curious if you if this isnew information for you.
So they actually did thispractically.
There's a scene which I've nowwatched a hundred times when
(21:56):
Dorothy, still in black andwhite sepia, right?
She goes to open the door, andthen she opens the door in Oz.
Everything's colored, and she asshe exits, she is in color.
And we we pick her up, right, inthe world of color.
This was done.
This wasn't done inpost-production by shooting half
of this scene because there'sthere's a continuous shot,
right?
There's no contactic.
(22:19):
They painted uh Judy Garland'sstunt double in sepia.
You only see her from behind,but she's wearing a paint, a
fully painted sepia dress.
They paint the set of the house,and it's just in the world, and
they just shoot it normally.
SPEAKER_02 (22:32):
Wow.
No, I did not know that.
SPEAKER_00 (22:34):
It's so cool.
SPEAKER_02 (22:35):
It's so impressive.
SPEAKER_00 (22:36):
Yeah, and when you go to watch it, you're like, oh,
it's really quick.
Like it's it's one kind of shotright behind her head.
You know, it's not but it's soinnovative and yeah, that's cool
problem solving.
Yeah, and they made such a cool,powerful effect.
I'm gonna quote from the far outmagazine article by Jacob
Simmons, quote Originally, theplan was to use a form of
(22:57):
stencil printing in this scene,which would require the inside
of the house to be manuallytinted in every frame.
This proved to be far tooexpensive and time consuming, so
the old switcheroo was usedinstead.
It's ironic that in a filmpraised for its use of color,
great effect was made to removethe color from one of its most
famous scenes.
Thankfully it paid off, as thesequence still looks incredible
(23:19):
almost a century later.
The rest of the technicolorportions, which make up the bulk
of the middle chunk of themovie, were an absolute
nightmare.
The painstaking process tookover six months to film and took
an entire and took a serioustoll on the cast.
So now let's talk about thehorrors of the Wizard of Oz.
SPEAKER_02 (23:39):
What a good segue.
SPEAKER_00 (23:42):
The technicality of filming in Technicolor isn't
just interesting.
It helps set the stage for theplight of this production.
For instance, you need a lot oflight to film in Technicolor.
A lot of very, very, very brightlight.
According to Lintelman, MGMspent over a quarter of a
million dollars on electricityalone.
(24:03):
For many years after productionwrapped, the actors complained
about vision damage from thebright lights on set, and many
developed keelig eyes on set orkind of like pink and swollen
eyes.
Oh no.
People fainted often on set fromheat.
There were more than 150 36-inchoverhead lights, which were
always on at the same time.
When it became too unbearable,production would shut down for a
(24:26):
few hours at a time so thateverybody could cool off.
And this is in LA, right?
So it's hot.
Hot already.
It's always hot.
SPEAKER_02 (24:32):
Man, and I don't like overhead lights in my
apartment, let alone 150.
Intense overhead lights.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (24:40):
Yeah.
So because it was newtechnology, they had to like
blast it with light, and lightsare hot.
Like film lights are incrediblyhot.
You know, and we're about to getinto the makeup and the costumes
that these actors were wearing,but it was a grueling, horrible
set.
The film was directed by VictorFleming, also known for Treasure
Island from 1934, Gone with theWind, also from 1939, and Dr.
(25:05):
Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde from 1941.
Fleming was actually the fourthdirector hired for the movie,
the last to survive, after thefirst three left the project for
various reasons.
And he ended up filming sort ofthe bulk of of the film, but
actors had to change, and and soa lot of the first few produ I
think the first two or threeproduction weeks and everything
(25:26):
they filmed had to be scrappedessentially.
Oh my god.
It was just like a everythingabout this was kind of a cursed
production.
SPEAKER_02 (25:32):
Yeah, already such turnover.
That's not good.
SPEAKER_00 (25:36):
That's not good.
It's interesting that Fleming'stwo largest, most successful
films, both films that impactedcinema history forever, came out
in the same year.
Fleming was described as, quote,violently pro-Nazi by Anne
Revere.
Now Revere recanted herstatements later, and the
accuracy of her initialstatement has been disputed by
(25:58):
other people who knew Fleming.
So there's some sort of chatterthat maybe she said that because
she was upset about casting orsomething that happened, and
that he was he made some kind oflike offhand comment about like,
you know, the UK being unable tosurvive Germany and the World
War or some, but it wasn't thathe was, you know, a a supporter
(26:20):
of the Nazi Party, but that wasa rumor of the jump.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That was circulating for a whileabout him.
Fleming owned the Moraga estatein Los Angeles, which at the
time was a horse ranch.
He often hosted Clark Gable,John Barrymore, Ingrid Bergman,
Judy Garland, Spencer Tracy,Lawrence Olivier, Vivian Lee,
and more of the Hollywood elite.
(26:41):
And as we know, the Wizard of Ozfamously stars Judy Garland.
Garland, who was only 16 duringproduction, was given stimulants
and sleeping pills to regulateher energy and keep her thin.
But sadly, and contrary topopular belief, this actually
was not the first time thatGarland had been given pills.
And these pills were known inthe industry at the time as pep
(27:02):
pills.
According to Gerald Clark'sbiography, Get Happy, the Life
of Judy Garland, Garland'smother, Ethel Gum, started
giving her daughter pills at theage of nine.
SPEAKER_02 (27:12):
Oh good.
SPEAKER_00 (27:13):
And spoiler alert, she was addicted to pills until
they took her life when she was47 years old.
So her entire life, for 40 yearspractically, she was addicted to
these pills because she wasgiven them when she was nine.
Oz wasn't Garland's only filmfor MGM.
During her contract there, sheactually appeared in two dozen
MGM movies, starting in 1936when she was only 14.
(27:37):
The film, which was called PigSkin Parade, was a musical and a
comedy about football coaches.
The studio was hypercritical ofGarland's weight, and executive
Louis B.
Mayer reportedly referred to as,quote, fat little pig with
pigtails, end quote.
SPEAKER_02 (27:52):
This was her at 14.
SPEAKER_00 (27:53):
At 14.
SPEAKER_02 (27:55):
Wow.
And a little sidebar, a musicalabout football.
SPEAKER_00 (27:59):
Who was that for?
SPEAKER_02 (28:00):
Oh yeah, not uh not interested.
SPEAKER_00 (28:30):
Garland was put on a very limited diet that was
closely monitored by studioexecutives.
The first of several times thatthis happened during her career.
Her diet was chicken soup,cottage cheese, black coffee,
cigarettes, and diet pills.
Yum.
SPEAKER_02 (28:46):
Wow, yeah, that's all the food groups, I think.
SPEAKER_00 (28:50):
During the production of Oz, memos were
sent between studio executivesmonitoring Judy's food intake.
By the time production ended onThe Wizard of Oz, Judy was fully
addicted to barbituates andamphetamines.
Garland co-starred in many filmswith Mickey Rooney, who was also
forced to take pet pills.
Quoting from Judy herself as shetold biographer Paul Donnelly,
(29:12):
quote, They had us working daysand nights on end.
They'd give us pills to keep uson our feet long after we were
exhausted.
Then they'd take us to thestudio hospital and knock us out
with sleeping pills.
Mickey sprawled out on one bedand me on another.
Then, after four hours, they'dwake us up and give us the pet
pills again, so we could work 72hours in a row.
(29:33):
Half of the time we were hangingfrom the ceiling, but it was
also a way of life for us.
End quote.
On top of the pills and dietmonitoring, the studio
controlled Garland's body inanother way during the
production of Oz.
Judy was forced to wear corsetsand they strapped down her
breast in order to make herappear younger than she was.
Because the character is meantto be nine.
SPEAKER_02 (29:54):
Nine.
SPEAKER_00 (29:55):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (29:55):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (29:55):
Which is how that character is portrayed in every
other version of Oz.
SPEAKER_02 (29:59):
Yeah, and they were considering uh Shirley Temple
then, too, right?
It was kind of between them.
SPEAKER_00 (30:06):
Yeah, and Shirley Temple would have been eleven in
1939.
So that would have been a moreage-appropriate, you know, for
the way that the role waswritten.
Of course, I wouldn't wantShirley Temple to go through as
an 11-year-old, but Judy Garlanddid, but yeah.
I'm not wishing that on her.
She was also famously slapped bydirector Victor Fleming for
giggling on set.
(30:27):
Now there are different versionsof this story, but it was well
known that Judy adored Bertlar,who played the Cowardly Lion.
Bert had been a vaudevilleperformer, and Judy thought he
was warm and hilarious.
Like she had kind of a specialfriendship with him.
And there was this scene theywere filming, right, where the
group meets the cowardly lionfor the first time, and right he
becomes he's scared.
And then he cries and all that.
(30:49):
And she couldn't get over it.
Like she thought it was thefunniest thing, and she would
burst out laughing every time hewould go to cry because you know
he was a very famous vaudevilleperformer and he was very good
at what he was doing.
Well, director Victor Flemingwas frustrated by this.
The production was behindschedule and over budget.
There was a lot of eyes on thisproject.
SPEAKER_02 (31:07):
And a lot of very bright lights on the city.
SPEAKER_00 (31:09):
A lot of lights, yeah.
Tempers were running high.
So eventually he took Judybehind one of the set trees and
slapped her on the face.
She did not laugh in the nexttake.
Now, there's some versions ofthis that, you know, I think
paint him as more of an angryperson, and then some that this
was sort of a gentle tactic thathe very thoughtfully, you know,
(31:29):
whatever.
But I'll say this.
Afterwards, Victor said out loudthat his number two, you know,
some other guy on set shouldpunch him in the face for what
he did to her.
Like he felt he immediately waslike, You should punch me for
that.
And Judy overheard this and saidthat she would rather kiss him
on the nose instead.
SPEAKER_02 (31:46):
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (31:47):
So, you know.
SPEAKER_02 (31:49):
If if it's either or she chose the the nose.
SPEAKER_00 (31:55):
She rose above in the way that Victor didn't.
SPEAKER_02 (31:57):
Yeah.
It goes to show, yeah, g justgive pills to nine-year-olds and
they'll grow up just fine.
SPEAKER_00 (32:03):
Yeah, that's right.
It's hard to imagine thatdespite being constantly fed
uppers and downers, only eatingsoup, cottage cheese, and
coffee, and being forced intobody modifying shapewear, Judy
Garland, at the age of sixteen,was still able to give one of
the most iconic performances inclassic film history.
A testament to her talents,despite the horrible and abusive
(32:26):
working conditions that sheendured.
There's also this is a littlebit of a side quest, but there's
also a very strange coincidencethat I think we need to talk
about.
According to the History.comarticle, so Balm's coat, so the
writer, the original writer of1900 novel, his coat was
accidentally used in the movie.
SPEAKER_02 (32:46):
Accidentally?
SPEAKER_00 (32:47):
Accidentally.
The wardrobe department waslooking for the perfect costume
for the Professor Marvelcharacter, right?
They were looking for a veryspecific coat and kind of
racking through all of theoptions at thrift stores.
According to the movie'spublicist, Mary Mayer, they
wanted Grandeur Gone to Seed, atattered version of a once
beautiful coat, right?
So they finally found theperfect jacket, a black Prince
(33:10):
Albert velvet coat with a purplecollar.
And on set, the actor FrankMorgan, who played Professor
Marvel, you know, kind ofbetween sets on a hot day, took
it off and turned the collarinside out and saw that L.
Frank Baum's name was writtenwithin.
After an investigation, theproduction confirmed with the
tailor who made the coat andBaum's widow that it was
(33:32):
actually his.
SPEAKER_02 (33:33):
That's spooky.
SPEAKER_00 (33:34):
Isn't that crazy?
SPEAKER_02 (33:35):
Yeah, that's pretty that's pretty strange.
SPEAKER_00 (33:38):
But there's a lot of other um wardrobe-related issues
that were not quite so charming.
Actor Bert Lar, who played thelion, had to wear a costume that
was made from a real lion'shide.
SPEAKER_02 (33:51):
Oh, uh.
SPEAKER_00 (33:53):
Yeah.
Not great.
The costume also weighed closeto 90 pounds.
The actor struggled with theweight and the lack of
ventilation.
Lar would sweat so badly thatthe costume would need to be
dried at the end of each filmingday.
Because remember, in thesebright lights that people are
passing out actively in all thetime, he's in a 90-pound costume
(34:14):
that's made of real lion's high.
SPEAKER_02 (34:16):
Yeah, he's wearing a lion.
Yeah.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (34:19):
It's horrifying.
For a period of time, the actorwasn't allowed to eat solid food
on set because his makeup tooktoo long to reapply.
Finally, after eating onlymilkshakes and soup, he
requested that his makeup justbe redone after lunch, and they
agreed to that.
SPEAKER_02 (34:33):
That that seems fair.
SPEAKER_00 (34:34):
Like, oh my god.
Why is the default that we'lljust have to endure?
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (34:40):
Although soup and milkshakes sounds pretty nice.
SPEAKER_00 (34:44):
What a life.
SPEAKER_02 (34:45):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (34:45):
But the Tin Man costume was equally problematic.
It was almost impossible to sitdown while wearing the costume.
The actor had to lean against aboard if he wanted to rest
because he couldn't bend hisknees, so he was just kind of
stuck vertically.
SPEAKER_02 (35:00):
Method acting.
SPEAKER_00 (35:02):
But even worse, the silver paint caused such a bad
allergic reaction in actor BuddyEpson that he was rushed to the
hospital and the character wasrecast to Jack Haley.
So that was one of the bigresets of the production.
I mean, he had like a near-deathreaction to the silver paint.
SPEAKER_02 (35:21):
Yeah.
And I mean, you're in thatsilver paint.
SPEAKER_00 (35:25):
A lot.
A lot.
For months, yeah.
I mean, nowadays, right, youfilm a movie, it takes about
like I mean it depends on themovie, but just from when Alan
goes away on movie shoots, fiveweeks?
This took six months.
SPEAKER_02 (35:38):
So long.
SPEAKER_00 (35:38):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (35:39):
I mean, they're doing a lot of things manually,
too.
Of course.
SPEAKER_00 (35:42):
The technology is much different.
But it's it's quite the in inthis director head, he came out
with uh The Wizard of Oz and uhGone with the Wind the same
year, like two epic movies.
SPEAKER_02 (35:53):
Yeah, that's kind of great.
Those those are two movies thathave really stood the test of
time that people still love.
And they came out the same Ididn't realize it's the same
year.
Yeah.
That's pretty much.
SPEAKER_00 (36:04):
Oh, I wonder which one was it Gone with the Wind
that won the Academy Award?
SPEAKER_02 (36:08):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (36:10):
Must have been, right?
SPEAKER_02 (36:11):
Yeah.
I mean, right?
SPEAKER_00 (36:13):
I mean, I would have voted for Oz.
Let's see.
It was the 11th Academy Awardsin 1938.
SPEAKER_02 (36:18):
11.
SPEAKER_00 (36:19):
They used to be uh hosted at the Biltmore Hotel.
Oh wait, hang on.
Do I need to look at 1940?
It was the 12th Academy Award.
SPEAKER_02 (36:28):
It was the 12th.
SPEAKER_00 (36:29):
Let's see, who won?
Gone with the Wind.
SPEAKER_02 (36:32):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (36:32):
Better luck next time.
SPEAKER_02 (36:34):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (36:34):
The green copper paint worn by Margaret Hamilton
portraying the wicked witch ofthe West was also an issue.
The actor actually suffered fromsecond and third degree burns
after filming the fire scene.
So there's a scene whereMargaret disappears into a cloud
of smoke through a trapdoor,which we all know and love.
But the effect in, you know, oneof the takes went off too soon.
(36:55):
According to an MGM interofficememo, she suffered from first
degree burns on her face andsecond degree on her hands.
Usually, like what they wouldtypically do is apply a salve,
which would be applied, butbecause her makeup contained
copper and was toxic, it had tobe removed first.
She later described it as theworst pain of her life, and
there's this quote about youknow about this that she
(37:18):
describes how she just had tolike sit and endure it.
Like she just had to wait forthis makeup to be removed, and
it was just like sitting in thebiggest pain and discomfort of
her life, and she was stillpretty scarred by it.
SPEAKER_02 (37:33):
Yeah, that that is a worst nightmare scenario.
SPEAKER_01 (37:38):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (37:38):
I mean, first uh a scarecrow chasing you across a
field, that's that's a nightmareA.
Yeah.
But getting burned and thenhaving to wait to take off
makeup to then get relief soundshorrible.
At work.
SPEAKER_00 (37:56):
Horrible.
Like I literally was lighting acandle yesterday with a lighter
and it burned my thumb.
And I was like, well, I guessI'm done for the day.
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (38:07):
Ow.
Oh, you know, time for bed.
That's it.
Nothing nothing good can happenafter this.
SPEAKER_00 (38:14):
But don't think, Alex, that the scarecrow got off
without any costume incidents.
SPEAKER_02 (38:18):
Oh no.
SPEAKER_00 (38:20):
Not quite as bad though.
Ray Bolger also suffered fromdeep marks and furrows on his
skin from the makeup.
Like the the hay and you know,indented so deeply in his body
that he was left kind of withscarring for a while.
SPEAKER_02 (38:33):
Wow.
Such issues with all thismakeup.
SPEAKER_00 (38:36):
Yeah, who was uh who was in charge of the her makeup
team?
SPEAKER_02 (38:39):
Well, hopefully they didn't win an Academy Award.
SPEAKER_00 (38:43):
There have been rumors that the snow used on set
was actually asbestos, but inreality, crushed gypsum was used
for the snow.
Quoting from the History.comarticle, quote, asbestos was,
however, used in another part ofthe movie.
In the scene where the wickedwitch of the West lights the
scarecrow, Ray Bulger, on fire,the actor wore a version of his
(39:05):
costume made from asbestos,quoting within the quote, men
with wet blankets and fireextinguishers stood out of
camera range in case of amishap, Stillman says,
continuing his quote, Every timethe scarecrow moved, Bulger
recalled, the straw sproutingfrom holes in his costume had to
be rearranged to exactly matchthe previous shot.
(39:25):
And all quotes.
There was also prejudice on setagainst the little people who
played the Munchkins.
For reference, Todo was paidmore,$125 a week, than any of
the cast of the Munchkins.
Garland made about$500 a week onset.
Ray Bolger and Jack Haley werepaid$3,000 a week.
SPEAKER_02 (39:46):
Oh.
SPEAKER_00 (39:47):
So there was some pay inequality happening across
the board.
SPEAKER_02 (39:50):
Yikes!
SPEAKER_00 (39:51):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (39:52):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (39:53):
Why was Toto even being paid like crazy?
SPEAKER_02 (39:57):
That is that is crazy to me.
SPEAKER_00 (39:59):
Yeah.
But let's talk about the rumorthat most of us have heard that
one of the actors playing amunchkin on set hanged
themselves, which you can see inthe background of a shot.
The truth is, for a very longtime, you could only see the
Wizard of Oz when it played onTV, right?
Now that there are remasteredon-demand versions, you can slow
down the footage and see what'sactually a very large bird
(40:22):
taking flight.
It is a bird.
It is a bird.
And to your point about it notbeing either, it's because and I
I did this too.
I would slow it, I would try towatch it when it was playing.
The quality at the time when wewere young watching this was so
bad, you couldn't make it out.
But when it was remastered, andnow that we could like pause our
TV, you could see that it's abird more clearly.
(40:44):
But at the time, it was just asmudge, like a you could see
something moving, but youcouldn't really identify what it
was.
SPEAKER_02 (40:50):
Did you ever think it was a munchkin?
SPEAKER_00 (40:53):
Yes.
SPEAKER_02 (40:54):
Okay, you did.
You saw it.
SPEAKER_00 (40:56):
I saw it and I was like, yeah, that there's a lot
of it.
Totally.
Yeah.
But I'm also someone who likevery easily believes things.
I'm very gullible and don'tquestion things enough.
Working on it.
I'm working on it.
SPEAKER_02 (41:07):
Well, I'm sure you I'm sure there's half of you
that's like, oh, some sort oflike uh uh exciting scandal.
Some sort of exciting scandal ofa beloved children's movie.
I mean, right?
SPEAKER_00 (41:21):
There's even then I was looking for the horror in it
all.
SPEAKER_02 (41:24):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (41:25):
But Alex, you might ask, why is there a large bird
on set?
SPEAKER_02 (41:30):
Oh, I guess yeah, I guess that is the next question.
SPEAKER_00 (41:33):
There were actually over 300 birds on set that
Fleming rented from the LosAngeles Zoo.
Quoting from the History.comarticle, quote, according to MGM
publicity, the studio quoteunquote rented 300 birds from
the Los Angeles Zoo so thatFleming, the director du jour,
could select a few to be in thebackground of the apple orchard
(41:54):
scene.
These birds included goldenpheasants, a South American
toucan, a Saurus crane, and anAfrican crane, one of which can
be seen in the film.
When Dorothy, the scarecrow, andthe tin man skip down the yellow
brick road, a Saurus crane makesits presence known by spreading
its wings, Stillman says.
However, over the years peoplemistook the movement of the
(42:15):
crane for something much darker.
Since the 1970s, there's been arumor of a stage hand wandering
into the background of one moviescene, he explains.
In recent times, that myth hasbecome a munchkin hanging from a
tree.
But Stillman says that a bird isbehind the confusion.
Besides, it's simply notpossible that none of the over
fifty staff behind the camerawould have ignored anything
(42:37):
ill-fated, he adds.
And it would be headlong city ifit had happened.
SPEAKER_02 (42:49):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
Like that does seem particularlyuh salacious.
SPEAKER_00 (42:54):
Yeah.
And we could we could debunk it.
So production obviously wasdifficult to say the least.
It was abusive in some ways.
Everybody was incrediblystressed and under a ton of
pressure.
It was hot.
It was plagued with disaster anddifferent costume malfunctions.
Right?
It was difficult, but I also am,you know, wonder but beyond the
(43:19):
bright light, how much of thatis unique to this movie versus
filmmaking it's a little bitmore.
Yeah, and maybe part of it islike the costumes and the makeup
were, you know, creating afantasy movie, I think, was
new-ish, you know, but still,there was a lot of stuff that
was happening all of the time onmovies like this that were
horrifying.
(43:39):
But the contents of Oz itself issomething I want to talk about
briefly because again, I thinkpretty much everybody knows The
Wizard of Oz.
One of my, you know, familyconnections to it is that my dad
was so afraid from his ownchildhood of the flying monkeys
that he refused to watch it withus growing up.
Like he did not had had nointerest in watching it.
(44:02):
But I will say he has he's hasseen Wicked Part 1 and he
survived those monkeys, which Ithink are much scarier.
SPEAKER_02 (44:09):
They certainly are more scary.
SPEAKER_00 (44:10):
Yeah.
But this film also does so much,and I'm not saying this to be
glib, but like think about thesymbol of Margaret Hamilton as
the Wicked Witch of the West inthis movie.
Her hat, like, you know,everything about the way she's
portrayed becomes iconic afterthis, especially when we're
thinking about witches.
(44:31):
And, you know, the hat and allthat is in the broom and
everything is not like this isnot the origination of these
witches elements.
But like I think it takes thelore around something like
witchcraft, right?
And brings it into one of themost famous films of all time,
and that's really interesting tome.
SPEAKER_02 (44:50):
Yeah, and and I think what you're talking about
is like the caricature of thewitch is is sort of permanently
imprinted and in this childhoodmovie, in this children's movie,
that then I mean, it'severything.
It's the stockings, it's hershoes, up to her dress, her hat.
(45:13):
It's like all of the pieces arepretty much there that you're
just like, yes, that's what awitch looks like.
SPEAKER_00 (45:20):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (45:21):
And and then it's easy to replicate that
afterwards.
SPEAKER_00 (45:25):
Yeah, and so much of this movie, like it also dabbles
in the occult with ProfessorMarvelous and his crystal ball.
And of course, he's whitewashinglike a Romani fortune teller,
but that's you know, he's notunique to that.
That's something that happened alot at that time period.
SPEAKER_02 (45:39):
Um and he's a con artist anyway, so that's exactly
what he's doing.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (45:44):
Yeah, yeah.
Um but yeah, there's a lot ofspooky stuff in this movie.
Like, it's not just it's achildren's movie, but you know,
it's interesting because my dad,right, was really uh scared of
it.
Like we, I think, grew upprobably watching this and had
seen enough other content aroundthe time that it didn't, at
least for me, like embed withinme, right?
(46:05):
It it felt aged even if it feltclassic.
But for my dad, you know, whenhe grew up many years before me,
it was horrifying.
It was a scary movie.
SPEAKER_02 (46:16):
Right, right.
SPEAKER_00 (46:16):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (46:17):
I mean, I mean, I think that's still true.
I mean, it is true, true.
It is, there are parts of itthat are scary and on purpose,
right?
SPEAKER_00 (46:25):
Yeah.
When she her guards, even,right?
Like, there's something very uhfor yeah, they I think they do a
really good job at creating realfear in those moments.
SPEAKER_02 (46:34):
Yeah, and I don't think it's a mistake that they
all like march in unison and allare like saying the same, you
know, like they're s humming thestrange s song and they're kind
of they're kind of reminiscentof another, like uh, you know,
like Nazism and all of thatthat's brewing if not like fully
happening.
SPEAKER_00 (46:55):
Totally.
SPEAKER_02 (46:55):
Um, as far as like w the war or anything, but yeah,
yeah, very true.
It's it it's scary.
SPEAKER_00 (47:02):
Yeah, it's scary.
So the the novel, right?
The source material, The Wizardof Oz, has been depicted in
other film versions of thestory.
Perhaps the most notable for along time was Return to Oz from
1985.
And you read the books, right?
So this I believe Return to Ozis based on the third book.
SPEAKER_02 (47:22):
Yeah, Ozma.
SPEAKER_00 (47:23):
Ozmus.
SPEAKER_02 (47:24):
Yeah, Ozma of Oz, right?
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (47:26):
Do you remember much about have you seen Return to
Oz?
Do you remember much about thebooks?
SPEAKER_02 (47:31):
I've seen Return to Oz.
Oh yeah.
Um that is a horror movie.
Yeah.
Straight up, straight up is notfor children.
I feel I I what I remember fromthat the most is the heads, the
hall, the hall of heads.
Yeah.
That that was particularlyupsetting.
SPEAKER_00 (47:51):
Which is based on the source material.
Which is again why I'm like, youguys read these books.
They are they are wild.
SPEAKER_02 (47:57):
Totally.
Yeah, I remember them and Iremember the chicken.
SPEAKER_00 (48:01):
What is the chicken?
SPEAKER_02 (48:02):
The chicken's her like companion.
SPEAKER_00 (48:04):
Oh uh.
SPEAKER_02 (48:04):
It's like her fr her todo.
Her toto.
Yeah.
Yeah, they're I know like that.
All the books do uh become alittle bit like, oh, here's all
the pieces, all like let'sjumble them up and get like some
new characters into it.
But um, yeah, like the chickensthe chicken's the new Toto,
particularly.
(48:24):
You know, she's a little likesassy.
Yeah.
Chicken.
SPEAKER_00 (48:28):
Yeah, yeah, that's kind of fun.
Return to Oz was released byDisney, and it's a dark fantasy,
which is set six months afterthe events of the first movie.
The film was written anddirected by Walter Merch.
Merch is primarily known forbeing a film editor and sound
designer.
He's worked on some majorHollywood films.
American Graffiti, ApocalypseNow, all three of the Godfather
(48:50):
movies, Ghost, The EnglishPatient, and The Restoration of
Touch of Evil, just to name afew.
He's been nominated for sixediting academy awards and three
for sound design.
Return to Oz was the only timethat Merch ever directed a
movie.
I find it this could be like a adeep dive for another day, but I
(49:10):
find it interesting.
There's a few cases, and somethat have come up recently when
we were doing the Friday the13th series and some in like
Pumpkinhead, for instance, wherethere's a few times where you
get like a movie that becomes acult classic, maybe, but it was
made by somebody in film.
In those other cases, likespecial effects guys that then
directed something, and you cankind of see that.
(49:32):
And I think that's true withReturn to Oz.
Like it's weird and it relies ona lot of like sound design and
visual stuff that I think merch,as somebody who does sound
design and editing, was able tosort of uniquely bring to that.
SPEAKER_02 (49:46):
Yeah, that's cool.
I mean, I the fact that hedidn't direct anything else
makes you wonder was this apassion project?
Was this something that he wasreally excited about?
I mean, uh how could you not be?
Um another Wizard of Oz movie,like that seems pretty exciting
to you know, sink your teethinto, especially as a special
(50:09):
effects person.
SPEAKER_00 (50:10):
And I don't say this to this is gonna sound
derogatory, and I don't mean itlike that.
But it's sort of like watching amovie, I feel like that's made
by somebody who specializes in adifferent part of film.
It sort of sometimes feels likewhen Ringo wrote wrote the song,
where it's like, oh, this movieis a little bit different from
other movies, and it's not bad,but it's like a little bit
different.
(50:30):
It's through the a differentlens.
SPEAKER_02 (50:32):
Yeah, a different voice, a di well, a different
perspective.
Yeah, totally.
SPEAKER_00 (50:36):
Yeah.
Like they're they're usuallylike headier, I don't know, just
like a little bit, a little bitmore visually like focused.
SPEAKER_02 (50:42):
It it certainly didn't feel as um digestible as
the Wizard of Oz, perhaps.
Well, I don't even know if youcould say that.
I don't know if like at the endof The Wizard of Oz they look
back on it and they're like,What did we do?
I mean, there's a lot of stuffhappening here.
SPEAKER_00 (50:58):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (50:59):
Yeah, but this it feels like maybe it was for fans
of The Wizard of Oz.
SPEAKER_00 (51:05):
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah, totally.
And maybe for those who read thebooks.
SPEAKER_01 (51:09):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (51:10):
Return to Oz is based on the novels by L.
Frank Baum, primarily again onOzma of Oz, which is the third
book in the series.
Except Oz is now a wasteland.
The citizens are stone, thescarecrow is in captivity, and
there are dark forces afoot.
Dorothy ends up teaming up witha new cast of characters to
attempt to defeat the wickedGnome King and restore the magic
(51:32):
and beauty of Oz.
Ozma of Oz, along with most ofthe Oz books, are freaky.
The book and movie feature anevil princess who swaps heads
and keeps a room full of heads.
Notably, Dorothy is much youngerin this movie than the original.
The actress playing Dorothy wasabout 10, which again is age
appropriate for the character.
So let's talk about the Rubyslippers really quickly.
(51:53):
The Ruby slippers are from themovie The Wizard of Oz.
They are not from the sourcematerial.
And as such, Disney, as youknow, the production company
behind Return to Oz had to getuh permission from MGM to re to
use them sparingly in Return toOz because they're canon to the
movie and not the originalbooks.
SPEAKER_02 (52:13):
That that's why in Wicked the Stage Show, they're
silver shoes.
Yeah.
Also.
SPEAKER_00 (52:19):
Fascinating.
I love these little kind of likeHollywood tidbits that you, you
know, you're like, oh, that'swhy that's silver.
Okay, so speaking of Wicked,we're going to put a pin in this
conversation because there'sbeen so much to say, and come
back next week and continuetalking about the dark lore and
history of the Wizard of Oz, butthis time through the lens of
Wicked.
(52:39):
Obviously, there's many otherfilm versions.
There's so many differentversions and adaptations of Oz
out there.
We're just talking about thehits, you know.
SPEAKER_02 (52:49):
Nothing but the hits.
SPEAKER_00 (52:50):
That's right.
Alex, thank you so much forbeing here.
SPEAKER_02 (52:53):
Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_00 (52:54):
Of course.
It's so fun to talk to you.
And we will be back next week.
Thank you guys so much forlistening.
Talk to you soon.
SPEAKER_02 (53:01):
Ta ta.
SPEAKER_00 (53:02):
Bye.
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