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A Deep Dive into the Horror-filled Production of The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Kaz Rowe

2,369,836 views

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The Wizard of Oz 1939 is one of the most famous films of all time, but until fairly recently it was less known just how hazardous and nearly deadly the production was for everyone involved. Come learn with me about Fires and Toxins and Exploding brooms, oh my!

The Margaret Hamilton Mr. Rogers Episode: Video
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Music by Axletree Music: axletreemusic

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Filmed using:
Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4k– https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/prod...
Blackmagic Video Assist 5” HDR – https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/prod...
Olympus M. Zuiko ED 12-40mm f/2.8 Pro– https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...
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Edited using DaVinci Resolve Studio 17 and the Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve Speed Editor: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/prod...
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Sources:

Thank you to the hard work and research of Oz historians Eric Gjovaag, Jim Whitcomb, Tori Calamito, and Aljean Harmetz.

The Making of the Wizard of Oz by Aljean Harmetz

The Judy Room https://www.thejudyroom.com

Jim Whitcomb’s Wizard of Oz timeline https://web.archive.org/web/200709072...

TNR Film Classics: ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and ‘The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ (September 24, 1939) by Otis Ferguson https://web.archive.org/web/201311100...

Defending the Indefensible: The Global Asbestos Industry and its Fight for Survival by Jock McCulloch and Geoffrey Tweedale

The Wizard of Oz : the official 50th anniversary pictorial history by John Fricke

The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz: The Making of a Movie Classic (PBS 1994)

Eric Gjovaag’s Wizard of Oz Wiki http://thewizardofoz.info/wiki/Main_Page

Widescreen Museum’s History of Technicolor http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/oldco...

The Wizardry of Oz by Jay Scarfone & William Still

Visuals:

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures

The Judy Room

The Academy Archives

The Wizard of Oz (MGM 1939)

The Making of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz ( Turner 2013)

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: The Making of a Movie Classic (PBS 1994)

Mister Rogers Neighborhood

20 Comments

@KazRowe Creator 3 years ago Pinned

Hi all, due to a copyright debacle I've been fighting with Warner Bros over this video, I've been forced to cut out 4 short sections of this video. If you notice some confusing choppiness, that's why. The sections are:
- When talking about how Over the Rainbow was nearly cut from the film, an exec said during a screening, "Why is she singing in a barnyard?"
- During the scene where the Wicked Witch disappears in a puff of smoke and fire, Margaret Hamilton did the scene just fine but the director still wanted more cuts, which is when the accident happened.
- During the scene where the Winkies are chasing toto, one of the actors stepped on Terry's foot and injured it and the dog was out for weeks
- During the scene where Dorothy, Tin Man and the Scarecrow are skipping off into the forest, a popular myth says that you can see the body of a munchkin in the trees. This is false. It is a doctored fake video. There is a crane flapping its wings in the background.
That's it. I'm very sorry for how Warner Bros decision has affected the video. I hope you can understand and that you can still enjoy it. Thank you.

@sillysilly366 3 years ago

the doctor that yelled on margaret’s behalf is an absolute icon
so is margaret herself

@marlowewillard 3 years ago

I don't know if someone else said it, but I felt as though I should say it.

Ray Bolger was the last of the main 4 actors to die.
After his death, an artist published an illustration in the Chicago Tribune as a tribute to Bolger.
The illustration showed Scarecrow running to catch up to the other 3 at the horizon on the Yellow Brick Road.

Probably one of the most wholesome tributes I ever saw.

@KingOfGaymes 3 years ago

Them saying that Judy’s face was “badly flawed” is just absolute insanity. She was so beautiful. I don’t understand what the people back then thought “beauty” was if Judy was considered bad looking.. .. And I thought todays beauty standards were awful..

@Cure_Hana 4 years ago (edited)

Honestly, props to that doctor who refused to let Margaret continue to be harassed while she was recovering and chewed the studio out for their lack of ethics (even if it didn’t really do much to change things afterwards).

@kgrlktty 4 years ago

I met two of the actors who played munchkins when I was a kid because the local highschool production hired them to be there for the opening two nights. It was one of the main ways they still got money, touring and making appearances. They were so nice and sweet, very open and talked very kindly about Judy.

@cloudedescape 1 year ago

10:04 maybe the end of the sentence was the friends we made along the way

@TrangPakbaby 4 years ago

If Judy’s face was badly flawed I’d love to see what they thought a perfect face looked like.
Judy was an absolute beauty

@walpurgisnight7 4 years ago

Judy certainly deserved far better, but Margaret Hamilton has been all but forgotten likely due to her not being a perfect example of Old Hollywood glamour. She seems like such a caring, gentle person and I hope everyone who continues to love Judy Garland will do the same for Margaret.

@curator3539 3 years ago

The fact about Frank's coat somehow making it onto the set actually made me tear up a little bit. There was a lot of bad behind the scenes, as there is to a LOT of films both back then and now, but the fact that his coat made it there is a little heart warming to me.

@kariannstickle2708 4 years ago

I volunteer as an exhibit illuminator at the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle. My specialty wings are the SciFi-Fantasy sections which feature THE Wizard of Oz costumes. THE costumes. The actual costumes. I have seen grown men cry upon seeing Dorothy’s dress. It’s where I learned what “Friend of Dorothy” meant. People have left love notes to Judy Garland in noooks and crannies near the costumes.

@maryblakley3590 4 years ago

My dad (born in 51) got to see it on re-release in theaters as a child. Apparently his mum had to carry him out of the theatre crying, because he was so scared of the flying monkeys. To this day, whenever Oz is shown on TV, he busies himself in the kitchen during the flying monkey scenes. It is one of the most endearing things about him.

@jacobhall5927 3 years ago

Fun story: my grandpa actually met the actor who played the cowardly lion back in the late 1970s. He owned a restaurant and Burt randomly came in for a meal. My papa had nothing but great things to say about him!

@rainbowsandkittens1537 3 years ago (edited)

"I envy the children who have yet to see The Wizard of Oz for the first time."
What a sweet line.

@samanthahamilton9117 3 years ago

Since you empathize with Margaret Hamilton, I’ll share a story. In 1969, my dad stage-managed a Broadway musical called Come Summer, which was advertised as the first reunion in 30 years of Ray Bolger and Miss Hamilton. It was a screaming flop, running four days. (I was just old enough to have seen the show a few times in out-of-town tryouts; I was quite nearly old enough to understand that I was witnessing a masterclass in How Not to Produce a Play.)
Anyway, WoO was re-released to theatres 10 years later, and my dad, running into Miss H at some function, remarked that his youngest (my half-sister) was just getting of an age to see the film, but his wife was concerned that the WWotW and the monkeys would prove too scary.
“Well!” said Miss H robustly, “she can hardly be scared, can she, if she’s sitting right next to the Wicked Witch? Have your wife call me, Frank; I’ll take her to the picture.”
And so she did. My sis (now a well-credentialed actress in her own right) first saw WoO halfway in the lap of the WWotW.
Miss Hamilton (no relation) was a lovely, intelligent woman who really did care about kids.

@Felicat82 3 years ago

The biggest thing that struck me when I first saw The Wizard of Oz was the seemingly magical transformation from Dorothy's dull, sepia toned life to the brilliant color pop of Oz. It felt like such a special thing to witness, and even at such a young age, I understood the moment from a storytelling standpoint. I don't think I've ever seen a film actually manage to reproduce that feeling, and many, many have tried.

@NewPort1776 4 years ago

Fun fact : one of the movie’s most famous scenes is the moment Dorothy opens the door of gray Kansas to see the colorful munchkin land. This was a hard scene to make, and the filmmakers decided to take the ‘easier’ way out by literally painting the whole room sepia, having a stunt for Judy garland also painted sepia, wearing an equivalent dress in sepia colors, and when the one-shot has her out of frame, Judy Garland takes Toto off her hands, and come back into the frame with her colorful blue dress.

@Just_Julia_ 4 years ago

As someone who’s worked with stage lights, I can only imagine how dangerous those lights were. Back in the day there weren’t to many regulations on stage lights so they were very dangerous (to the point where you could have lights that could give you burns if you stood under them) so it is a god damn miracle the lights didn’t cause a fire

@gadgetgirl02 2 years ago

My mum was of the first generation to see Oz on TV. Years later, we were re-watching it on TV together, and got to the part where Dorothy steps out from her ruined house into Munchkinland.

My mum started exclaiming about how Hollywood has to colorize everything, and why didn't they do the Kansas scenes too? What a terrible colorization job!

I had to explain it was originally shot part in black & white (well, sepia) and mostly in colour.

My mum had no idea because she and all her friends had only seen it on black & white TV sets.

It's funny to think, especially since the shift from sepia to colour and back is so essential to the visual storytelling.

@kristiecarney3750 4 years ago

I worked at the Smithsonian in the summer of 2017 and I worked on the restoration project for the slippers. My job was to count the sequins on a high res picture of them and make notes of any sequins that were missing. I was allowed to touch them once, when they were being moved back into storage for a few weeks, and I have never been more terrified lol. That was my favorite project to work on that summer!