The Wizard of Oz

 By Bruce Shawkey

Eighty-five years after its release in 1939, the Wizard of Oz movie continues to thrill children and even adults (me, anyway). It was produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). It had an all-star cast, including Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Bert Lahr, Frank Morgan, and Margaret Hamilton, and of course, the Munchkins.

It was a film adaptation of L. Frank Baum's 1900 children's fantasy story. I found some of the original artwork for the book on the Internet, and here it is:










Much of that movie's script has even crept into our popular lexicon:

    "We're not in Kansas any more."
    "There's no place like home."
    "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain."

It used to scare the be-Jesus out of me as a youngster with the scenes of the wicked witch flying on her broomstick, flying monkeys, and the wizard stirring up all kinds of fire before he was "outed." Did you know Margaret Hamilton later did commercials for Folgers coffee and even made a guest appearance on Mr. Rogers? 

The movie used to play once a year around Thanksgiving. Now you can play it on DVD or on-demand any time you want. I even have a Wizard of Oz online slot machine game on my Amazon Kindle.

There's more trivia.

A pair of ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in the movie recently sold at auction for $28 million to an anonymous bidder. The bidder will pay $32.5 million with Heritage Auction's surcharge.
Here are some rare "stills" from the movie, recently uncovered by People magazine:













A bit of trivia: Did you know the scarecrow carries a gun to the witch's castle when he and the others are attempting to rescue Dorothy? It only appears briefly in the motion picture (blink and you'll miss it) but here it is:


The Tin Man has a giant pipe wrench and his signature ax; the Lion has a huge net and bug spray, so I guess they figured the scarecrow needed a weapon of some kind. The gun was a prop and was laying around the MGM studio somewhere.

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