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

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.

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

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).

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..

The Mr. Rogers episode where Margaret Hamilton shows how the Witch role is make-believe and the children don’t have to be scared of her remains one of the cutest episodes ever. 🥰

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

I JUST learned about the "witch"'s appearance on Mr Rogers, where she met Rogers in civilian clothes and they talked about what it meant to "play a character", because so many kids were so scared of the witch. And over the course of the episode they got her dressed up AFTER getting to know her as a sweet lady and then it wasn't as scary anymore. :) Very sweet stuff.

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.

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.

Margaret Hamilton sounded like such a kind woman, it’s really upsetting to hear about how she was treated on set. Being a theatre kid as well as a small movie nerd a thing I’ve noticed is that a LOT of the people who play nasty villains are always the sweetest and most caring people

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Growing up in Illinois, the tornado sequence was terrifying. They did an amazing job creating a twister decades before CGI.

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.

I'll never not be mad about how show business misused and abused Garland. Doesn't matter if it happened three fourths of a century before my own existence 😡

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.

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.