The first week's footage was found to be too flat, lacking in fantasy and charm, the keystones of the Oz property. Thorpe was let go after only twelve days although cameraman Rosson remained. Though producer Mervyn LeRoy was itching to direct this film himself, MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer brought in George Cukor instead.
Cukor occupied the director's chair on the Oz set for all of two days before being called away to another film, Gone With The Wind (1939). After Cukor was pulled off the project, Victor Fleming took the helm. Fleming had worked well with Rosson previously on Reckless (1935) and Bombshell (1933). By this time, the production team had become aware of several technical problems. Fleming's philosophy on the set was "Don't get excited! Obstacles make a better picture". After shooting many of the color sequences, Fleming left Oz to take over another MGM picture. On twenty-four hours notice, King Vidor was called in to finish the film. Vidor's initial apprehensions were quickly dispelled after hearing a pre-recording of Judy Garland singing "Over The Rainbow". He re-shot a few of the musical sequences and most of the Kansas scenes. On March 16, 1939, Oz headed into post-production.

MAKEUP SECRETS

The success of Oz was, in large part, due to the ingenuity of the art department. Without their captivating sets, makeup and costumes, the fantasy world of Oz would not have been a reality.
Make-up for Oz presented a major challenge, but it was also one of the biggest achievements of the picture. The head MGM make-up man, Jack Dawn, had to come up with a way to turn three actors into a tin man, a lion, and a scarecrow, not to mention designing makeup for a wicked witch, 350 Munchkins, and an army of flying monkeys.
The makeup team made great advancements in creating nonhuman characters at the expense of a near fatal trial and error incident. It involved Buddy Ebsen, the actor originally cast in the role of the Tin Man. Early makeup for the Tin Man's silvery veneer consisted of white glue and aluminum dust, and it was nearly impossible for Ebsen not to inhale the aluminum dust. He noticed that his fingers and toes would occasionally lock up and become immobile, but he continued to be the good trouper and forced himself to work despite the physical problems. Later during the shoot, the Tin Man's silver coating would be touched up frequently as Ebsen wilted under the hot lights. The aluminum dust collected and coated his lungs leading to convulsions, almost suffocating him to death. He survived the poisoning, but was dropped from the picture. Not many people were told about the severity of the accident. Jack Dawn and his make-up department learned from the mishap and made a thick paste with aluminum which could not be inhaled by the next Tin Man, played by Jack Haley.

The makeup team also had to come up with "faces" for Dorothy's friends, something that would bring their characters to life without sacrificing a certain human quality. Face pieces were created from foam rubber and the material was used on the Scarecrow's neck and on the Cowardly Lion's face, and then painted over. The Lion's new face made it impossible for Burt Lahr, who played the lion, to open his mouth all the way. Since reapplying makeup would have been too time consuming during the day, Lahr had to stay in costume and eat all his meals through a straw for the duration of the 26-week shoot.

THE LITTLE PEOPLE OF OZ

Another challenge for the makeup crew was the herd of midgets hired to play the Munchkins. There were at least 350 of them and they came from all over the world. Only about half could speak English and when they tried to sing en masse the Munchkin anthem "Welcome To Munchkin Land", it was a garbled mess. Victor Fleming, decided to have them just mouth the words and dubbed the lines in later with professional singers.

To say the midgets were a rowdy bunch would be an understatement. Some of them were always up to trouble, often carrying knifes, and propositioning the Metro personnel. The concerns over their makeup wasn't a technical issue but the enormous amount of time it took to apply. It took twenty makeup artists to do nine Munchkins per hour. The Munchkins were naturally restless and sometimes the makeup artists would forget that the midgets were, in fact, adults and did not like to be picked up. The makeup assistants quickly found out that the midgets preferred getting into the makeup chair on their own, even if it meant a five minute struggle getting into it.

SPECIAL EFFECTS WIZARD - ARNOLD GILLESPIE

Special effects were another huge hurdle. The special effects departments experimented ceaselessly in the effort to create a realistic Kansas cyclone. Arnold Gillespie, the head special effects man, was one of the best in his field. Even with all his tricks, Gillespie could not figure out how to create a believable, yet fantastic-looking cyclone until he had a spark of inspiration. He grabbed a woman's stocking and tied an end to a fan. He turned on the fan and the hosiery created a fast transparent twirling like a cyclone. It was a stroke of genius.

COSTUMES & OTHER CONCERNS

The production would require 4,000 costumes and sixty-five sets that would take up twenty-five acres. The costumes had to be color coordinated with the art department, which oversaw the set construction and wardrobe. The art department made sure that the colors of the costumes did not clash nor blend with the sets. Materials had to be photographed to see how their textures would reflect the lights.

As expensive as each scene and musical number was, there were many revisions and one of the costlier numbers, "The Jitterbug" sequence, was deleted. All that remains of that number are some test prints and production stills.

THE WONDERS OF TECHNICOLOR

The Wizard of Oz was an innovative step forward in the history of filmmaking. MGM had this film slated as their prestige picture, going all out with the fantasy and musical elements and all of it in color! Color was a big leap forward then and was still considered a novelty, a big-budget one at that. In fact, Technicolor was still in development for Gone With The Wind, which was being shot at the same time. The Wizard of Oz served as a guinea pig for Technicolor experiments at MGM and introduced many new problems for filming. For one, it meant that the cameras required brighter lights, causing great discomfort and inconvenience for the actors. Also, colors showed up differently on camera and getting the Yellow Brick Road to look like a real yellow brick road took literally hundreds of different paint samples.

The new color process also created a problem in shooting the scenes with the Munchkins. The Munchkins were outfitted in green costumes and when shot together looked like a big glob of green, indistinguishable from one another. Victor Fleming solved this dilemma by instructing the camera operators to keep moving. George Cukor's solution was to apply the technique of the non-stop moving camera, which allowed the Munchkins to be seen individually and not blend together.

1939 - A BANNER YEAR

The Wizard of Oz opened on August 18, 1939 and grossed over $3 million upon its initial release which was a notable feat, considering the other releases of 1939. It was a momentous year of movie production, with Stagecoach, Ninotchka, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, Wuthering Heights, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Dark Victory, Gunga Din, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Gone With The Wind, just to name a few.

The Wizard of Oz was nominated for several Oscars, among them the Oscar for Best Picture. Gone With The Wind would, of course, win for Best Picture that year and sweep up most of the other awards, but Oz did garner two statuettes, one for Best Score by Herbert Stothart and one for Best Song ("Over The Rainbow").

THE LEGACY OF OZ

Since 1939, The Wizard of Oz has passed through the hands of several networks, enjoyed a re-release and made a huge profit. In 1998, the American Film Institute placed The Wizard of Oz on its top 100 list, citing its excellence as a fantasy, musical and family film. In 1989, The Library of Congress officially identified it as a piece of Americana. The National Film Registry, under the Library of Congress, archives and protects outstanding examples of "culturally, historically or esthetically significant" American movies. That is why since 1989, The Wizard of Oz makes its annual TV appearance in its entirety - two hours and ten minutes. Under the National Registry, the film can not be edited, cut or altered in any fashion.

By Vicky Lee