Shocking Facts About ‘The Wizard of Oz’ Production

While the fantasy really came to life on-screen, it wasn’t quite so magical on set. Some dark secrets were kept behind the scenes of this film. These might change your entire perspective on the movie so prepare yourself!

In addition, she was forced to wear an incredibly tight corset to make her look even thinner and make her look as young as possible. Imagine having to act while your entire middle section is being squeezed to the point where it’s to breathe!

The producers thought it was a safe place to cut some time because the younger viewers probably wouldn’t understand the meaning behind the song anyways. They also knew the song was pretty depressing. But, the song survived and added to the icon status that is The Wizard of Oz. 

He didn’t even want Judy Garland to play the part in the beginning. He had an entirely different actress in mind. If he had it his way it would have been Shirley Temple clicking her red shoes together. But, Thorpe was quickly fired after only 2 weeks of working on the film.

The young actress reportedly couldn’t stop laughing during the filming of the scene, and Victor Fleming became fed up with how many takes they had to film. He slapped her right across the face and told her to get to work. This could never happen today!

The costume was so stiff that Jack couldn’t even really sit down in the suit. If he did try and sit down he would need assistance getting up and moving around to the next scene. He would have to just lean against a wall to take some pressure off of his feet on long filming days.

Now, some of the 7 pairs of slippers are on display at the Academy of Motion Pictured and Arts Sciences Museum, the National Museum of American History, and Oz Park in Chicago. The other pairs are owned by Wizard of Oz fanatics in private collections.

The pcstme was insanely heavy as well. It weighed a total of 90 pounds and had little to no ventilation. Imagine having to wear that thing for hours while acting! Apparently, the actor who played the Cowardly Lion sweat so much that the costume had to be kept in an industrial drying bin overnight so he could use it again the next day for filming.

In comparison, the human actors who played the Munchkins only got paid between $50 – $100 a week. This wasn’t a small chunk of change at the time, but it’s certainly not what you would expect for movie stars!

The character’s look was eventually changed by the producers to contrast more with the Good Witch. Gale Sondergaard, the actress who was originally cast to play the Wicked Witch, didn’t like the new look of the character and bailed. Margaret Hamilton took over the role instead.

As a result, the studio cut Hamilton’s screen time down to just a few bits so as not to ruin younger audiences’ viewing experience. However, these screen cuts didn’t make Hamilton’s character any less important, and Hamilton was widely praised by critics for her performance.

Hamilton was supposed to drop down safely into a trap door before the flames appeared. However, the door malfunctioned and didn’t open fast enough. This left Hamilton with second and third-degree burns all over her face and hands that took weeks to heal.

However, producers worried that Temple’s singing voice wasn’t good enough for the part. Temple was also contracted to 20th Century Fox at the time, and not MGM. MGM tried to trade Jean Harlow and Clark Gable for Temple, but these plans fell through after Harlow’s untimely death.

In the book, Dorothy had silver slippers, not ruby. Louis B. Mayer, the studio head, wanted to change the color to something brighter to test MGM’s new Technicolor technology. The studio also changed the color of Dorothy’s shirt to light pink because white was trickier to shoot in color.

The movie was filmed in the 1930s when slasher films, CGI, and other more advanced special effects didn’t exist. The three actors’ costumes were considered so terrifying that they were banned from the MGM lunchroom to avoid scaring the MGM staff. How awful!

In the novel, Dorothy does most of the saving. She also seemed to fit right in at Oz, which had a positive effect on the way she interacted with those around her.  According to L. Frank Baum, he wanted Dorothy to be a strong role model for young female audiences.

There were also many other inconsistencies or mistakes throughout the film. The length of Dorothy’s hair was inconsistent, while some props seemed to disappear out of thin air or change, like in one scene where the Tin Man’s spear turns into an ax.

During George Cukor’s time on set, he gave Dorothy her signature look, ditching the blonde wig in favor of a more natural look that would better contrast Oz’s fantastical nature. We think this was a great choice!

They eventually found the perfect coat. Morgan later discovered the words “L. Frank Baum” stitched into the inside. As it turns out, the coat had been owned by L. Frank Baum himself! Producers later gifted the coat to the late author’s widow once filming had wrapped up.

However, the “body” was, in fact, a bird. The studio rented about 400 birds from a local zoo to use in various projects. Some birds had managed to escape from their cages and ended up on the set of The Wizard of Oz. The bird that was visible in the scene was an escaped crane stretching out its wings. It’s definitely not a hanging munchkin!

Throughout the 1930s, Shirley Temple was America’s sweetheart. She starred in so many classic films, including film adaptations of popular novels. Magazines also published many photos of her off-screen adventures. She also appeared to be a fan of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, as one photo showed a copy of the book on her shelf. Shirley Temple playing Dorothy seemed like a no-brainer.

Even though Louis B. Meyer and the other MGM execs wanted Shirley Temple to play Dorothy, Freed thought that Judy Garland was a better choice for the role. Years later, Shirley Temple would claim in her autobiography that Freed had exposed himself to her when she was 12 while he was trying to get her to join MGM.

Some theorists believe that the poppy scene was a reference to how opium – which is derived from poppies – is used to put people into a deep sleep. Garland herself was being given drugs while filming the movie, which makes the scene all the more chilling in retrospect.

In 2012, a gingham dress worn by Judy Garland on the set was sold at an auction for nearly half a million dollars. Three years later, another one of the gingham dresses was sold for $1,565,000 at an auction in New York.

Margaret Hamilton had reportedly swallowed some of her makeup by accident. She got so sick that she had to go through a liquid diet for several days to remove the harmful substances from her body. The green makeup, with its copper-based ingredients, was also difficult to wash off. Hamilton’s face stayed green for weeks after filming had wrapped up.

During production, one of the witch’s guards accidentally stepped on Terry’s foot, leaving her with a broken paw. A second dog had to be hired while Terry’s paw healed, a process that took a couple of weeks. Poor Terry!

During filming, the crew realized that the Yellow Brick Road came out green when filmed in Technicolor. To solve this, they decided to play around with industrial-grade paint. It would take several tries before they finally managed to get it right.

The harmful effects of asbestos had been documented as far back as 1897 but MGM still decided to use it anyway. Fortunately, there seems to be no evidence that any of the actors were harmed by the substance. We sure hope that the studio has finally learned its lesson!

Unfortunately, Danko herself would get seriously injured during production. While filming the Surrender Dorothy scene, Betty had been sitting on a smoking pipe that was made to look like a broomstick. The pipe exploded, and Danko was hospitalized for two weeks. Her legs were permanently scarred, but she continued to work as a stuntwoman anyway.

The winged monkeys, however, were played by humans in monkey costumes. In the movie, the head monkey is named Nikko. Nikko was named after a Japanese town that became known for a shrine where the Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil monkeys originated.

Also, in the scene in which the Wicked Witch tries to remove the ruby slippers and fire appears around her hands, apple juice was squirted out of the shoes, then they sped up the film. For the tornado scene, many special effects were used. The crew used a miniature house that was dropped behind a sky painting, and the film was reversed to make it seem like Dorothy’s house was falling towards the camera.

If you look closely during the “We’re Off to See the Wizard” scene, you can see the shadows of the cameras and spotlights on the grass. The colors of some of the items on set as well as the characters’ costumes had to be tweaked several times to get the color just right.

Aside from the nominations and awards it received, the United States Library of Congress also recognized The Wizard of Oz as being “culturally significant” to the United States and preserved the film in the National Film Registry. In 2014, Warner Bros. Entertainment released it in IMAX 3D to celebrate its 75th anniversary.

Baum came up with the name “Oz” after looking at his filing cabinet and saw the letters A-N and O-Z. Aside from his famous novel, Baum had also written about other topics throughout his life, including stamp collecting. Baum was also a women’s suffrage advocate and channeled his support for feminism into his Oz books.

While it has been speculated that this was done by the studio to save on casting fees, some say that the director was simply being true to the nature of the Wizard, who was a powerful and mysterious figure.

In 1914, Baum’s motion picture company The Oz Film Manufacturing Company made The Patchwork Girl of Oz, which follows a completely different set of characters, including Ojo, Unc Nuckle, and Patchwork Girl.

Despite its poor performance at the box office, The Wizard of Oz was still widely praised and won numerous awards, including two Oscars. However, it wasn’t until 1956 when the film was shown on television that it finally achieved mainstream success.

Baby Dorothy was buried at Evergreen Memorial Cemetery in Bloomington, Illinois. In 1996, Sally Roesch Wagner, a historian who was researching L. Frank Baum’s mother-in-law, located the grave. Her discovery sparked interest in restoring the gravesite. Mickey Carroll, one of the last surviving Munchkins, worked with the Evergreen Memorial Cemetery to create a new marker. The new marker was unveiled on May 31st, 1997, and the cemetery’s children’s section was renamed the Dorothy L. Gage Memorial Garden.