Orders are nobody can see the Great Oz! Not nobody, not no-how! And with 6 different directors and 20 writers vying for influence, it’s a marvel the film ever saw beyond development, let alone a rainbow.
The year of 1939 was a showstopper for cinema. Clair Boothe Luce first saw her play become the classic biting social commentary The Women, Gone With the Wind conquered the world, and, perhaps quietly at first, The Wizard of Oz took its first steps on the yellow brick road to immortal classic.
Having been declared the most watched film of all time by the Library of Congress, The Wizard of Oz has been the subject of much fascination and more rumours than you can throw a pair of stripy stockings at. Indeed, the shoot was an arduous one, with most of the cast and crew working six days a week, often starting at 5am and finishing at 7pm.
But aside from the story of a munchkin apparently commiting suicide in the background of one scene (it’s false), perhaps the most persistent rumour is that of the man originally cast as the Tin Man having died from a reaction to his silver make-up. In-fact, that actor was Buddy Ebsen, well known as the star of classic TV series The Beverly Hillbillies and co-star of Breakfast at Tiffany’s – both decades after Oz.
While Ebsen survived his time on the shoot (passing away in 2003), his reaction to the aluminium powder in the silver make-up was a severe one, eventually putting him in hospital, gasping for breath on an iron lung. Ebsen can still be seen briefly from a distance, however, as the Tin Man, Lion and Scarecrow scurry inside the Witch’s castle in search of poor kidnapped Dorothy.
Margaret Hamilton, the lady who brought us the witch of all witches, had an equally close encounter with fate. During the Wicked Witch of the West’s gatecrashing of the Munchkinland celebrations, as she disappears in a cloud of red smoke and fire, Hamilton was to be lowered beneath the set via a concealed lift. The first take went quite well, and would be the one used in the film. In the second take, the lift operated slightly late, exposing Hamilton’s face to a burst of flames. Thankfully, a stagehand waiting below was quick-thinking enough to pat the flames away quickly, minimising the potentially deadly impact of her green copper-based face-paint (though her face and hands were significantly burned).
Somehow, despite what must have been one of cinema’s most troubled shoots, and after an initial release that failed to return a profit, The Wizard of Oz now exists as perhaps the most iconic movie of all time. Upon every viewing, no matter your age, the film still manages to resonate with its timeless message. It forces us to look inside, beyond face-value; to believe that we already have the qualities that we all strive for, they just need unlocking; and that venturing away from those we love won’t bring us any closer to home.
Naturally, though, no one puts in any more eloquently than Dorothy herself;
“Well, I – I think that it – it wasn’t enough to just want to see Uncle Henry and Auntie Em – and it’s that – if I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own back yard. Because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with. Is that right?”
