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Remastered import from South Korea made
for the entire USA/Canada/Korea (NTSC, All-Region)
The only difference between this dvd
and a USA manufactured release is there
may be some Korean characters on the case.
Otherwise, it is the same.
South Korea is one of the few countries in the world
that uses the same format that we do (NTSC).
Amazon and eBay have made cross-buying
between buyers in both countries very common.
That is why quite often,
you will see optional Korean subtitles
available on many USA made releases.
These dvds are exactly what you
would find in a department store there.
One of the biggest industries in South Korea
is remastering dvds for many of
the major studios throughout the world.
TRIVIA
The title role was written with W.C. Fields in mind.
Producer Mervyn DeRoy wanted Ed Wynn,
who turned down the role.
Studio executive Freed wanted Fields,
and offered him $75,000.
Fields supposedly wanted $100,000.
According to a letter from Fields' agent
(and supposedly written by Fields)
Fields turned down to role to
devote his time to writing the script
for "You Can't Cheat an Honest Man".
Judy Garland was Louis B. Mayer's
first choice to play Dorothy.
Nick Schenck didn't think Garland was
a big enough star to play Dorothy,
so he got Mayer to push for a trade
with Fox for Shirley Temple.
That fell through, though,
leaving Mayer with his first choice.
Gale Sondeergaard was originally cast
as the Wicked Witch of the West.
Ray Bolger was originally
cast as the Tin Woodsman.
However, he insisted that he would
rather play the Scarecrow -
his childhood idol, Fred Stone had
originated that role on stage in 1902.
Buddy Ebsen had been cast as the Scarecrow,
and now switched roles with Bolger.
But the aluminum powder makeup
for the Tin Woodsman was toxic and
Ebsen apparently had an allergic
reaction to it as well.
He left the picture,
but his voice can still be
heard in "Off to see the Wizard".
Jack Haley took over the Tin Woodsman's role,
and the makeup was changed to a paste
so that he did not inhale
the aluminum as much.
He presumed that Ebsen had been fired,
and did not learn the truth until later.
Originally, Betty Jaynes was cast as
Princess Betty of Oz and Kenny Baker was
to play her lover, the Grand Duke.
They were to share the
vocal load with Judy Garland.
Eventually, after multiple re-writes,
their characters were
written completely out of the film.
Ogden Nash wrote an unused screenplay.
According to lead Munchkin Jerry Maren,
the "little people" on the set were paid
$50 per week for a 6-day work week,
while Toto received $125 per week.
[A common retort was,
"You could train the dog!"
referring to the alleged wild
escapades of the munchkins during filming.]
A reprise of "Over the Rainbow" was filmed,
in which Dorothy was remembering
Kansas while being imprisoned
in the Witch's castle.
Judy Garland did begin to cry,
along with the film crew,
because the song was so sad.
The song was later cut.
At the beginning of the
"We're off to see the wizard" sequence,
there is a disturbance in
the trees off to the right.
This was rumored to be one
of the crew hanging himself,
but is in fact is a large
bird stretching its wings.
In 1939, the press agents
were wildly inventive
Frank Morgan has five roles:
Professor Marvel,
the gatekeeper of the Emerald City,
the cab driver
(of the horse of a different color),
the Wizard's guard,
and the Wizard.
It was also made up for the
projected image of the Wizard.
Terry (Toto) was stepped on by
one of the witch's guards,
and had a double for two weeks.
A second double was obtained,
because it resembled Toto more closely.
The Cowardly Lion's facial makeup
included a brown paper bag.
Actor Bert Lahr couldn't eat without
ruining his makeup.
Tired of eating soup and milkshakes,
he decided to eat lunch and
have his makeup redone.
When filming first started,
Garland wore a blond wig and
heavy, "baby-doll" makeup;
when George Cukor assumed the
role of intermediate director
(after the producer took the
original director off the picture,
and before they found a replacement),
he got rid of the wig and most of
the makeup and told her to just be herself.
The "tornado" was a thirty-five
foot long muslin stocking,
photographed with miniatures of
a Kansas farm and fields.
The Wicked Witch of the West
(Margaret Hamilton) was off the film for
more than a month after being
severely burned during her
disappearance from Munchkinland.
Her stand-in was also injured
when a broom exploded
during a stunt shot.
The horses in Emerald City palace
were colored with Jell-O crystals.
The relevant scenes had to be shot quickly,
before the horses started to lick it off.
Many of the Munchkins' voices
were dubbed by professional singers,
as many of the actors had poor
English or couldn't sing.
The film had four different directors.
Richard Thorpe shot several weeks
of material, none of which
appears in the final film.
The studio found his work
unsatisfactory and appointed
George Cukor temporarily.
Victor Fleming took over from him
and filmed the bulk of the movie,
until he was appointed to
Gone With The Wind (1939).
King Vidor filmed the remaining sequences,
mainly the black and white
section of the film set in Kansas.
The Kansas scenes were not
originally shown in black and white,
but rather in sepia tone.
The yellow brick road originally
showed up as green in the first prints.
This stopped production and required
everything to be repainted so it would
show appropriately on the Technicolor film.
The film started shooting on
13 October 1938 and was completed on
16 March 1939 at a then-unheard-of
cost of $2,777,000.
Oz earned only $3,000,000 on its initial release.
The ruby slippers were silver
(like in the book) until Louis Mayer observed
that the Technicolor production
would benefit from color.
It is said that the tower of the
Witch's castle is a tower from
the military base in West Point, NY.
There are thought to be seven
pairs of ruby slippers, of which
the whereabouts of five are known.
Each has an estimated value
of $1.5 million, making them
the most expensive Hollywood memorabilia.
They have been dubbed by some
as "The Holy Grail" of all Hollywood nostalgia.
"Over the Rainbow" was cut from the film.
A heated debate threatened to end the
shoot until the song was restored.
The producers at one point considered
using a live lion for the Cowardly Lion,
and then dubbing in an actor's voice.
The film originally contained an
elaborate production number
called "The Jitter Bug", which cost $80,000
and took five weeks to shoot.
In the scene, Dorothy, the Scarecrow,
the Cowardly lion, and the Tin Woodsman
are on their way to the
Witch's castle when they are
attacked by "jitter bugs" -
furry pink and blue mosquito-like
"rascals" that give one "the jitters"
as they buzz about in the air.
When, after its first preview,
the movie was judged too long,
MGM officials decided to
sacrifice the "Jitter Bug" scene.
They reasoned that it
added little to the plot and,
because a dance by the same
name had just become popular,
they feared it might date the picture.
The Witch still refers to
the bug in the final film,
just before telling the Monkeys to "Fly!"
Only home movies of the
filming of "The Jitterbug" survive,
though the song is on current
versions of both the soundtrack CD
and the recent anniversary edition videotape
. The sequence was also incorporated
into a recent stage version of the musical.
Of all the Munchkins,
only two are heard speaking
with their real-life voices -
the ones who give Dorothy a
bunch of flowers after she
has climbed into the carriage.
All others are dubbed by other actors.
A lengthy dance for the Scarecrow was cut.
Rumors of the Munchkin actors' wild
drunken orgies and other
escapades are probably exaggerated.
MGM paid $75,000 for the film rights
to L. Frank Baum's book,
a towering sum at the time.
The steam shooting from the
Tin Man's cap startles Toto,
who runs out of the shot.
Meinhardt Raabe, who played the
Coroner of Munchkinland, was, at one time,
the shortest licensed pilot in the U.S.
During WWII, he volunteered for military
service and was turned down.
He was accepted as a volunteer
instructor in the Civil Air Patrol.
Judy Garland and Jack Haley
played Dorothy and the Tin Man.
Their daughter and son,
Liza Minelli and Jack Haley Jr.,
were married in the 1970s.
A sequence in which Dorothy and
her companions make a triumphant
return to the Emerald City after
melting the Wicked Witch,
known as the "restoration scene," was cut.
When MGM bought the rights to
L. Frank Baum's novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,
they also purchased the rights
to the 1902 stage musical by
Baum and Paul Tietjens, and Wizard of Oz (1925),
Larry Semon's failed silent comedy.
From the latter,
it derived Dorothy's companions
as farmhands she knew in Kansas,
and the it-was-all-a-dream ending --
an element of fantasy literature Baum
decried in several essays but used
in his "Laura Bancroft" titles
for very young readers.
From the former,
it took only the snowstorm summoned
by the Good Witch of the
North to destroy the poppies,
which in the play was a huge
set piece that concluded Act I.
(In the novel, the Scarecrow and
the Tin Woodman carry Dorothy out
and hoist the Lion onto a truck
that is pulled on strings
by hundreds of mice.)
Lengthy debate occurred at MGM studios
as to whether or not to include
the songs from the play,
but as the Vaudeville-style show mostly
included songs of no relevance
to plot or characterization,
they were replaced with new ones.
According to legend,
the coat Frank Morgan wore
as Professor Marvel, which was handpicked
from a second-hand clothing rack,
once belonged to Oz author L. Frank Baum.
The inside pocket had his initials on it.
After completion of the film,
the coat was presented to Baum's widow
who confirmed it was indeed his.
Garland's portrayal of Dorothy
was the main inspiration of the
character of Mary Ann on Gilligan's Island.
Toto's real name was Terry.
She died in 1945 and was
buried in his trainer's yard.
L. Frank Baum's novel is considerably
more gruesome that MGM's rendition,
i.e. the Tin Woodsman's use of his axe
to lop off the heads of beasts,
and the Wizard sending Dorothy and
the gang to actually kill the
Wicked Witch of the West.
The paint used that was finally used
on the bricks for the "Yellow Brick Road"
was standard industrial yellow
paint that was obtained from
a hardware store several
blocks away from the studio.
In the song "If I Only Had A Heart",
the girl who says, "Wherefore art thou, Romeo?"
is Adriana Casselotti, the voice of
Snow White in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).
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