BAUM, THE MAGNIFICENT – the man behind the curtain

There is much to be said about a film that reports on the basic human need to rediscover our hearts desires in our own backyards. What Frank Lyman Baum’s book The Wizard of Oz did for childhood daydreams, MGM’s colossal three million dollar super production of 1939 recreated on a much broader canvas for the hearts and minds of both the young and the young at heart.

The film’s prophetic introduction, proclaiming “time has been powerless to put its kindly philosophy out of fashion” has since served to best summate the cultural impact Oz has had on lasting human ideals in progress and faith. Time does strange things to our collective memory. What in retrospect seems a foregone and rather straight forward conclusion to a great story, masterfully inspired and winningly told on celluloid, was in fact a series of critical and financial missteps; some outright and abysmal failures. The truth behind The Wizard of Oz is that it blossomed from blind faith, a sense of critical timing and a lot of great good luck.

Frank L. Baum’s stories of that mythical land over the rainbow had a rather auspicious debut. They began as minor amusements in his parlor, told for the benefit of his children and their friends. Baum was born to an affluent family in Chittenango New York on May 15, 1856. But personal success eluded the effervescent showman and story teller once he left the family fold to strike out on his own.

After settling into an editor’s position in Chicago in 1899, Baum began writing his thoughts down on paper. In his spare time he became a minor sensation with the local neighborhood children who flocked to hear his miraculous off the cuff adventures of Dorothy and her companions. The legend goes, that during one of these storytelling sessions a young inquisitive asked Baum to define the land where all his creations dwelt. Perplexed and in search of an answer, Baum’s gaze rested on his filing cabinet, the top drawer with a plate affixed that read ‘A-N’ the bottom; ‘O-Z.’ Whether there is any truth to this folklore remains a curious mystery.

However, by 1900 Baum’s debut book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz had become a runaway best seller prompting publishers Reilly & Lee to suggest its author create a serialized adventure. Eager to capitalize on the book’s success, Broadway impresarios, Fred Hamlin and Julian Mitchell launched their own 1902 production; a reconstituted flashy – if misguided – musical comedy more attuned in sentiment and tastes to unrelated Vaudevillian hokum than Baum’s original clairvoyance for epic fantasy. Arguably an artistic misstep, Oz’s debut in live theater nevertheless created a minor sensation, running a then record 293 performances before going on a country-wide tour that lasted until 1911.

Despite these overwhelming successes, the specter of Baum’s youthful mediocrity remained a chronic hindrance throughout his later years. Though his follow up novel, The Land of Oz was another publishing milestone, the Broadway incarnation ‘The Woggle Bug was a complete and utter failure. So too did Baum’s skilled fantasy novels apart from the Oz legacy; The Sea Fairies and Sky Island prove disappointing and unpopular with his readership. Between 1912 and 1919, the year of his death, Baum penned one Oz novel per annum. He also founded the Oz Film Company in 1914 that made a few Oz shorts, strained his financial security and ultimately proved disastrous ventures outside the scope of his insular publishing success.

As early as 1924, Baum’s son had proposed a film deal to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) – an ambitious endeavor that never developed beyond the negotiation stage. The following year, a silent version of Oz did emerge from independent Chadwick Films. But the movie veered wildly beyond the scope and intelligence of the original work and proved a quick and easily forgotten flop.

In the early 1930s, Samuel Goldwyn went to great pains to launch a lavish super production of his own that would have starred Eddie Cantor as the scarecrow and Helen Hayes as Dorothy. Although Goldwyn had paid forty thousand dollars for the rights to produce Oz, after much ballyhoo the project was quietly shelved.

MGM briefly toyed with the idea of making a series of cartoons based on Baum’s novels. MGM publicist Howard Dietz conducted a poll as to the feasibility and appeal of such a venture. He found none. However, what he soon discovered was that there just might be a market for Oz as a live action fantasy.

THE SPECTACULAR

The lengthy gestation period in preproduction on The Wizard of Oz is a textbook example of the intrinsic collaborative efforts that cumulatively functioned under the studio system during its glory days. Whether contemplating the lush costumes created by resident fashion guru Gilbert Adrian or the intricate makeup applications developed under Jack Dawn, MGM’s supremacy in the industry and its veritable and diverse army of artisans and craftsman practically guaranteed that Frank L. Baum’s novel would receive meticulous attention to every last detail.

This assessment of Metro’s formidable stock company by no means suggests that the incubation of Oz on celluloid was either a foregone, direct or finite conclusion. On the contrary, The Wizard of Oz had one of the most arduous, stagnated and demanding production schedules of any motion picture before or since its time.

In truth, studio mogul, Louis B. Mayer had not desired to translate The Wizard of Oz to film. Recognizing the enormity of its undertaking, and the unsteady appeal of what had already been done on celluloid, Mayer resisted the idea for as long as he could. His apprehensions were well founded. Previous attempts at casting humans as fantasy creatures in adaptations of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland (1933) and Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935) has been costly box office failures.

The genesis of Oz on film derived from a trajectory of interests. As early as 1937, Arthur Freed had expressed his to Mayer. A successful songwriter by 1938, Freed had recently been elevated to the stature of fledgling producer – a move that bode well with Freed’s aspirations to remake relative unknown Judy Garland a musical star. Although Freed had written many of the standards in pop music of his generation, as a producer his bankable box office had yet to be proven.

In his attempts to gain Mayer’s acceptance, Freed repeatedly pointed to the financial and critical accolades reaped by Walt Disney on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) – a project not unlike Oz that had begun with overwhelming critical backlash from the press, who had dubbed the project in its infancy as ‘Disney’s folly.’ Enter Mervyn LeRoy – a quantifiable producer that Mayer had wooed away from Warner Brothers.

When asked by Mayer what projects he would consider, LeRoy pitched The Wizard of Oz. The rest of the details in Oz’s early gestation are a bit sketchy, even after considering interoffice memos. Ultimately, Mayer relented. MGM vice-president Eddie Mannix acquired the rights from Samuel Goldwyn on February 18, 1938 and the project progressed. LeRoy assumed producer responsibilities with Arthur Freed as his unaccredited assistant.

The early development of narrative concepts for Oz contains some interesting anomalies. Arthur Freed concocted two original characters not in Baum’s books the operatic ‘Princess of Oz’ and laconic Prince. Possibly, the former was in deference to preliminary suggestions by Loew’s President Nicholas Schenck, that Deanna Durbin should be considered for the part of Dorothy. The latter was clearly a joint venture between Arthur Freed and Mervyn LeRoy, both ambitious to launch the career of their protégée, MGM contract player, Kenny Baker.

Schenck also orchestrated a meeting with Fox President Darryl F. Zanuck to discuss the possibility of a loan out of Shirley Temple for the role. Although ill-equipped musically to handle the demands of Dorothy, Temple was much closer in age to Baum’s heroine as written than Judy Garland. While Freed worked behind the scenes to deflate these alternative choices for the lead and plump up Garland’s acceptance, the rest of the cast was beginning to take shape.

The initial mismatching of Vaudevillians Ray Bolger as the Tin Man and Buddy Ebsen as the Scarecrow was remedied during preliminary talks in which an impassioned Bolger pleaded with Mayer and LeRoy and won his case. When asked by gossip columnist Hedda Hopper what he (Ebsen) would now do, cast as the Tin Man, Ebsen’s laconic reply was “Suffer.” His snap assessment was not too far off.

Although Mervyn LeRoy briefly toyed with the idea of having Leo (the lion featured in MGM’s corporate trademark) cast and dubbed as Oz’s Cowardly Lion, early memos suggest that comedic powerhouse Bert Lahr had already secured that part before the former concept could be given ample consideration.

Casting choices for the part of the Wizard varied – though Arthur Freed had always wanted Frank Morgan. LeRoy had hoped for Ed Wynn. Briefly, the studio also considered W.C. Fields, who had made a stunning success apart from his usual persona as Mr. Micawber in MGM’s David Copperfield (1935). Even Wallace Beery stepped forward for consideration.

As for Glinda, the good witch of the North; casting choices veered from stage actress Beatrice Lillie to comedienne Fanny Brice. Ultimately, the former Mrs. Florence Ziegfeld – MGM contract player Billie Burke was assimilated into the role. Freed had first proposed Edna May Oliver for the Wicked Witch of the West. Contract player, Gale Sondergaard tested for the role – revamped from ugly to slinky to suit her persona. Ultimately, Freed and LeRoy chose ugliness, a move that forced Sondergaard out of the running and gave former school teacher Margaret Hamilton the role of a life time.

Initially, the writing credits on Oz had been assigned first to Irving Brecher, then Herman Mankiewicz. Dissatisfied almost immediately with Brecher, and then Mankiewicz – whose draft departed from Baum’s intimate simplicity – Mervyn LeRoy quietly employed Ogden Nash and Noel Langley on a rival script that would serve as the basis for the finished film.

Throughout these rewrites many of the superfluous and nonsensical characters that had been inserted over the course of Oz’s preliminary phase were eliminated – including subplots involving Miss Gulch’s niece, Sylvia, and Bulbo, the Wicked Witch’s incompetent son who desires to ascend the throne of the Emerald City. To smooth out the final shooting script, Freed and LeRoy assigned Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf to the project. Their contributions included the creation of Professor Marvel – introducing Frank Morgan/the Wizard at the start of the film.

Meanwhile the musical portion of Oz was beginning to take shape. Freed had wanted Jerome Kern. Along the way many luminaries were considered, included Mack Gordon, Al Warren, Harry Revel, and even Freed’s former collaborator, Nacio Herb Brown, Eventually, the honors when to Harold Arlen and E. Y. Harburg.

As Oz moved from preproduction to actual shoot, the complexities that had seemed unmanageable so far were about to unravel into behind the scenes chaos.

THE LAST STRAWS

“Obstacles make for a better picture.” – Victor Fleming

By September 26, 1938, the official first day of principle photography on The Wizard of Oz, the film was already two weeks behind schedule. Start up had been delayed primarily to allow Judy Garland to finish, Listen Darling (1938) the light-hearted minor programmer in which she effectively rocked the house with her poignant version of ‘Zing Went The Strings of My Heart’. However, this pause also gave contract player, Gale Sondergaard (cast as the Wicked Witch) the opportunity to reconsider how her de-glamorization might impact future procurement of glamour girl roles on the backlot. Sondergaard’s apprehensions eventually blossomed into flat out rejection – a move that temporarily frustrated Oz’s original director, Richard Thorpe – though Margaret Hamilton quickly essayed into the project as Sondergaard’s replacement.

More alarming on the whole was Buddy Ebsen’s forced withdrawal from the part of The Tin Man. Ebsen’s makeup, made from aluminum dust had literally coated the actor’s lungs to the point where he could not breathe and had to be hospitalized for over a month. Unable to make a postponement in order to accommodate Ebsen’s extended recovery, the actor was replaced by Jack Haley, a gifted Vaudevillian; the makeup applications thereafter made of the slightly less toxic mixture of aluminum paste.

Despite these initial setbacks, what Arthur Freed and Mervyn LeRoy found even more unsettling was the handling of Judy Garland’s footage under director Richard Thorpe’s command. Thorpe had transformed this simple Kansas farm girl into a would-be glamour queen – complete with flowing tresses and makeup befitting a runway model. Deeming the footage as unacceptable, Thorpe was removed from Oz on October 24, 1938.

His replacement was the imminent George Cukor – on loan from David O. Selznick. Although Cukor did manage to shoot costume and make up tests before being recalled to Selznick International to begin Gone With The Wind, his involvement on Oz was minimal, though distinguished. For example, Cukor was largely responsible for transforming Judy Garland into the image of Dorothy that millions have come to know and love since; stripping away the rubber prosthetic that had been designed to remove the slope in her nose; Cukor, who re-conceptualized Margaret Hamilton’s Wicked Witch from old hag to severe gargoyle; and finally, Cukor who softened Ray Bolger’s Scarecrow applications so that his expressive facial gestures could shine through.

Cukor’s replacement on Oz was Victor Fleming – a determined, enigmatic (some might say, crude), though ambitious director with a proven track record of success, usually on projects that were in distress. Fleming’s passion for filmmaking was matched only by his unadulterated discount for the niceties on the set. He was, after all that has been written over the years, a man of formidable determination.

Fleming’s frank directness did not bode well in particular with actors Bert Lahr and Frank Morgan; the latter particularly felt that his best bits of comedy were being usurped by Fleming’s straight forward approach. Undoubtedly, Fleming was determined to maintain a certain mood throughout the production; a mood perhaps tampered with by Morgan’s zeal for hamming it up.

Production began in earnest, despite insufferable conditions exacerbated by the heat generated from 150 arch lamps raised high above the sound stages. Extreme lighting was necessary to compensate for the inadequate levels of color saturation attained on all early Technicolor film negatives. More disturbing for cast and crew were the constant and daily revisions to the script.

And then, there were the accidents to consider. At one point, a witch’s soldiers stepped on Toto, forcing Terry – the original terrier – to be temporarily replaced by another dog. During their flight into the haunted forest a pair of winged-monkey stunt men had to be hospitalized when their wire harnesses snapped in mid-flight.


But by far the most disastrous mishap occurred during the filming of Margaret Hamilton’s disappearance from Munchkinland. The sequence called for Hamilton witch to be engulfed in a cloud of red sulfuric smoke followed by a colossal fireball. Special effects engineer Buddy Gillespie had tested the hydraulic trap door on which Hamilton stood prior to executing this sequence. However, as the cameras rolled, the hydraulic lowered Hamilton too slowly – the net result, her upper extremities and face were engulfed by the fireball.

Remembering that Hamilton’s green applications had incorporated flammable copper, specialist Jack Dawn managed to save the actress from severe scarring and disfiguration by working quickly to peel off her makeup. In the middle of all this chaos, MGM seriously contemplated canceling the project – a move that sent Arthur Freed flying into L.B. Mayer’s office declaring loudly, “If I had two and a half million I’d buy this picture from you. It’ll be worth more than that someday!”

By December 28, 1938 one of film history’s most intricately staged and most fondly remembered sequences – Dorothy’s arrival into Munchkinland was completed without further incident.

Despite numerous stories over the years that have disseminated myths about the singer midgets as a collective body of drunken and disorderly reprobates, only a small percentage of ‘the little people’ indulged in such behavior behind closed doors and off the set.

By February of 1939, nearly all of the Technicolor portions of Oz had been completed. Victor Fleming left Oz to assume directorial responsibilities on another troubled endeavor – Selznick’s Gone With The Wind. With Fleming’s departure, veteran King Vidor assumed the directorial reigns. It is Vidor, not Fleming who was responsible for photographing the memorable Kansas bookends, the spectacular tornado sequence, and footage involving Dorothy’s first meeting with Professor Marvel. As these sequences neared completion, dance choreographer Busby Berkeley was brought in to stage an extended dance sequence for Ray Bolger’s Scarecrow.

As Oz officially entered postproduction, Victor Fleming returned to help tighten the film’s narrative in the editing room. Prior to the second sneak preview in Pomona, Vice President Eddie Mannix had Garland’s immortal ‘Over the Rainbow’ excised with the complicity of six executives because he felt the song tended to slow down the narrative. Outraged, Arthur Freed and Mervyn LeRoy launched their own successful counter campaign and the song was quickly reinstated by the third preview in San Luis Obispo.

Other sequences were not so fortunate. Despite having toiled on a dance he considered one of his finest, the Ray Bolger/Busby Berkeley collaboration on the scarecrow dance did not survive. Also entirely removed from the final cut was Dorothy’s reprise of ‘Over the Rainbow’ in the witch’s castle, the lavishly staged triumphant return to the Emerald City following the witch’s demise, and several minor comic bits of business. By the end of July 1939, MGM was diligently working to produce five hundred prints of Oz for distribution.

In totem, Oz had been in production for nearly ten months and had cost MGM just under three million dollars; a gargantuan sum for its day. The accolades the film received upon its private screening from the critics confirmed Oz’s place in entertainment history. James Francis Crow of the Hollywood Citizen News was among the first to proclaim, “The Wizard of Oz is a great motion picture. It is not only a magnificent, history-making technical achievement: it is a warmly human, deeply emotional photoplay too.”

Edwin Schallert of the Los Angeles Times declared, “Fantasy is at last brought to the screen in full-fledged form and a victory.”

Picture Reports published a glowing accolade that began, “Surpassing all previous screen extravaganzas in the mammoth scope of its production, Oz commands superlatives from critics and the public alike. It is truly a magnificent spectacle, a towering achievement in the technical magic of motion pictures.”

Had The Wizard of Oz been produced during any other year it would have easily swept the Academy Awards. Unhappy chance for the film, that it was released in 1939; the greatest year in motion picture history. Buffeted on all sides by worthy Oscar contenders, Oz remained the leading contender for Best Picture until David O. Selznick’s Gone With The Wind debuted. Thereafter, despite its overwhelming positive reviews and grandiose sense of technical accomplishment, Oz became just another footnote to that illustrious year in movies. It would take a reissue in 1949 for the film to recoup its production costs and, in fact, turn a profit.

Mervyn LeRoy, who immediately following Oz’s triumphant premiere gave up producing to return to his first love – directing – may not have won an Oscar, but he arguably received the penultimate congratulatory salutation for his efforts. Upon winning her Oscar for Best Performance by a juvenile, Judy Garland scribbled a message to LeRoy on her napkin – “I owe you everything, Mr. LeRoy,” it read.

What has kept The Wizard of Oz alive for so many and for so long since is not its technical achievements – as fine and as startlingly surreal as they are and continue to be. No, in the final analysis the proof in Oz’s purpose remains clear in its emotional depth; to find one’s place in the world not through the magical dabbling of some omnipotent power, but at the very heart and soul of one’s own courage to will a dream into reality. And even if the world at hand does not present itself under the most ideal of circumstances, the film’s underlying message is pointed clear; there is still no place like home. Fantasy would never again be quite so honest or appealing.

@ Nick Zegarac 2006 (all rights reserved).