Random Strange Things You Definitely Didn't Know About 'Wizard of Oz' (15 items)

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  (#4) The Movie Went Through Four Different Directors

  When The Wizard of Oz went into production, Richard Thorpe was its director. Thorpe was quickly dismissed by producer Mervyn LeRoy for his inability to create the right fairy tale atmosphere. While Thorpe was director, Dorothy had blonde hair and was heavily made up. 

  George Cukor, director of The Philadelphia Story, My Fair Lady, and Gaslight, who famously slapped Katherine Hepburn for spilling ice cream on an expensive costume, was brought in as a temporary replacement for Thorpe. Later that year, Cukor was fired as director of Gone with the Wind, allegedly because he was gay and knew all about Clark Gable's secret gay past. Cukor made an immediate impact on Wizard by getting rid of Dorothy's heavy makeup and blonde hair. He also suggested Garland play the role as innocent and wide-eyed, not coy and knowing. 

  A week after he arrived, Cukor was out and off to direct Gone with the Wind. Victor Fleming took charge of production and got straight to work, slapping Judy Garland in the face for giggling during a take. After finishing about 80% of the movie, Fleming was called away to direct Gone with the Wind, from which Cukor was fired, marking the second time in a year Fleming took over for Cukor on one of the most famous movies ever made. 

  When Fleming left, King Vidor was brought in to finish Oz. Vidor had a tremendous career but remains largely unknown outside cinephile circles. He directed his first film in 1913 and his last in 1980; in 1979, he won an honorary Oscar for "his incomparable achievements as a cinematic creator and innovator." All that was left for Vidor to shoot were the Kansas scenes. 

  When Fleming came back to edit Oz after finishing Gone with the Wind, he found much of Vidor's work boring and cut "Over the Rainbow," worried it ruined the pacing at the beginning of the film. The song was restored when Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg, who wrote it, argued vehemently that it was the most important song in the movie. 
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  (#12) Judy Garland And Mickey Rooney Promoted The Movie With Live Song-And-Dance Routines

  MGM put Judy Garland through a brutal publicity campaign upon the release of Wizard of Oz, sending her back and forth between the East and West Coasts to appear in person at screenings in various cities. The most bizarre aspect to this marketing blitz was a three-week-long series of live routines performed before screenings in New York City. 

  During the film's initial run at Loew's Capitol Theater in Manhattan, Garland and fellow child star Mickey Rooney introduced each screening with a song-and-dance routine. This is incredibly strange for a number of reasons, among which is the fact that Rooney had nothing to do with the film.

  Garland was so exhausted from promoting Oz she eventually collapsed and required medical attention. 
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  (#13) The Munchkins Led Depraved Lives Offscreen

  MGM insisted that it wanted adult dwarfs to play the inhabitants of Munchkinland. They contracted with a man named Leo Singer who ran a vaudeville troupe known as Singer's Midgets. Singer put up most of this contingent in the Culver Hotel in Culver City, right down the street from MGM, and pocketed most of the dwarves' wages.

  Angry and bored, they reportedly engaged in orgies at the hotel, routinely pulled knives on and propositioned studio employees and starlets, and got so intoxicated that the police would sometimes have to scoop them up with butterfly nets. The Munchkins were paid less than anyone else on set Toto received better pay. 

  Jerry Maren (Lollipop Guild) was the last surviving Munchkin. He passed in May 2018 at the age of 98.
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  (#14) Terry The Dog Got A Rave Review In 'American Girl Magazine'

  Animal actors don't often get reviews, let alone raves. This is (probably) because they're animals and aren't aware they're acting.

  Yet American Girl Magazine, a publication you might not expect to contain movie reviews at all, gave Terry, who played Toto in Wizard of Oz, glowing commendation in a piece published in March 1940: 

  The hardest thing this little dog ever had to do was during the drawbridge scene in the Wizard of Oz, when she was chased by the huge Winkie guards of the Wicked Witch. Toto had to come running out of the castle and was trying to cross the drawbridge. She had almost reached the middle when the drawbridge was pulled straight up. The only safety Toto had was by clutching the edge of the bridge with her little paws and balancing herself thirty feet in the air. One of a dog’s greatest fears is the fear of falling, so it took a great deal of courage to follow her master’s orders that time.

  Terry allegedly had regular nervous breakdowns on set because of the stressful working conditions. Hopefully, American Girl Magazine's reverent ode to the dog's bravery helped ease that pain just a bit. 
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  (#9) There's A Continuity Error Involving The Wicked Witch And A Winged Monkey

  After Dorothy and her companions are rescued by Glinda in the poppy fields of Oz, the Wicked Witch is handed a cap by a Winged Monkey. The witch angrily tosses the cap aside and shrieks "Why does somebody always help that girl?!" before exiting in preparation for the "Surrender Dorothy" scene.  

  The cap came from the book version of the story in which the possessor of the Golden Cap controlled the Winged Monkeys. In an early version of the film, the Monkeys were to go to the poppy field and retrieve the slippers, but this was edited out, thus rendering the appearance of the cap meaningless. The film's creators figured that most of the viewers would not notice this continuity lapse, and they were correct. 
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  (#5) The Set Was A Workplace Injury Nightmare

  Buddy Ebsen, AKA Jed Clampett of The Beverly Hillbillies, was originally cast as the Tin Man but had to leave the film when aluminum dust from his makeup put him in an iron lung. During the Munchkinland sequence, a faulty trap door was responsible for inflicting serious burns upon Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch of the West. She missed six weeks of filming and subsequently insisted her stand-in handle any scenes involving fire.

  The stand-in, Betty Danko, was then asked to sit on a makeshift pipe that spewed smoke during the "Surrender Dorothy" scene. The pipe, fitted to look like a broomstick, exploded during filming, sending Danko to the hospital for 11 days and scarring her legs permanently. Additionally, Margaret Hamilton's copper-based makeup was so toxic and her green complexion took months to fade.  

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