Judy Garland was fondly recalled by all the Munchkin players, who enjoyed their on-set rapport with the child star between takes. In 1938, Meinhardt Raabe, who played Munchkinland’s coroner, was twenty-three and a recent University of Wisconsin graduate. At the time, Garland was mulling over her own college options—a conceivable point of discussion between the two on break from their scenes together. (By October 1, 1939, Garland had nixed higher education, saying, “I don’t see any sense in my trying to go to college. If I did and worked in pictures too, I wouldn’t have time to have any fun.”) During a personal appearance in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, in October 1941, Raabe told the Lock Haven Express of an after-hours “date” with Garland while making The Wizard of Oz, and called it “the high spot” in his life.
Back lot snapshots: LEFT: Nate Eagle, Munchkin agent, strolls the M-G-M lot with three of his stars. • RIGHT: Jakob Hofbauer readies his camera for Margaret Williams and Nita Krebs, who flank Freddy Gilman, wrangler of the Munchkinland ponies and the steeds who posed as the Horse of a Different Color.
An autographed portrait of Judy Garland is identical to those she inscribed to each of the Munchkin players, as well as to studio visitors, during the 1938–39 production of The Wizard of Oz.
The morning of December 23, 1938. Judy Garland peruses the latest issue of Life as several Munchkin players take a smoke break while awaiting a camera setup. Several papers carried an item about how the young actress was also spending her down time: “Judy Garland is busy between scenes in The Wizard of Oz knitting a tiny sweater of soft, fluffy pink wool for an electrician’s baby.” Judy was otherwise preoccupied with schoolwork and studied best with her left shoe off.
There are varying accounts concerning the purported antics of the little people, assuredly the case of a few bad eggs incurring ill repute on the bunch. Makeup artist Jack Young remembered the rabble-rousers. “The [Wizard of Oz] Christmas party was really a ball,” penned Young in his unpublished memoir. He recalled seeing two small actors “staggering down the studio street, each one clasping a bottle of champagne almost as big as they were.” In 1998, Ann Rutherford, an M-G-M contract player who played Scarlett O’Hara’s younger sister, defended the Munchkins and their alleged escapades, saying, “You get that many of anybody together, you have a few that are off-center—they give the whole bunch a bad name . . . they had such an enthusiasm because they had never encountered anything like the glamour of a studio. And they had never seen that many of their ilk.”
After The Wizard of Oz, some of the Munchkin players found related work, either locally in Los Angeles or in their hometowns. One account from January 1, 1939, said that the entire troupe would live in a complete Munchkin village at the New York World’s Fair; M-G-M was to dismantle the Munchkin set and ship it in crates, and the midgets would all travel east by train. (There was a “Little Miracle Town” at the Fair peopled by some of M-G-M’s midgets, but it did not have a known association with The Wizard of Oz.) Oakland, California’s, J.C. Penney held a “Wizard of Oz” party for schoolchildren, which was attended by some of the Singer Midgets dressed as Munchkins. Olga Nardone, the tiniest member of the Munchkin Lullaby League, made supper club appearances performing at the Blue Room in Lowell, Massachusetts, billed as “Olga the Dancing Doll from . . . The Wizard of Oz.” And Meinhardt Raabe returned to Wisconsin and made personal appearances in connection with showings of the film.“Added Attraction,” read one 1939 ad from Madison, “On Stage—In Person . . . Forty-two-inch midget, direct from his performance as the coroner in The Wizard of Oz. Hear him tell of his experiences behind the scenes in Hollywood.” Raabe gave speeches prior to the show that, by one report, kept two thousand children “speechless” and in awe.
THE ART OF TRANSFORMATION
JACK DAWN: M-G-M’S MASTER OF DISGUISE
“DAWN GETS TOUGHIES SUCH AS THE WIZARD OF OZ—A LION FACE FOR BERT LAHR, TURNING MIDGETS INTO WINGED MONKEYS, MAKING SCARECROW RAY BOLGER’S HEAD LOOK AS IF IT WERE A STRAW-STUFFED BAG BUT ABLE TO SHOW EXPRESSION. AND LET MR. BOLGER BREATHE.”
–LUCIE NEVILLE, EVERYWEEK MAGAZINE, JUNE 18, 1939
Jack Dawn, chief of M-G-M’s makeup department. To the immediate left of Dawn, on the wall, is Judy Garland’s plaster life mask. Dawn created it for The Wizard of Oz so he could experiment with foam-rubber appliances on the bridge of her nose, which, Garland claimed, dipped in too much.
MAKEUP ARTIST JACK Dawn’s early life was not as picturesque as his studio-composed M-G-M biography related, with its recollections of the bluegrass meadows of his father’s Kentucky estate and his adolescent ambitions to become a sculptor. As Dawn told it in 1939, “I ran away from home when I was thirteen . . . I was always down by the creek chipping things out of rock when I was supposed to be carrying buckets of goo to the hogs. When I didn’t feed ’em I got a whaling.” Indeed, by the time Dawn worked his way through the industry ranks to become M-G-M’s makeup department chief, he had cultivated a reputation for being a rigid disciplinarian when overseeing his young makeup apprentices. As an actor in his early career—initially as a silent movie cowboy and a Keystone Cop—Dawn applied his own makeup and that of his coworkers. When the first Makeup Artists’ Association was organized in 1926, he became its charter president.
Ordinarily, Dawn was charged with cosmetically accentuating the assets—while minimizing the flaws—of M-G-M’s leading ladies, such as Norma Shearer, Myrna Loy, and Hedy Lamarr. But as motion-picture making became more demanding and sophisticated, Dawn found himself challenged to excel in effecting realism through the use of bald caps like those in The Good Earth (1937) or facial appliances that altered actors’ appearances in Marie Antoinette (1938). However, The Wizard of Oz was Dawn’s biggest assignment at that time. Writing for the book Behind the Screen (1938), Dawn said of his method for makeup design, “Paintings in color enable me to visualize makeups before putting a finger to the human face, and I believe that whatever success I have attained is due to the fact that I am by early training and inclination an artist.”
It is believed that Margaret Hamilton’s green-complexioned Wicked Witch is the first screen character to have unnaturally tinted flesh. Max Factor created the sickly tinge by mixing copper into the makeup ingredients for its cosmetic base. Except for Ray Bolger’s eyes and mouth, his face was covered with a thin rubber mask molded like burlap on its surface to give the Scarecrow’s head the appearance of a textured bag. The edges of the mask were glued solidly to Bolger’s skin so that he could register unrestrained expressions. Back toward his ears, the makeup resembled a coarsely sewn sack with pieces of straw sticking through the seams. The silver-toned face of Tin Man Jack Haley was metallic looking but had the ability to also smile and frown, and was augmented with foam-rubber rivets, a protruding nose, and a hinged jaw-piece that moved when he talked. A bald cap concealed Haley’s scalp, which was topped with the Tin Man’s trademark funnel cap. Bert Lahr’s Cowardly Lion makeup consisted of a bald cap and wigged mane, overhanging rubber jowls with whiskers, and a broadened nose that extended into an upturned snout.
ADRIAN BEHIND THE SEAMS
ADRIAN ADOLPH GREENBERG— known in the film industry as Adrian—was M-G-M’s top costume designer from 1928 to 1941. During his tenure, Adrian attired Metro’s most popular leading ladies, including Greta Garbo, Norma Shearer, Jean Harlow, Myrna Loy, and Jeanette MacDonald. He was the couturier of choice for Joan Crawford and started a fashion trend by adding shoulder pads to the actress’s wardrobe. Adrian was delighted to be assigned to The Wizard of Oz, as the story had been his boyhood favorite.
The sheer fantasy of The Wizard of Oz was also a welcome diversion from designing historical costumes for period pictures such as Romeo and Juliet (1936) and Marie Antoinette (1938). In its 1939 publicity for The Wizard of Oz, M-G-M noted, “Adrian reports that designing for the picture was the greatest fun he has ever had in film work. He could let his imagination run free since there were no formulas, no restrictions.” In particular, Adrian was most
taken with the creative challenge of dressing the Munchkins, and the designer’s efforts proved noteworthy. An unnamed reporter, writing for Stage magazine’s May 1, 1939, issue, concluded after visiting the set that the Munchkins were “the most utterly enchanting” of the entire cast, “with their doll faces, their plastered hair that looked as though it had been painted on their heads, the little felt flowers that grew out of their shoes, [and] the bells that jingled from their sleeves.”
ABOVE: An extravagant military design that did not end up being featured in the film was that of the Munchkin commander of the navy, here modeled by John “Johnny” Winters. • BELOW: Adrian’s wardrobe sketches for Munchkins include the commander of the navy (second from left) and the drummer of the Munchkinland army (far right), which was ultimately not used in The Wizard of Oz.
FLY! FLY! FLY!
CERTAIN SUPPORTING PLAYERS among The Wizard of Oz cast may go unnoticed, except perhaps by the most eagle-eyed of viewers. In keeping with Baum’s description that “birds of rare and brilliant plumage sang and fluttered in the trees and bushes,” the motion picture’s Land of Oz is populated by a number of exotic birds. At an estimated value of $15,000, the studio rented the birds from the Los Angeles Zoo, which, according to publicity, “represented ninety-eight species from four continents,” although this is an exaggeration. The group included a South American toucan, golden pheasants, and African and Saurus cranes—one of which spreads its wings in the background during a chorus of “We’re Off to See the Wizard,” giving rise to the urban legend that the motion is a suicide-hanging in progress. The rare birds were handled by bird wrangler Bill Richards.
A raven named Jimmy, owned and trained by Curley Twiford, makes his appearance in the Scarecrow’s cornfield. (Jimmy was originally discovered by Twiford as a half-starved chick in the Mojave Desert.) Jimmy’s first day of filming was November 4, 1938; the setup was for him to perch on Ray Bolger’s shoulder, peck a piece of straw loose from Bolger’s tunic, and fly back to Twiford off camera. According to script clerk Wallace Worsley, Jimmy “was controlled by a black thread so that if he flew too far from Bolger’s shoulder, Curley, hiding in the cornfield, could retrieve him.” After several successful takes, the thread broke and the liberated raven flew up into the rafters fifty feet over the set. That was at two in the afternoon, as Worsley recollected, and by five, the company went home, having been entertained to the point of hysterics at the sight of Twiford up in the rafters coaxing and cajoling an uncooperative Jimmy. (Jimmy was finally captured at midnight!) This memorable incident no doubt inspired Ray Bolger to gift Judy Garland with a copy of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven that Christmas.
Outside of the fantasy scenes in the Land of Oz, the Kansas farm set called for a roosting hen and other assorted poultry. According to an anonymous 1939 notice in The San Antonio (Texas) Light, one such chicken “took a fancy to Jack Haley and insisted on being in every shot with the actor.” Judy Garland was said to have adopted another as a pet.
To augment the avian atmosphere, Boxoffice magazine reported, on April 15, 1939, that an M-G-M sound crew had just returned from a trip to Catalina Island, having recorded fifteen thousand feet of tape of assorted bird songs to blend with the film’s sound track.
THE LAND(SCAPE) OF OZ
“SO THEY GAVE US A SCRIPT IN WHICH A LITTLE GIRL FROM KANSAS LIVES A GREAT ADVENTURE IN A COUNTRY OF HER OWN IMAGINATION. BUT NEITHER IN THE SCRIPT NOR IN THE ORIGINAL BOOK WAS THERE ANY DESCRIPTION TO INDICATE ALONG WHAT LINES HER IMAGINATION MIGHT BUILD SUCH A COUNTRY! WHICH LEFT US, FIRST OF ALL, TO DO SOME IMAGINING OURSELVES!”
–CEDRIC GIBBONS, M-G-M ART DEPARTMENT CHIEF
IN THE LATE 1930s, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s filmmaking resources were unmatched. If the best wasn’t to be found on the lot, it was outsourced or imported, including script doctors, scenarists, and song composers. Many of the artisans and craftsmen involved with set design, scenic backdrops, and set dressing came from theatrical backgrounds, and most referred to The Wizard of Oz, among other Metro musicals, as a “show.”
At its peak, and as touted by Screen Guide magazine in 1939, not only was M-G-M home of the reigning movie stars of the day, but its property also covered 117 acres, housed 135 buildings, and employed more than 4,500 people. Its lot included a reservoir and underwater tank, a railroad station, a park and zoo, and modern houses and streets to create the realism of, for example, Mickey Rooney’s Andy Hardy pictures. Metro’s arts and crafts departments encompassed a lumber mill and carpentry shop, a plaster shop, warehouses, music buildings and rehearsal halls, costume and makeup departments, and thirty soundstages. (So vast was M-G-M’s inventory of antiquities, furniture, automobiles, equipment, miniatures, boats, and wardrobe that its liquidation in a highly publicized 1970 auction ran the course of nearly three weeks.) If any of the prominent studios could do The Wizard of Oz justice, it was Metro.
M-G-M was proficient in constructing whatever environment a film scenario called for. Often, its back-lot streets, storefronts, and houses doubled for any variety of on-screen locales. But The Wizard of Oz was totally unique in that respect: there were no fantasy facades that could be recycled.
Despite its farm, forests, and poppy field, The Wizard of Oz was filmed entirely indoors on soundstages. (During preproduction, a suitably Kansas-like farm was identified fifty miles from the studio, but the idea of a location shoot was tabled when it was figured out that the three-hour-and-twenty-minute round-trip left Judy Garland with only forty minutes of work time after schooling and recreation.) The only hint of authentic exterior footage is the streaming cloud montage over which the main titles are printed. The construction blueprints were laboriously detailed, from the Kansas farmhouse, purposely distressed to look “heavily aged and weathered with paint blistered,” to Munchkinland, with its pavilion and pond, civic center, gatehouse, town hall, rows of huts, and stream.
The Emerald City’s architecture was designed in the elegant art moderne style of the futuristic metropolises seen in Things to Come (1936) and Lost Horizon (1937). Other sets were deceptively simplistic: Set #23 was constructed just for costume and makeup tests, and another, for “Good Witch in Sky,” consisted of a black velvet scrim, a two-foot-square black velvet platform upon which Billie Burke would perch, and a fan to simulate a breeze—all for the brief, superimposed shots of Glinda summoning a snow shower to squelch the poppies’ poisonous aroma. A miniature set of the Wicked Witch’s Jitter Forest (unused in the final cut), with trees six feet tall rather than twelve feet, as on the full-scale set, included a backdrop with the Emerald City and its ethereal halos visible in the distance.
Dorothy’s farmhouse was intended to evoke a Depression-era setting typical of the 1930s. Here, note the Gale family name on the mailbox; a distant neighboring farm; and Miss Gulch’s bicycle, parked for the moment. Though the slate indicates Victor Fleming’s directorship, the Kansas scenes were overseen by King Vidor in February 1939, after Fleming departed to take over Gone with the Wind. While filming farm scenes for Summer Stock in December 1948, Judy Garland told reporter Harrison Carroll that the only other farm she ever knew anything about was the one in The Wizard of Oz.
Fifty-six-year-old actress Sarah Padden made a screen test as Aunt Em, January 3, 1939. She modeled at least two different aprons and posed for reference stills. The part of Aunt Em was ultimately assigned to Clara Blandick.
Hollywood columnist Merle Potter visits with Margaret Hamilton and Charley Grapewin, in character as Almira Gulch and Uncle Henry, respectively. According to an August 8, 1938, account, Grapewin had appeared in a road show company of the early stage musical of The Wizard of Oz.
A November 9, 1938, reference still of the Apple Orchard (below) reveals far more of the left edge of the set than is seen in the film (above). The talking apple trees were made of rubber and animated by men from within.
During a break in filming on the Apple Orchard set, bird wrangler Bill Richards (far left) steadies the stork whose on-screen motions have
given rise to rumors of a mysterious suicide in the background. (The time lapse of the camera shutter speed when taking such stills occasionally resulted in random instances of double exposure, capturing studio personnel in motion.)
The Apple Orchard set extended to include the Tin Man’s cottage.
The poppy field was said to cover more than an acre and a half on one of M-G-M’s largest soundstages. A poppy prototype was drafted in blueprint and then re-created by the thousands over a three-month period. The artificial flowers were described in 1939 as being “dusty rose in color.” Installing the poppies individually by hand took a week, but the end result was that of a veritable sea of blossoms.
IT WAS DETERMINED early on that the Kansas scenes, which bookend the adventures in the Land of Oz, would adhere to L. Frank Baum’s description—and illustrator W. W. Denslow’s accompanying pictures—as barren and drab. Those opening and closing scenes were shot in what was then called “Technicolor black and white,” standard black-and-white film processed and printed in monochromatic amber and brown tones. An accidental stain of chemical salt on celluloid gave John Nickolaus, head of M-G-M’s film lab, the idea for the specialized toning of sepia, platinum, and pastel tints first used on The Good Earth (1937) and The Girl of the Golden West (1938). It was an enhanced form of presentation familiar to most Americans in the 1930s through pictorial layouts in magazines and newspaper supplements (called rotogravures) tinted in sepia shades. For practical purposes, this coloring also allowed for the use of a single Technicolor camera for the transition from Kansas to the Land of Oz, whereby Judy Garland’s double (wearing a sepia-tinted costume) matched the monotone hues of the scenery when she and Judy, fully ready for Technicolor photography, quickly switched position off-screen as film rolled. This eliminated the need for a cutaway shot, a double exposure, a lap dissolve, or hand-coloring individual frames to achieve the effect.
The Wizard of Oz: The Official 75th Anniversary Companion Page 6