The Wizard of Oz: The Official 75th Anniversary Companion

by William Stillman

  In his 1939 article about the song’s genesis, “The Story Behind a Hit: Tune Makes Top Quickly,” journalist Walker Corbett wrote, “It’s pretty difficult not to hear it. Every band plays it. Every vocalist sings it. It’s as solid a hit as the season has produced . . . and the singer [who introduced it] is cute, lovely, serious little Judy Garland, who sings it better than anyone else ever will!” (Corbett’s proclamation would prove prophetic, at least in the eyes of the legions of Garland worshippers.)

  There were critics, though, who hadn’t yet assimilated “Over the Rainbow” well enough to appreciate it fully. As Mervyn LeRoy noted in his 1974 autobiography, “[I]t always takes a private ear several hearings before it appreciates a ballad . . . I had had the benefit of hearing [‘Rainbow’] often.” Following the film’s premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, journalist Harrison Carroll found Dorothy’s song number in the prologue objectionable for causing “a needless delay in the story.” Another critic suggested, “Dorothy’s first song should have been eliminated.” Robbin Coons, of the Associated Press, agreed, writing, “The picture could have been speeded more at its beginnings, especially by the elimination of Judy’s first song.” But by September 1940, Coons changed his opinion: “My own record for picking hit tunes is about zero-zero-zero. I do better on horses.” At the time of this quote, Coons was interviewing director-composer Mark Sandrich about song selection for motion pictures. Sandrich openly speculated on the crapshoot politics of pleasing the public, saying, “Remember ‘Over the Rainbow’—how they almost left it out of The Wizard of Oz? But who can guess what the public will like?”

  July 20, 1943: Judy Garland performs “Over the Rainbow” for troops stationed at Fort Indiantown Gap Military Reservation outside Lebanon, Pennsylvania. In 1990, Martha M. Reilly, who worked at the base’s Post Exchange store, told the Lebanon Daily News that Judy was “very, very nervous, but when she sang, you forgot all about her anxiety . . . Bad nerves or not, she was superb . . . So I can brag that I once heard Judy Garland—live and in person—sing ‘Over the Rainbow.’”

  That “Over the Rainbow” almost didn’t make the final cut of The Wizard of Oz is one of the greatest near-misses in cinema history. In 1966, LeRoy recounted:

  We previewed the picture in San Bernardino, and after the preview we all came out, stood out front, you know how you do after the preview. Two or three studio heads said we gotta take out “Over the Rainbow” because who would sing in a farmyard, and I said [likely paraphrasing an expletive-laden rant], “Who would be a munchin’ Munchkin in Munchkinland?” So, I had to fight and fight, and I almost had to get on my knees to L. B. Mayer, to let me leave in “Over the Rainbow,” which turned out to be one of the greatest hits of all time, a great classic.

  PART 3 - IF EVER A WIZ THERE WAS: “THE WIZARD OF OZ” RETURNS TO STAY

  THE 1949 RERELEASE

  “I TOOK MY LITTLE GIRL TO THE WIZARD OF OZ AND SHE HAD NIGHTMARES FOR WEEKS.”

  –ACTOR GENE KELLY, 1949

  BEGINNING IN THE spring of 1943 and continuing into the summer of 1945, veteran Hollywood correspondent Jimmie Fidler began a public campaign to revive The Wizard of Oz, advocating on behalf of “dozens of kids” who’d requested a reissue of the film, and who, in Fidler’s words, “comprise at least 50 percent of the habitual movie patrons.” On July 13, 1944, he listed the film among his choices to be rescreened in honor of M-G-M’s twentieth anniversary, and in one of his later columns he cited The Wizard of Oz as “undoubtedly the best kids’ picture ever filmed.” Fidler wasn’t alone in his efforts.

  Rival Tinseltown reporter Hedda Hopper took up the crusade on her own in October 1946, writing, “My campaign to have The Wizard of Oz rereleased has borne fruit. As soon as Metro can get enough Technicolor prints, it’ll be put back on the screen.” A month prior, Hopper questioned why The Wizard of Oz was not among other upcoming M-G-M reissues. Hopper followed up twice more in 1947 and again on February 26, 1948, when she reported, “Philadelphia Story is being reissued, but not The Wizard of Oz, which the fans are clamoring for. Metro can’t get enough Technicolor prints for the latter.” The Wizard of Oz’s official release schedule ran from 1939 to 1942—too close for a mid-1940s comeback. Stall tactics notwithstanding, the circumstances regarding the number of print copies are unclear. However, any discrepancy over the number of The Wizard of Oz prints in the US may be attributed to most copies circulating in foreign countries, where the film was only just debuting after World War II.

  Hopper reiterated the appeal for a rerelease in November 1948, writing, “Letters are pouring into my desk from parents urging me to beg Metro to reissue The Wizard of Oz again over the holidays.” Hopper’s impetus was, in part, personal, as she was a staunch supporter of Judy Garland. And in addition to having made a cameo in 1939’s The Women, Hopper also had a bit part as an extra among the Ozites in the Emerald City, according to makeup artist Charles Schram. The collective fan campaign worked: it was announced that The Wizard of Oz would be reissued for postwar audiences and a new generation of youth. The ads proclaimed: “The Wonder Show for the Whole Family!”

  Metro promoted The Wizard of Oz as the “most requested” of its hits from years past. In her March 26, 1949, column, Hopper reported, “For years I’ve been urging Metro to reissue The Wizard of Oz. Now they’ll do it—at Easter time. The studio will take advantage of three of their stars—Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, and Jack Haley—each of whom is starring in his own play on Broadway. In The Wizard of Oz you’ll see Judy Garland at her tip-top, singing that haunting melody ‘Over the Rainbow.’” Fidler’s efforts were also appeased. He wrote, “Better make it a point to tell parents who have been bewailing the dearth of pictures ‘ideal for kid audiences’ that M-G-M is giving them a real break by reissuing [one] of the greatest juvenile favorites of screen history—The Wizard of Oz . . . ”

  A test booking of The Wizard of Oz launched on April 16, 1949, at New York’s Mayfair Theatre, and was incredibly successful. Advance screenings of the film, called trade shows, were held for theatre owners in thirty-one major cities on May 19, 1949. Once the picture released nationally the following July 1, box-office returns for “M-G-M re-presents The Wizard of Oz” were such that the film earned back its original costs not recouped in 1939. (By example, in mid-September 1939, Loew’s resident manager, Sam Shurman, had encouraged theatre owners to establish “a minimum children’s price of 25 cents for all performances on this picture” in order to protect the film’s expected revenue over the usual 10-cent juvenile tickets, and those patrons who sat through more than one show.) But in 1949, The Wizard of Oz received publicity and promotion on par with a new debut, and it nabbed rave reviews all over again, including mentions in Time and Rotarian. Journalist Wood Soanes suggested that The Wizard of Oz could very well be an entry for an Academy Award® in the 1949 lists.

  The picture’s assorted terrors also withstood the test of time and even gained potency. Reporter Marjorie Turner wrote of how “frighteningly real” it was: “Indeed, at one point the rear of the theatre was crowded with tots who refused to sit cooped up in a theatre seat while the Wicked Witch got her comeuppance, or the trees talked and clutched, or the Wizard [of Oz] bellowed through sheets of fire and smoke.”

  By the end of 1950, CBS’s Lux Radio Theatre announced a dramatization of The Wizard of Oz as a seasonal treat for Christmas that year with a special twist. “Judy Garland re-creates one of her most memorable screen roles,” read the December 18 press release. “She plays Dorothy, who is whisked by a tornado into the faraway Land of Oz . . . Musical highlights of the movie, including ‘Over the Rainbow,’ will be featured in the holiday presentation.” The Associated Press’s Bob Thomas announced that Garland had adopted a “show must go on” attitude, despite her separation from her husband Vincente Minnelli, which was made official earlier that month. The show, broadcast live from the CBS Studio on North Vine Street in Hollywood, was an abridged version of the M-G-M screenplay. It aired, minus any other or
iginal cast members, on Monday, December 25, 1950, from 6 to 7 P.M., with doors closed at 5:50 and no children under twelve admitted.

  Coinciding with the 1949 rerelease, M-G-M Records issued a newly packaged set of The Wizard of Oz movie songs. A merchants’ display poster advertised the recordings.

  An unusual one-sheet poster for the 1949 rerelease does double duty in promoting the recent stage successes of Judy Garland’s costars.

  JUDY GARLAND COMES OF AGE

  “THAT ENTIRE PRODUCTION IS PRECIOUS TO ME. IT AROUSED MY IMAGINATION AND IT ALL SEEMED LIKE A FAIRY DREAM COME TRUE.”

  –JUDY GARLAND, REFLECTING ON THE WIZARD OF OZ IN 1952

  IN THE YEARS following The Wizard of Oz, Judy Garland attained “glamour girl” status in wartime pictures like For Me and My Gal (1942) and Presenting Lily Mars (1943). But, as she told journalist Robbin Coons, her new allure came at a cost that made her wistful for earlier times: “It used to be I could run into the wardrobe department, try on a gingham frock, and that was that. Now it’s hours of fittings. And two hours earlier in makeup . . . I guess I never really appreciated those pigtail parts.” Even as she grew into more mature roles, however, Garland remained loyal to the film that established her as a household name and realized a girlhood wish. “The Wizard of Oz was always my favorite story,” Garland recollected in October 1940, “but I never dreamed that I would ever be lucky enough to go through all of the experiences that Dorothy had, to see the Emerald City, the Land of the Munchkins, the Winged Monkeys, and all the rest. It is certainly a funny world, isn’t it?”

  Within a decade after The Wizard of Oz, Garland had come into her own as an incomparable screen talent and leading lady, winning top box-office status and worldwide acclaim. At the time of the 1949 revival of The Wizard of Oz, her greatest hit of all had been Meet Me in St. Louis in 1944, and the revamped campaign prominently featured portraits of the adult Garland in her St. Louis role. During production of Meet Me in St. Louis, the media was all too eager to draw parallels between Garland’s parts in both films: “Judy Garland Plays a Little Girl Again,” read one headline. As relayed from the St. Louis set: “When the star reported for makeup tests, everyone who saw her agreed that winsome Dorothy of The Wizard of Oz was back. As Esther Smith . . . Judy wears almost an exact duplicate of the hairdress she wore in her Academy Award® portrayal of Dorothy. Drawn back from the temples and anchored on top with a barrette.”

  The 41x81–inch three-sheet poster for the 1949 reissue of The Wizard of Oz pictures Garland in her role as Esther Smith from M-G-M’s hit Meet Me in St. Louis.

  THE 1955 RERELEASE

  “JUDY AND JOY! NOTHING TO EQUAL THE JOYOUSNESS, THE EYE-FILLING SCENES, THE MUSIC AND THE HAPPINESS OF M-G-M’S GLORY ENTERTAINMENT IN TECHNICOLOR!”

  –HANDBILL FOR THE 1955 RERELEASE OF THE WIZARD OF OZ

  WALT DISNEY’S animated features were popularly rereleased every seven to ten years, and M-G-M might have done well to follow a similar schedule with The Wizard of Oz. Instead, Metro brought The Wizard of Oz back again in 1955, though the 1949 reissue had only wrapped its show dates in 1951. Broadway columnist Dorothy Kilgallen inferred that M-G-M was seizing the opportunity to profit after the rerelease of another oldie-but-goodie, Greta Garbo’s Camille (1936), broke attendance records at New York’s Normandie Theatre.

  Sixteen years after its initial release, The Wizard of Oz—and Garland’s performance, in particular—still entranced audiences (especially children), as exemplified in an anecdote shared by the Hollywood branch of the Newspaper Enterprise Association:

  A “reader” writes: “Thought maybe you’d like an outside Hollywood picture of what happens when Judy Garland sings. My four-year-old blond is slightly cold-blooded. The only sentiment she has ever shown has been for Davy Crockett, a Davy Crockett rifle, and a galloping horse at the pony track, which almost parts her head from her shoulders.

  “I took her to see The Wizard of Oz. Judy’s ‘Over the Rainbow’ song was less than a minute old when she started sobbing—tears running down her cheeks. I still don’t believe it—but I saw it. Is it genius or hypnotism?”

  It’s genius, ma’am.

  The 1955 theatrical outing of “An M-G-M Masterpiece Reprint” for The Wizard of Oz proved less lucrative than the 1949 rerelease. The following year, however, The Wizard of Oz began its second career via a venue that was in its infancy at the time the film was conceived: television.

  The 1955 window card poster for The Wizard of Oz. At the time of the 1955 The Wizard of Oz rerelease, Judy Garland was enjoying a film career comeback for her role in A Star Is Born the previous year. Ads prominently featured the adult Garland and promoted the picture as her greatest ever.

  OZ RIGHT AT HOME

  “IN FACT, THEY COULDN’T HAVE PICKED A GRANDER SHOW THAN [THE WIZARD OF] OZ, WHICH DEFIES BOTH TIME AND THE DIMINUTION TO HOME SCREEN SIZE.”

  –DAILY VARIETY’S NOVEMBER 7, 1956, REVIEW OF THE FIRST TELEVISION BROADCAST OF THE WIZARD OF OZ

  THE BURGEONING MEDIUM of television (color TV, in fact) brought The Wizard of Oz to national prominence once more, when M-G-M leased its film property to CBS Television for the Ford Star Jubilee program. CBS purchased the TV rights to the film for $200,000, and advised new color TV owners to expect the initial scenes of the picture to be in black and white “so they won’t think something is wrong with their set.”

  The showing of The Wizard of Oz, which aired on November 3, 1956, started at 9 P.M., and—because it was padded to fill a two-hour time slot—ended well past the average youngster’s bedtime. Newspaper ads gave parents fair notice: “Let the kids stay up with the entire family to watch the first television broadcast of the brilliant musical fairy tale set in the enchanted Land of Oz.” Despite the movie’s concluding at 11 P.M. (fortunately it wasn’t a school night), forty-five million viewers tuned in.

  Concurrent with the 1956 broadcast, M-G-M Records released a pared-down edit of The Wizard of Oz sound track (any mention of the Ruby Slippers is absent, as is the “Merry Old Land of Oz” number) as a 33-1/3 LP and as a boxed set of 45s. The album proved to be a hit, and for Christmas 1961 it sold more than one hundred thousand copies as a Duncan Hines premium through Procter & Gamble. The record was later issued as a Pepsi-Cola tie-in, and an edition was sold in Great Britain as well. The original cast album got a makeover in 1962 with new cover art, a gatefold jacket, and revised liner notes to attract the new generation of fans who discovered the film on TV. In 2006, the sound track album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, spurred, no doubt, by fond baby-boomer recollections of reliving the film’s most magical moments via its recording.

  Commencing with its second telecast in 1959, The Wizard of Oz became a traditional television special that endeared itself to millions of viewers with each airing. That The Wizard of Oz not only survived but thrived as it was discovered by a new generation did not go unnoticed. Journalist William E. Sarmento articulated the essence of the picture’s staying power:

  Everything is right with the world once more. Well, at least it seems that way after viewing for the umpteenth time Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, and Bert Lahr following the Yellow Brick Road to see the Wizard of Oz. Maybe Congress could pass some sort of law that would compel the CBS network to show this classic film every holiday season forever . . . Just when one is about to give up hope on television, something comes along like The Wizard of Oz that makes you feel that all is not lost. I’m sure that many parents remember toddling into one of the downtown theatres some twenty-odd years ago to see little Dorothy fly over the rainbow. It must be a real kick for these same grown ups to sit with their children in front of the television set and make that magical journey all over again . . . I’m sure you join with me in a sincere plea to the powers that be to keep Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion together, singing and dancing into the hearts of all of us through all the years to come.

  PART 4 - LOOKING FOR OUR HEART’S DESIRE: FOREVER OZ
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br />   “THERE’S A PHILOSOPHY IN THE WIZARD OF OZ THAT SPEAKS TO ALL OF US. EVERYONE HAS A HEART, A BRAIN, AND COURAGE. IF USED PROPERLY, THEY LEAD TO THE POT OF GOLD AT THE END OF THE RAINBOW. THE GOLD, WHEN FOUND, IS THOSE PEOPLE WHO LOVE YOU.”

  –RAY BOLGER

  Long after their famous journey down the Yellow Brick Road together, Garland and Bolger remained friends and reunited to reminisce on Garland’s weekly TV show in 1963.

  JUDY GARLAND’S UNTIMELY passing at age forty-seven, in June 1969, caused a shift in status for The Wizard of Oz. Judy’s life had frequently been portrayed as tragic, and her death gave greater pathos to Dorothy and “Over the Rainbow.” (Like her paternal muse, L. Frank Baum, Garland died within her birthday month.) For the next airing of The Wizard of Oz in March 1970, corporate sponsor the Singer Company—of sewing machine fame—pulled out all the stops in honoring Garland’s legacy. Mervyn LeRoy was tapped to direct actor Gregory Peck, then-president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, for a one-minute tribute to Garland that would introduce the film; a regrettable concession was that LeRoy was compelled to excise sixty seconds from The Wizard of Oz to make up the time difference and not sacrifice valuable commercial advertising. Margaret Hamilton, Jack Haley, and Ray Bolger reunited to reflect on their roles, the film’s impact, and their relationships with Garland in interviews and a photo shoot specifically for this “special encore telecast.”

  Mervyn LeRoy and Gregory Peck peruse a copy of The Wizard of Oz, 1970.