The Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz mistake picture

Character mistake: When Dorothy and the others enter the Haunted forest, the sign reads "Witches Castle One Mile." "Witches" is plural. To be grammatically correct, it should have said "Witch's Castle," if one witch, or "Witches' Castle" if more than one.

Character mistake: When the munchkin soldiers first arrive, you can see that some of the munchkins in the front are not beating their chest at the same time. This also happens when the munchkins sing the "fa la la la la" song before the witch arrives. (00:24:25)

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Suggested correction: That happens in real life too with real soldiers and live performing actors as much as they try to perfect it because they're human, not machines. Unless there's a rule in the film that a munchkin has to be perfect and can't make mistakes like that, not seeing why this is a movie mistake when this is something that happens in real life.

The Wizard of Oz mistake picture

Revealing mistake: When the Wicked Witch scares the Munchkins in Munchkinland, where Dorothy lands, she disappears into a cloud of smoke she creates. But you can see her sneak down into a trap door below. [As a sidenote to this entry, Margaret Hamilton was hospitalized for severe burns after a take of this shot (not the final one used) when the stage elevator got stuck and the explosion went off.] (00:30:45)

More mistakes in The Wizard of Oz

Dorothy: How can you talk if you haven't got a brain?
Scarecrow: I don't know. But some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don't they?

More quotes from The Wizard of Oz

Trivia: The "tornado" was a thirty-five foot long muslin stocking, photographed with miniatures of a Kansas farm and fields.

rabid anarchist

More trivia for The Wizard of Oz

Question: It is implied strongly in this movie that water makes witches melt, and this is spoofed in other media. I've only ever seen this referenced to wicked witches. Does water make good witches, such as Glinda, melt too?

Answer: In all likelihood, probably not. Water is often depicted and represents purity, and cleansing. It flows smoothly, is beautiful, clear, and responsible for life on Earth. Everything the Wicked Witch is not. Where as the good Witch is pure and of a true heart. So it makes sense that something so evil and impure as the evil witch would be effected by the purest substance there is, yet not harm the good witch because she is good.

Quantom X

Answer: In the original book, water caused the wicked witches to melt away because they were so old and shriveled that all the fluid in their bodies had long since dried away. Meanwhile, the film Oz: The Great and Powerful instead implies that the Wicked Witch of the West is weak against water due to being a fire-elemental witch, which could also be the case for this incarnation, meaning it wouldn't apply to other witches like Glinda (whose element in both films appears to be ice) or even the Wicked Witch of the East (whose powers are never shown in this film, but were electricity-based in Oz the Great and Powerful).

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