The Wizard of Oz

Continuity mistake: When Scarecrow, Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion are marching into the Wicked Witch's castle after taking the guards' uniforms, all three of them are shown holding the same types of spears as the guards, so when they go rescue Dorothy out of the locked room and Tin Man chops through the door with his axe, where did the axe come from? (01:22:50)

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Suggested correction: I'm 63 years old and still watch The Wizard of Oz. If I remember correctly, the axe was taken off a nearby wall.

There is no scene of him taking the axe off the wall, nor is there any axe seen on any of the walls. Plus, it's the same axe he had the whole time. But the 3 also take off their coats/disguises while the camera is on Dorothy and it's possible he had the axe tucked away in the coat.

Bishop73

In the books, the Tin Man always has his axe and he uses it often. Perhaps it is the same in the movie.

Visible crew/equipment: As the talking trees throw their apples at Dorothy and the Scarecrow, look closely at the upper right hand side of the screen. An off camera crew member is shaking one of the trees back and forth as all of the others stand motionless. (00:40:20)

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Suggested correction: The tree is indeed shaking, but no crew member is visible.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: When the Tin Man is attacked by six flying monkeys they take away his axe. Several seconds later he has it again. (01:15:20)

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Suggested correction: The "several seconds later" between his axe being taken and him having it back is a 25-second scene of the Scarecrow being pulled apart, and Dorothy and Toto being taken away. There was plenty of time for the Tin Man to retrieve his axe. Also, when we see the Tin Man with his axe again, there are still many flying monkeys on the ground, so it's possible that the flying monkey who took his axe didn't just immediately fly away with it.

zenee

Continuity mistake: As the Cowardly Lion chases him, Toto runs off the Yellow Brick road into the bushes twice. (00:50:15)

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Suggested correction: He only runs into the bushes one time.

zenee

Audio problem: When Dorothy and the Scarecrow find the apple trees she says, "Oh, look, apples." The overdub is wrong, if you look closely at her mouth when she turns around toward the camera, she's actually not saying anything. (00:39:20)

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Suggested correction: Her mouth does move, and she actually says, "Oh, apples! Oh, look!"

zenee

Audio problem: Inside the Emerald City Dorothy says "Can you even dye my eyes to match my gown?" Both the girl on the left and right reply but you only hear one voice speak. (01:01:35)

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Suggested correction: Only the lady on the right replies.

zenee

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.

Revealing mistake: As the Wicked Witch throws the hour glass down at them the stone statue on the left of the monkey is shaking. (01:24:45)

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Suggested correction: It's the monkey that is shaking, not the statue.

zenee

Continuity mistake: As Dorothy and the Scarecrow dance off and sing, "We're off to see the Wizard" the flowers that were on the fencepost have been removed. The stepladder by the fence has also been moved without being touched. (00:38:55)

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Suggested correction: The flowers are still there.

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Suggested correction: I have the scene up right now, and the nail on the pole just looks like... a huge nail. Then Dorothy bends it, and the Scarecrow falls off. I'm not denying that it's a lever, because it's entirely possible that it is. The thing is, there is nothing in the scene that indicates that it absolutely has to be a lever, and it can't be a nail at all.

zenee

Audio problem: As they all stand at the door to Oz, Dorothy reaches for the knocker and we hear the overdubbed knocking sound before she touches it. (00:58:45)

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Suggested correction: The sound we hear before she starts knocking is of her grabbing the knocker, and it is right on time with when she grabs it. There is no audio mistake.

zenee

Plot hole: When the Gales' house lands in Munchkinland, Dorothy picks up Toto and glances around the house. She looks right out the window. Wouldn't she have noticed that she wasn't in Kansas then, before she got to the door? (00:19:05)

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Suggested correction: She might have noticed that she wasn't in Kansas, then went to the door to investigate. Just because she didn't mention it by word or walk up to the window doesn't mean she didn't notice. Also, Dorothy never picks up Toto; she is already holding him when the house lands.

zenee

Other mistake: When Dorothy's house is falling back to Kansas, just before it lands, there is about a 1 or 2 second shot of what looks like production notes written in blue ink.

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Suggested correction: There are no production notes visible anywhere.

zenee

Revealing mistake: When they first meet the Cowardly Lion, he jumps off of a boulder and obviously lands on a trampoline and jumps off.

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Suggested correction: There is no trampoline visible. Sure, there is most definitely something he jumps off that is hidden behind the plants, but since we don't actually see it on screen, I don't see how it's a mistake.

zenee

Revealing mistake: Right after Dorothy slaps the lion, there is a green smudge on her arm. Looks like the witch's makeup. (00:50:35)

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Suggested correction: There is no "green smudge" on her arm. Perhaps this is referring to the blue mark that appears on her arm as she talks to the lion? Because I'm not seeing anything on her arm that is green.

zenee

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
More trivia for The Wizard of Oz

Question: Did Dorothy really go to Oz or was it a dream? Because, in return to Oz at the end, she sees Ozma (the good witch in her mirror) or was that just her imagination/a dream too?

Answer: In the film it's left ambiguous. At the end it's strongly implied that she was dreaming. The characters she meets all look like people she actually knows. In the original book, she actually went to Oz.

Answer: Return to Oz was not a direct sequel to the 1939 film. One was developed by Disney and the other by MGM. Return to Oz is actually an adaptation-fusion of the second and third Oz books, that contains elements from the 1939 film (like the Ruby slippers and the Oz/Kansas counterparts) because that's what people are most familiar.

More questions & answers from The Wizard of Oz

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