Directed by: Victor Fleming
Starring: Frank Morgan, Judy Garland, Billie Burke, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Jack Haley, Margaret Hamilton
Revealing mistake: During some scenes, straw-stuffed Scarecrow's pant legs and his boots would sometimes have a gap that reveals the skin of Ray Bolger's leg. Two examples are, at Emerald City when Scarecrow places Lion's "cape" on him, and also when Dorothy and her friends are told the Wizard says to go away. (01:05:50 - 01:07:25)
Continuity mistake: When Dorothy slaps Lion on the nose for chasing Toto and shouts, "Shame on you!" in the wide shot, we see Dorothy's right arm with no mark on her skin. It then cuts to the medium shots, and there's an inexplicable long, thin blue mark (it's not a loose thread) on Dorothy's arm near her elbow, while she's holding Toto. This blue mark vanishes in the wide shot when she puts Toto down, and Lion begins to sing. (00:50:25)
Continuity mistake: While Dorothy, Tin Man, and Scarecrow are walking in the dark and creepy forest, just as Dorothy begins to sing "Lions and Tigers and Bears" in the medium shot, Tin Man is holding up the axe in his left hand. But it cuts to the long shot, and the axe is in Tin Man's right hand between shots. (00:48:40)
Trivia: Professor Marvel, the Cabbie, the doorman, the guard, and the wizard himself are all the same actor, Frank Morgan.
Trivia: "Over the Rainbow", which the American Film Institute recently named the greatest movie song of all time, was nearly cut from the film.
Trivia: The "tornado" was a thirty-five foot long muslin stocking, photographed with miniatures of a Kansas farm and fields.
Dorothy: There's no place like home.
Wicked Witch: Ohhh... You cursed brat! Look what you've DONE! I'm melting! Melting! Oh... What a world, what a world! Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness?!
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 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).
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.
Question: At the very end of the movie after Dorothy says "Oh, Auntie Em, there's no place like home," normally, it fades out to the credits, but once - and only once - when I was very young, I thought I remembered seeing the camera pan away from her face and down to the foot of the bed where you see the ruby slippers tucked underneath the bed, then a fade to the credits. It is obviously a black-and-white shot, but there were the glittering shoes. Has anyone else seen this version of the ending?
Answer: Another fine example of the Mandela Effect. None of the "making of" books reference this alternate ending. The original book ends with Dorothy losing the slippers on her journey back to Kansas.
I also remember this scene; however, I remember it in a television movie, and it was at the beginning, not the end, of an entirely different movie.
Chosen answer: Yes. I'm sure I've seen that version. It shows that Dorothy didn't just dream about Oz and makes for a more satisfying conclusion. This version was original but edited out because it didn't follow the book's storyline for "Return to Oz" and the other long series of Oz books. The sequel pertains that she loses the slippers in transit back to her home and falls to the gnome king who destroys Oz which in turn causes Dorothy to return. So seeing the slippers at the end of the bed, while more satisfying, wouldn't really stay true to the Oz series.
I absolutely remember that version with the shoes at her bedside, but nobody I know remembers it.
Thank you! I remember that too but everyone I know thinks I'm nuts.
I remember that version and after that I expected to see the same ending but no I never saw that ending again. I got the response that no-one I know saw that ending of the movie where the ruby slippers being on her feet in her bed. Thank you for that answer. This was a long time mystery.
I absolutely remember that scene.
I remember that too - and I've asked so many people and they said no, I must have dreamed it. Thank you.
I saw that version once when I was a little kid too! I remember it vividly. Now I know I'm not crazy.
Answer: This seems to be one of those mass examples of people remembering something that never happened. There are also other variations, like people claiming to remember the film switching to color as the shot pans down to her slipper-clad feet, or the slippers being in color against the sepia-toned B&W footage. But sadly, it seems no officially released version of the film has had such an ending. It's similar to how everyone thinks Darth Vader says "Luke, I am your father," or how everyone thinks Humphrey Bogart says "Play it again, Sam!", even though neither of those lines are real, and people are merely incorrectly remembering them. The film is so ingrained in pop-culture, that people think they know it forwards-and-back, and false memories are created.
I agree that people think they remember things that never happened, but usually for things like this, remembering a scene wrong misquoting a movie lines, it comes from parody versions and people are (correctly) remembering the parody. I've never seen "Silence of the Lambs", but I know the line "Hello, Clarice" from films like "Cable Guy" and not from a false memory of the film.
Answer: https://criticsrant.com/mythbusters-dorothys-ruby-slippers/ This website gives some confirmation it's one of those myths that spread around and get mixed up in people's memories to being convinced they have seen it despite no evidence of it existing. In a film as big as the Wizard of Oz where die hard fans have collected original scripts, notes, and "lost" imagery over the years; we certainly would have something to back this up other than eye witness memory. Especially if it supposedly made it to the final print for viewing audiences as the original Wizard of Oz footage has been carefully preserved, as it's considered one of the most important films of all time. This footage wouldn't be completely lost if it made it to final showing print. Surely somebody would have posted it by now on YouTube. It is possible somebody made a skit or parody of this though contributing to the idea that it was actually in a print of the real movie.
Answer: I and a friend of mine remember seeing the ruby slippers under Dorthy's bed at the end of the movie. Glad to know we didn't imagine it.
Answer: I remember this being part of a special that was hosted by Angela Lansbury in 1990 and they showed that this ending was considered for the movie. For many years I couldn't remember why I remembered that ending and Angela Lansbury until I looked it up. I wish that it had been left like that. Kids always want their dreams to come true.
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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.
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