The Reel Rejects - THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939) MOVIE REVIEW!! FIRST TIME WATCHING!!

Episode Date: November 12, 2024

THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME!! Download the PrizePicks today & use code REJECTS to $50 instantly when you play $5! The Wizard of Oz Full Movie Reaction Watch Along:  https://www.patreon.com/thereelre...jects Follow Us On Socials:  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reelrejects/  Tik-Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thereelrejects?lang=en Twitter: https://x.com/thereelrejects Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheReelRejects/ With Cynthia Erivo & Ariana Grande's Wicked Part 1 Premiering in just a couple of weeks, Aaron Alexander & John go back for one of Cinema's most enduring classics as they give their REACTION, Commentary, Analysis, Breakdown, & Full Movie Spoiler review for the beloved Fantasy Musical directed by Gone With the Wind's Victor Fleming & War and Peace's King Vidor. Judy Garland (Meet Me in St. Louis, A Star is Born) stars as Young Dorothy Gale who, along with her dog Toto, is swept away by a tornado from her Kansas farm to the magical Land of Oz to embark on a quest with three new friends - The Scarecrow (Ray Bolger), The Tin Man (Jack Haley), & The Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr). Together they journey to meet the Wizard (Frank Morgan) and thwart the evil Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton)!! Aaron & John REACT to all the Best Scenes & Most Classic Moments / Songs including Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Follow the Yellow Brick Road, The Lollipop Guild, We're Not in Kansas Anymore, The Ruby Slippers, If I Only Had a Brain, I'm Melting, I'll get you my pretty and your little dog too, & BEYOND!! Follow Aaron On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therealaaronalexander/?hl=en Support The Channel By Getting Some REEL REJECTS Apparel! https://www.rejectnationshop.com/ Music Used In Manscaped Ad:  Hat the Jazz by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ POWERED BY @GFUEL Visit https://gfuel.ly/3wD5Ygo and use code REJECTNATION for 20% off select tubs!! Head Editor: https://www.instagram.com/praperhq/?hl=en Co-Editor: Greg Alba Co-Editor: John Humphrey Music In Video: Airport Lounge - Disco Ultralounge by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Ask Us A QUESTION On CAMEO: https://www.cameo.com/thereelrejects Follow TheReelRejects On FACEBOOK, TWITTER, & INSTAGRAM:  FB:  https://www.facebook.com/TheReelRejects/ INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/reelrejects/ TWITTER:  https://twitter.com/thereelrejects Follow GREG ON INSTAGRAM & TWITTER: INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/thegregalba/ TWITTER:  https://twitter.com/thegregalba Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:01:04 More on them in just a bit. Munchkins of the Reject Nation. We're off to see The Wizard. We're going to run down that yellow brick road. It is time for a veritable cinema classic. One of the greats, Arun. Yes, Joneld. Are you excited for the Wizard of Oz?
Starting point is 00:01:28 I am very excited for the Wizard of Oz. I just know about the cultural osmosis effects of this movie, but I've never actually sat down to watch it myself. So I'm excited to check it out and finally seeing it in its entirety. Obviously, Wicked is coming up, so this is relevant once again. I haven't seen this since I was probably a child or maybe at some point in snippets again during film studies of some variety. So I will be seeing this with pretty much fresh eyes alongside you.
Starting point is 00:01:58 And I'm excited because it's not very often we get to check out like an old school classic, you know, on the channel. And I relish those opportunities mightily. So, guys, go ahead. Leave a like on this video for the classics. Also, if you're doing that one, you also go ahead and subscribe to the channel. Click the notification bell so you can be notified whenever one of these lovely reactions comes your way. Oh, no, you're, hold on. It's in the drawer.
Starting point is 00:02:24 And click the notification bell, or when you do, You're going to ring this bell. Oh, look out now, Tara. Look out, this competition coming. No, no competition. We all just want you to ring the bell so you're notified. The like bell, the notification bell. There we go.
Starting point is 00:02:43 We got there. Also, thanks to Prepper for chopping these highlights down, assembling the finest morsels for you all to see. It's a task. We very much appreciate them. They are the wizards. Great folks over at the Patreon, Wizards and Witches of the Reject Nation over there,
Starting point is 00:02:57 syncing up with their own copies of the Wizard of Oz, and you too can do so over at patreon.com slash the Real Rejects, and you can check out all the other shows that Greg and I have streaming over there with reaction highlights and watch-alongs included. We have a good old time. And hey, if you can't support over there, totally neat, totally cool.
Starting point is 00:03:14 We have a bunch of free and lovely content served fresh for you, cooked up by Roxy and Greg over on the, you know, we're all there, but they are the masterminds over on Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Twitter, et cetera, many names. Anyhow, I think that's all the housekeeping. Aaron, you ready for some cinema?
Starting point is 00:03:35 I'm ready to go off to see the wizard. We're off to see the wizard. Let's do this thing. We did it, guys. We watched The Wizard of Oz. We made it. We made it. We'll leave you guys if you want to watch
Starting point is 00:03:50 the Turner Classics outro on your own time. You can do that. But for right now, I think we'll hop into chatting. about it and and hey we've been whisked off to a magical land of perils and fancies in equal measure this is true just now we're back home in the studio how do you feel feel good feel feel feel light to feel a full of whimsy i feel like you should go to rejuctation shop some merch get some chesty shirts get some reject merch get some shirts like these shirts like these all kinds of things all kinds of things some of them are even emerald green or kelly green
Starting point is 00:04:31 to be fair but you know that's fair as the emerald city i also think you should go over to apple or spotify or maybe if you're already there hello what's up it's erin and john we just listen to there in podcast voice yes this is the uh the mr version we watch the wizard of oz we should go on Apple or Spotify. It was five stars. We're going to talk about the movie. But I really liked it. I really enjoyed it.
Starting point is 00:04:57 I understand why it's a classic. I thought all the acting was really good. The effects were really impressive. Both the set design and the costume design, the music was extremely catchy, and the movie's just full of joy and whimsy. And I understand why it's a movie that has held the hearts of so many people across the world for so long.
Starting point is 00:05:19 and the message is like is sweet and like of a different time but simplistic and still relatable and it just has all of these things that have kind of permeated throughout pop culture and bled into other aspects of of creativity and filmmaking and imagination and I just really really enjoyed it and I imagined that you know a lot of other people are also really inspired by this movie and it's definitely one you can go back to over and over again because of all the details and the flourishes and the performances and yeah it's just a very sweet like heartfelt movie and i'm just going to leave this room with my heart filled and and my chin up high because we got courage we got brains and we got heart and we got music inside of
Starting point is 00:06:10 us and that's all that really matters at the end of the day yeah life is in tech to color even when it's in black and white that's right yeah man this is really fun to come back to after so so long because yeah it's like you know the broad strokes of stuff and you know the lines that have you know endured in the pop culture pantheon or whatever but uh you know i mean especially as just a film fan in general and and someone who does i do really appreciate and enjoy like classic films as well it's it's a real joy and a fun sort of treat to get to go back and look at something like this and something that is, you know, pulling together so much craft and artistry at a time in which so many things were still being innovated and figured out. And, yeah, I mean, like I said, somewhere during the video, like when we started this, there was a little prologue from the Turner Classics because we're streaming on Max and they were saying like, oh, yeah, look at the storm scene, you know, because at the time, you know, they really had to especially kind of work to figure out how to sell that tornado and things like that.
Starting point is 00:07:14 how to depict that on screen in a way that would be at all believable. And so, yeah, like, watching a movie like this and being able to sit there and go, like, wow, I can kind of tell what's happening in some parts of these frames. But even then, not knowing completely how to deconstruct what I'm seeing was like such a cool thing. And it speaks to the enduring nature of a movie like this because, yeah, you just get, there's just something that feels different. It's hits different when you see it. It's like, you know, you are peering.
Starting point is 00:07:43 and by virtue of the fact of it's being on film obviously because that was the only choice of the time there's just something it does feel both like a transportive fantasy but also like this snapshot of yeah where the craft was at the time and just like what
Starting point is 00:07:59 people were kind of like at the time not even that this is very naturalistic but just I don't know there's aspects that feel like you're peering through a window into an elaborate play that's kind of happening all around you and yeah it's so fun and it's assembled in like
Starting point is 00:08:16 with the right sort of I don't know what the word is it's like everything is kind of chosen well enough so that when there are elements that are clearly like more fantastical or don't look quite photoreal as they would say today it still works and it still feels like it's like there are times when you could tell like
Starting point is 00:08:32 oh yeah like that backdrop is a painting and then there's like a practical layer of set dressing here and then there's the rest of the midground here and you can kind of tell what layers are happening sometimes but even then you're like yeah it makes perfect sense that you know like the backgrounds of oz would have these like sort of exaggerated rolling hills and patchworks and things and each new place you walk into has this new either brightly colored or you know classically spooky
Starting point is 00:08:59 sort of uh height to it uh yeah like you know this is quintessential of so many things in in a lot of ways but uh yeah it's just a joy and and dazzling even still to go back and see all of that, just how this was kind of conceived and put together, but also just, yeah, how nifty of a story it is and how, yeah, you get these great little bookends. The whole thing is kind of sketched out in the prologue. You know, she's, uh, Toto's getting into trouble and Dorothy, you know, just wants to kind of, yeah, she's, she's feeling like, you know, ah, no one's really listening to me or paying attention to me and there's a lot of things going on in the world. And I just want to get away and me and my dog, no one understands. We just got to get out, you
Starting point is 00:09:40 know and then you know you soon realize like yeah I just needed a little time away and really you know I love the people in my life and home is you know where as they say the heart is and all that stuff but then to have that sort of protracted into this grand fantastical adventure after this very simple straightforward you know she comes home and everybody else is sort of preoccupied and she falls into the big pen and then she strikes out on the road she meets the wizard and he tells a nice it's it's a fib but it's not like a completely, it's like a white lie, you know, he does spin her a yarn, but it's of a good natured motivation to, you know, send her back home to Auntiam and, and Uncle's name I've, it'll lose me now. But yeah, and then having all that play out in a way where you're not just
Starting point is 00:10:30 waiting for the same beats to happen and you can sit there and be like, oh, they are, all these characters who are, you know, prominently showing up are, you know, kind of reminiscent of people in her life as they would be in a dream as dreams are you know pulling things in from your subconscious from your everyday life like without you know being a piece that is pretending to be like overly deep or anything like that like it has yeah enough of that like knowing craftsmanship in the themes of the story and how the story is articulated along with all the great beautiful you know craft physically on display and and yeah it's like a moving piece of art like truly and even going from the black and white sort of sepia tone film stock to you know and and is it is there an aspect ratio change too do we have there is it is it is it goes it go from square to i don't know if
Starting point is 00:11:22 actually was or just appeared wider because the fact it was in color yeah i'm like it's weird it's like in the moment then you have to think about it yeah it's like the image is wider when you're in oz and like it's such a great kind of uh uh or no it's not actually it is still square but uh it's because it yeah it's like it feels wide That's the thing. Yeah, it's like it feels like the frame is stretched out. And yeah, you're in a whole transportive new place. And that even speaks to the growth and the, you know, the history of just like film and what film looks like and how films are made. And to it hit me during this. I was like, there must be most of the dialogue being looped in because cameras back then were loud as all heck. Oh, really? Yeah. So, I mean, even then, like the sink is really good. Like,
Starting point is 00:12:09 I don't know if there was any set sound, like there might be some, but like I, I feel like during this time, cameras would still be pretty loud. But yeah, and the makeups, too, are iconic. And I feel like maybe one guy, I feel like I maybe heard maybe the Tin Man or something, like the makeup was kind of rough to deal with because of, I'm sure they didn't have the, whatever chemicals they were using then probably are not as soft on your skin as they would be now. And then, I don't know if that's accurate or not, but I remember kind of hearing that. but even them like his tin man suits like you could tell how somebody might have built this and yet it's so kind of it's just the right amount of design it's just the right kind of amount of whimsy to yeah just be the right tune in the pitch and even with the scarecrow it's like he's probably in this burlap cowl that you know becomes fully burlap after the you know rope and then you've got like the face kind of stitched in it's just like you can sit here and pick stuff apart in a way that's like it makes the experience more rich rather than being like I know I know how they did the, you know, like sometimes you see the seams and it takes away from it.
Starting point is 00:13:11 It's like that moment where he, the lion falls down. We were both like, you see the souls of his shoes. Like that in a different context might be like, uh, you know, or a couple times you can see like the tin man's finger, you know, opening up, you know, the actual like parts that fit together. And it's like stuff like that is even kind of, it makes the experience more rich because of how much other grand ingenuity is on display. So then even though little nicks, you're like, oh, that's so cool because that clues you into what this is made of how it was made um i don't know yeah i got a lot of this no no i i
Starting point is 00:13:43 agree i even though you can see some of those things it doesn't take away from the experience because you know you you you give it that sense of grace because of the time period it was made and even without that grace you i'm just very very impressed yeah with what they were able to accomplish for this time it's movies like i think 85 years old like 39 i'm not a math man But I think that's how the math works out because we're in 2024 and 1939, 85 years. But sheesh, man. Almost 100 years ago
Starting point is 00:14:15 and this movie still is able to accomplish what it accomplishes and the prosthetics are great. And even the environment and like even like little flourishes that we don't even get to fully explore, but we're just teased like the fact that there was like multiple witches and multiple wizards and, you know, the color changing horse thing. I was like, oh man, it's like,
Starting point is 00:14:36 it just feels bigger than the frame exactly the world feels bigger than the frame exactly it feels lived in and for i want to imagine this is one of the first kind of fantasy films to exist where it does feel lived in but the that world isn't the point of the story it just happens to be it's not about world building it's not about the world building but the world feels built and you appreciate all the little details of the world because there's so much care put into the story and yeah i just really really enjoyed it and all of the musical numbers you said something really great about it when we're watching it is that it's one of those movies you can pick up on all of the songs while you're watching it for the first time and i think that's very smart
Starting point is 00:15:22 songwriting because then you leave the theater like picking your favorite song and just uh singing along to that and it makes you want to go back and watch it again because it's it's one of those films that you want to share with other people because it creates a feeling within you and you want to other people to experience that joy and that wonder that you experience but also Dorothy experiences along the way while collecting these these different friends and watching all of them have these distinct personalities was just so fun and so charming and even though you can tell the same actors it doesn't it's not distracting because they do something so distinct and different with those characters and there's just this theatrical element
Starting point is 00:16:06 to it but yet it's rooted in real emotion uh it's not it's not it's not necessarily like the the deepest like heart wrenching thing that we've seen on screen but like it it gives you enough insight to be this is to be a perfect family film like this is not their archetypical qualities yeah yeah yeah it's it i wouldn't qualify say this is like a children's film this is a film for everybody you know then there's lessons adults and kids can learn from a movie like this and i'm happy that it's it's one that stands the test of time because it's it's really great and it's it's magical and it's wonderful yeah yeah yeah like you know especially during times where you know like a lot of classic film titles get thrown around and certainly i feel like citizen kane is the poster child for like
Starting point is 00:16:56 well it's not that great you know by you know various film students of the years ensuing but but yeah this is something that, you know, yeah, coming back to it, it's like, wow, this really does hold up. It's, it's so easy to enjoy. And yet you're constantly marveling at just the construction and and the aesthetic, like, you know, they had to, not only do they build all this, but you got to find the right, you know, aesthetic through lines. And you have to choose the right techniques. And this even had, you know, certain things that seemed like they were at least early visual effects in terms of maybe double exposures or, or overlaying or compositing certain images with, you know, floating bubble or you know the wizard's projected head that that felt very much like
Starting point is 00:17:40 something out of metropolis or something out of it well there's a different movie that has kind of a it's a black and white movie that has like an image of a face that's sort of lording over things that I can't quite draw to mind but like there's even that quality of like there's certain reminiscent imagery but then so much stuff pulls from this and the music too like the use of music throughout this movie is really nice because there are a few really distinct themes and motifs that recur, they build, and yeah, it's like
Starting point is 00:18:07 you have a variety of songs, but it's not like there are 20 songs, or it doesn't feel like you have like 20 individual different songs on the soundtrack, but, you know, certain people show up, like the munchkins and munchkin land and all the different, you know, lollipop organizations who show up, you know, they
Starting point is 00:18:25 have a certain sound and theme and then the trio has their you know, melody motif of, of if I only had, you know, and the, off to see the wizard song and like these things that certain things will repeat and kick back in and sort of move the story along and then other things will be a little bit more bespoke
Starting point is 00:18:44 in terms of like this might not be a recurring melody or song even, but you know, these new characters have their own song. And so like it feels, yeah, less like it's developed for a soundtrack and more like, yeah, it is sort of using music as one of the many paints in the collage, the pastiche of art forms coming together to make the story. And it makes a lot of sense that, yeah, like the musical world would be in the dream, you know?
Starting point is 00:19:12 Reject Nation. I never really consider myself a sports guy. I know so many people who are in this sports. So many people who watch this channel are into sports. My wife, into sports. Sometimes it feels emasculating while she yells at the TV and I don't know what's going on. Why that feels emasculating? That's more to do with me than her.
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Starting point is 00:20:32 pick, you can still cash out thanks to their unique flex play option. It's available in most states, including California, Texas, and Georgia. You can download the price picks app today. Use code rejects and get $50 instantly when you play just $5. There's a lot of fives in this shoutout. $5, $50, $5 million. It's like the number 23. But anyway, you don't even have to win to get the bonus isn't that awesome price picks run your game ha ha get into daily fantasy sports like this expert over here yeah and watching this it's funny because you know as we're shooting this movie called the joker folly adieu that everybody loves has come out recently and one of my criticisms of that movie is the musical aspects don't necessarily um add to the the whole of
Starting point is 00:21:26 the film because i feel like in my experience is your observation and watching musicals both in my own personal life and on this channel music in musicals typically do one of two things either give further insight into the characters hopes desires or mental state or it is advancing the plot and do or doing both and i feel like this movie being one of probably the earlier if not one of the first movie musicals uh is able to do that um excellent it does it in a way that is catchy and in a way that's effective and that endears you to the characters on the journey that you're watching them on and even though like something like over the rainbow like now that the classic song so classic I didn't even know where it came from it's like one of those are yeah I'm sure that's common knowledge I just have not known no it's just one of those songs that you could I think nowadays especially removed so far just it's just part of the pantheon of songs you know like in you might and you might without really knowing what the origin could be, you know, if you don't know, you don't know. But yeah, even like a song like that and like having that like play into the theme of it even adds to the experience of the film.
Starting point is 00:22:37 And having all of the our characters, the 10 man, the scarecrow, the lion have like a similar sounding motif between their individual songs. Just adds to the totality of the experience and you see like the inspirations or the thing that were inspired by this movie. when formulating their musicals as well and I think that's that's great it's truly yeah it's it's honoring and it's not bewildering that's not the word but I think it's very cool
Starting point is 00:23:10 that all of these it's like striking striking there you go were things that yeah this movie had to walk so all these other things within pop culture and film could run and yeah it's it's an honor to get to watch this for the first time with you guys and yeah
Starting point is 00:23:26 It's been very cool. And I'd like to know some things about it. I want to know some information. Pull up some facts. I don't. Where's the thing? You don't have your machine? I have my phone.
Starting point is 00:23:37 Come on, Wizard. Conchers some facts for us. Because yeah, too, especially watching this in a time where I feel like we are, it's the same with technology. It's like the leaps and bounds and, you know, advances and grounds broken are not as drastic as they used to be. and it's not like we never see in modern cinema groundbroken
Starting point is 00:23:59 or something truly dazzling but like there is a difference now because you know how so many things are made and you know that most anything can be made somehow yeah to see something like this really put up you know as again it feels like you're watching
Starting point is 00:24:13 some crazy elaborate play that's also a movie and yeah yeah just I don't know yeah there are a million things you could say about this it's yeah it stands the test of time and I will say too it struck me this time particularly because I think often you remember the whimsy and you remember the brighter colors and you remember the wicked witch but certainly watching it this time I was struck with the creepy and the spooky elements when you are in the woods like it is like it's kind of creepy like especially as a kid and the flying monkeys and like the wicked witch is so gleefully maniacal like I could see why you would pull this out around Halloween time also even though it's not the first thing I would associate with that like I am like oh yeah the spooky stuff is appropriately spooky to give it that again that old Hollywood like all the emotional flavors are saturated somehow.
Starting point is 00:24:56 And even when they got to make their daring rescue of Dorothy, that's even got, it's not like fraught and tense, but you know, it's at least got some energy and some momentum. And you're like,
Starting point is 00:25:05 oh, you know, it's easy to get caught up in. And that's the point. That's what you want. So quality filmmaking. What you got? What you got? Dude,
Starting point is 00:25:12 I've never been the fat guy before. Let's hear it. Let's see what you like. Julie Garland found it difficult to be afraid of Margaret Hamilton because she was such a nice lady off camera. that's funny that's acting for you baby he did a good job and and she has to deliver a lot of kinds of
Starting point is 00:25:32 different scenes and and she has to monologue which comes out very naturally here which is not like how people speak or how people speak in movies commonly now and and for those things especially to come across you know or for her to be selling like that like you commented on one moment of like wow she does look so terrified like especially towards the end you're like yeah like so hats even further off if uh and of course the wicked witch lady would be super lovely yeah how it goes I'm happy that she was
Starting point is 00:26:03 yeah great auntie M though um terrifying woman when the wardrobe department was looking for a coat for Frank Morgan the professor slash the wizard it it decided did I say that right it decided it wanted one that looked like it had
Starting point is 00:26:24 once been elegant but had since gone to seed they visited a second hand store and it purchased an entire rack of coats from which morgan the head of the wardrobe department and the director victor fleming chose one they felt gave off the perfect appearance of shabby of a shabby gentile what is that word we got gentility gentile oh yeah like it's uh yeah yeah yeah shabby gentility either gentile or gentle. Yeah. Yeah, something shabby, but probably like inviting. Okay.
Starting point is 00:27:01 One day while he was on the set, he idly turned out one of the pockets and discovered a label indicating that it had been made for L. Frank Baum may bear a unit publicist for the film. What? Yeah, that's crazy. That's great. Your IMDB does have like the tiniest text. It's really the tiniest. We could pull it up at the computer if that would be.
Starting point is 00:27:25 That would be better. All right. No problem. No problem. I was like, we are usually, I don't know how Andrew does it. Andrew's always the guy who's like got the facts on, on proportional lock. But yeah, we can blow up the screen real big here. I don't want to be the fax guy.
Starting point is 00:27:42 Okay. I like facts. I don't want to be the guy. See, I'm always, neither of us wants to be the guy, which is good because that's who you want to elect to be the facts. Someone who's not going to abuse the power. We can do, we did like two facts. We can do like one more. We did two.
Starting point is 00:28:00 Yeah, we can see. Let's see. Let's see. All right. Here we go. Here we go. That was a thick boy. They usually don't start us off on like a whole ass paragraph.
Starting point is 00:28:08 Yeah. No. It's a thicky. Many shots were trimmed down or edited out of the film because they were too intense for families and children. In particular, one deleted shot shows the tornado completely enveloping the farmhouse. Also later in the film, a lot of the wicked witch of the film. The West's scenes were either trimmed or deleted entirely as Margaret Hamilton's performance was thought to be too frightening for audiences. That is wild.
Starting point is 00:28:33 We need the wicked witch cut. The long cut. Is that footage, like, that footage may very well be lost to time. Like, part of me wonders if it's anywhere preserved. I hope so. And there were, I did notice watching this, this time that it did seem like certain of her scenes, certain shots of her would cut away when it was clear she was going to say or do something else. that moment wasn't done you know
Starting point is 00:28:55 it's fascinating Margaret Hamilton a single mother got into an argument with the studio over guaranteed time to work only agreeing to take the role of the wicked witch
Starting point is 00:29:05 three days before filming ironically although she finally got an agreement for five weeks of work she ended up working on the film for three months oh shoot Jesus Christo there's also
Starting point is 00:29:17 I guess Margaret Hamilton is just like the fact person of this thing lifelong fan of the Alice books was ecstatic when she learned the producers were considering her for a part in the film when she phoned her agent to find out what role she was up for her
Starting point is 00:29:29 agent simply replied the witch who else did she say books plural yeah what the hell yeah there are books and I do not know this uh huh it's like uh alison wonderland is also I think at least there are a couple books in that sort of world vein etc
Starting point is 00:29:44 the iconic ruby slippers are now at the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of American History and so popular that the carpet in front of them has had to be replaced numerous times due to where it's there i believe that for sure this is fun the horses in the emerald city were colored with gelatin powder the relevant scenes had to be shot quickly before they started to lick it off hmm are there horse hooves and gelatin is that oh here's one the famous surrender dorothy skywriting scene was done using a tank of water and a tiny model witch to attend the end of a long high hyperdermic needle, which
Starting point is 00:30:25 attached to the end of a long hyperdermic needle, hypodermic, we're all talking great today. The syringe was filled with milk and the tip of the needle was put into the tank and the words were written in reverse while being filmed from below. This was there was an added phrase to surrender Dorothy, which was
Starting point is 00:30:41 or die, but it was cut before the movie premiered. It sounded like this was going to go way harder and more like, I'm going to kill you with the witch and Dorothy and all that stuff. Let's see. Oh, goodness. Some of these facts are so thick, yeah.
Starting point is 00:31:03 The munchkins are portrayed by the singer midgets, as was their name at the time, named not for their musical abilities, but for Leo's singer, their manager. Of course. Oh, my God. The troop came from Europe. Many of them were Jewish,
Starting point is 00:31:18 and a number of them took advantage of the trip to stay in the U.S. in order to escape the Nazis. professional singers dubbed most of their voices as many of the little people couldn't speak English or sing very well only two are heard speaking in their real life voices the ones who give Dorothy flowers after she has
Starting point is 00:31:34 climbed into the carriage that is wild oh crap yeah this was McGrawne World War II time yeah you're ass crazy too that's nutty to think about it wow Judy Garland had to wear a painful corset style device around her torso so she would appear younger and flat chested as she was
Starting point is 00:31:52 16 years old at the time of filming playing the role of a pre-adolescent child. That's right because it's 16 when she made this. Holy crap. It is easy to lose the line because she looks a bit older than 16 or conceivably could be, but she's also playing like a kid with like all the qualities of a kid. So like it does kind of trick your brain into believing that she is just like this kid. During the haunted forest scenes, several actors playing the winged monkeys were injured when the piano wires suspending them snapped, dropping them several feet to the floor
Starting point is 00:32:22 of soundstage. Oh, goodness gracious me. Let's go to a couple of the spoiler facts before we get out of here. And if anybody does have any information on the urban legend of the backdrop here,
Starting point is 00:32:37 it's, you know, it's... Wait, wait, wait, go back up for a second? What we got? What are we got? There's a tornado in Kansas the day Julie Garland died. Wowy. That's nutty.
Starting point is 00:32:46 That's the sky morning. Yeah. God, God. But good, golly. the original ending called for the final shot to be a camera panning down to reveal Dorothy was still wearing the Ruby slippers but the studio believe audiences were too
Starting point is 00:32:59 sophisticated for that in the books Oz is a real place as opposed to a dream see that's funny I mean like it's weird I feel like you could take it either way and usually I feel like I've never imagined the red slippers back in the regular black and white world but they were capable of it
Starting point is 00:33:18 that would have been cool if everything was black and white except the slippers were still bright right Do the Sin City, do the Schindler's list. There are two times in the film that Judy Garland is not on camera as Dorothy. It is her stand-in Bobby Cochay filling in. The first time, Cochay has Dorothy is when she opens the door just before she realizes she isn't in Kansas anymore. Cochay bags up off camera and Garland is back. Seconds later, I was wondering that.
Starting point is 00:33:42 Yeah, they did like one of those fast switches where, yes, it's, it's, she walks out of frame black and white and she enters, Dorothy enters frame again in color. during that the transition moment which yeah you would need a double I was wondering if they had spliced images together somehow or if they were yeah using a double the other time Cochay is Dorothy is in the haunted forest she performed the stunt when Dorothy is lifted into the air by the winged monkeys and brought back to the witch
Starting point is 00:34:09 part of that set piece is performed by Cochet and then part is actually a doll they constructed to look like Garland and you can clearly see that from the mechanical way her legs are kicking in the shot oh goodness I would have to go back back and look at that again. The famous line, there's no place like home, was said by Dorothy in the book. However, she did not say it to Aunt Em, but to the scarecrow shortly after they met when he said, I cannot understand why you should wish to leave this beautiful country to go back to the dry, gray place you call Kansas. The final words of the book are Dorothy saying,
Starting point is 00:34:42 Oh, Aunt Em, I'm so glad to be home again. I guess the motif does play more cinematically. True. Finally, today, the movie is based on elements from the first half of the book only. Once the wizard is gone, the rest of the book is ignored,
Starting point is 00:34:58 save for Dorothy returning home. Even then, our method in the book is very different from what's in the film. Wow. That's wild. That makes you want to go back and read the book. I mean, and two,
Starting point is 00:35:09 I've heard it said, and I kind of appreciate this, if I had a brain that would allow more easily for reading, I would be doing this a lot more often, but I've heard people say they prefer sometimes to read the book after because it's an expansion experience hopefully rather than a narrowing of the imagination you know and not that you might not get the should read
Starting point is 00:35:29 books after you watch the movie yeah it's like an adaptation or something yeah yeah because i feel like it's always going the book's always going to be longer that's just that's just my hot take on on media well yeah the book's always going to be longer and it's always going to have more yeah details and maybe even whole other plot lines and characters i don't i don't like the 80s what Goldberg the color purple because I read the book first really oh really yeah okay I'm just like this shit's watered down oh no see if you'd read the book after you would be like oh well there's a whole it's a lot darker additional world of trauma to discover here anguish uh that's a very different type of experience this is double feature double feature color from emerald green to the color
Starting point is 00:36:14 purple well gang what do you think of uh the wizard boss is one of your favorite movies did you somehow see this for the first time like erin are you like me revisiting it for the first time in a long time or do you pull this out all the time let us know and uh hey there is no place like home so go find your tin man your scarecrow and your lion your auntie m hug them all uncle toto whoever's in your life let him know you love them and uh and that you've got them on your mind and you've got on their behalf, and we'll catch you on the next one. Wizards out. There's no place like home.
Starting point is 00:36:52 There we go. We'll tap our heels three times, and then the video's done. One, two, three. Can't hear it.

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