Young Dorothy Gale and her dog Toto are swept away by a tornado from their Kansas farm to the magical Land of Oz and embark on a quest with three new friends to see the Wizard, who can retur... Read allYoung Dorothy Gale and her dog Toto are swept away by a tornado from their Kansas farm to the magical Land of Oz and embark on a quest with three new friends to see the Wizard, who can return her to her home and fulfill the others' wishes.Young Dorothy Gale and her dog Toto are swept away by a tornado from their Kansas farm to the magical Land of Oz and embark on a quest with three new friends to see the Wizard, who can return her to her home and fulfill the others' wishes.
- Won 2 Oscars
- 13 wins & 14 nominations total
- The Munchkins
- (as The Munchkins)
- Munchkin
- (uncredited)
- Munchkin
- (uncredited)
- Munchkin
- (uncredited)
- Munchkin
- (uncredited)
- Munchkin
- (uncredited)
- Emerald City Manicurist
- (uncredited)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaJudy Garland found it difficult to be afraid of Margaret Hamilton, because she was such a nice lady off-camera.
- GoofsAfter the Wizard gives the Scarecrow his diploma, he says, "The sum of the square roots of any 2 sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square root of the remaining side." This is a misstatement of the Pythagorean Theorem, which is, in fact, about right triangles and not isosceles ones. However, this statement is not true about any triangle, and so it is completely wrong.
- Quotes
Dorothy: How can you talk if you haven't got a brain?
The Scarecrow: I don't know! But some people without brains do an *awful* lot of talking, don't they?
Dorothy: Yes, I guess you're right.
- Crazy creditsToto is listed in the end credits as being played by Toto, when he was actually played by a female dog named Terry.
- Alternate versionsFrom 1968 to 1984, on NBC-TV and CBS-TV airings of the film, the film was edited to sell more commercial time. As the amount of commercial time on network television gradually increased, more scenes were cut. According to film historian John Fricke, these cuts started with solely a long tracking shot of Munchkin Land after Dorothy arrives there. The rest of the film remained intact. Also according to Fricke, more wholesale cutting of the film took place when CBS regained the TV rights in 1975. By the 1980s, the other excised shots included: the film's dedication in the opening credits, continuity shots of Dorothy and Toto running from the farm, establishing shots of the cyclone, the aforementioned tracking sequence in Munchkin Land, the establishing shot of the poppy field, and tiny bits and pieces of the trip to the Wicked Witch's castle. CBS, which had shown the uncut version of the film in 1956, and again from the films first telecast until 1968, finally started to show it uncut again beginning in 1985, by time-compressing it. Network airings in the 1990s were uncut and not time-compressed; the film aired in a 2-hour, 10-minute time period.
- ConnectionsEdited into Chain Lightning (1950)
The cast could not be improved upon. The quivery-voiced, solemn-faced Judy Garland will always be Dorothy, the little lost farm girl on the road to Oz, clutching her beloved Toto (impressively portrayed himself by the female canine performer Terry, the terrier). It seems inconceivable that MGM had originally wished to cast Shirley Temple in the role, as Temple's doe-eyed, cutesy-voiced shtick would have been a catastrophic ill-fit for the tone of this picture. Conversely, Garland is perhaps the screen's quintessential woman/child; always seemingly just one step away from reaching full emotional maturity. It is her sadness that transfixes viewers to the screen, the exact same quality that made the film's most memorable Harold Arlen/E. Y. Harburg number "Over the Rainbow" into one of the most exquisite marriages between artist and song ever to be recorded.
The remainder of the cast is similarly exceptional, many of whom perform perfectly even under the most debilitating make-up and costumes. Frank Morgan is marvelously versatile in no less than five roles, the insanely energetic Bert Lahr mugs brilliantly, the handsome Jack Haley swoons sweetly, Billie Burke lends the film an ornate ethereality, and Ray Bolger's gravity-defying physical presence nearly steals the entire picture on several occasions. Perhaps most notable is former schoolteacher Margaret Hamilton's transformation into the wickedest of wicked witches, which certainly remains among the vilest and most terrifying portrayals of full-throttle evil ever to be seen. No matter how it is analyzed, scrutinized, or satirized, the 1939 production of THE WIZARD OF OZ is a top-notch example of how to turn a great story into a fabulous, milestone of a film.
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Official site
- Language
- Also known as
- El mago de Oz
- Filming locations
- Stage 28, Sony Pictures Studios - 10202 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, USA(Witch's castle drawbridge; Wash and Brush Up Company; Witch's entrance hall; Witch's tower room; Yellow Brick Road montage song)
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $2,777,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $24,668,669
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $5,354,311
- Nov 8, 1998
- Gross worldwide
- $25,637,669
- Runtime1 hour 42 minutes
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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