Not Ray Bolger
The head of MGM, Louis B. Mayer, famously had great doubts about The Wizard of Oz.
“Be smart but never show it,” is one of Mayer’s more famous sayings, but the man who built MGM into a powerhouse occasionally found himself tripping over bad instincts (not to mention a lacerating tongue; displeased with the posture of a then 16-year-old Judy Garland, he took to calling her “my little hunchback”). And he was adamant —adamant — about his distaste for “Over the Rainbow.” Here’s Troy’s breakdown of the dispute: “Mayer thought it slowed the movie down. That it was too serious a song — too long a song.”
You can see Mayer’s point. Who starts a movie with a momentum-killing ballad? … Nevertheless, Mayer wanted the ballad gone, and here’s what Troy unearthed during his research: “They kept taking it out and putting it back in, and after the third time they cut it from a test screening (producer) Arthur Freed finally said, ‘What exactly is your problem with this?’ So he listens to all the reasons, and then his response is: ‘”Rainbow” stays, or I go.'”
Bold words. But at the time, Freed was producing yet another Garland musical for Mayer (“Babes in Arms” with Mickey Rooney) that was midway through filming. “Freed realized he had some leverage, and if not for ‘”Rainbow” stays, or I go,’ that song would never have been in the movie.”
“The Wizard of Oz” would go on to win two Academy Awards, including best song for “Over the Rainbow” (Mayer really ate crow on that one, didn’t he?), and yet everything about the film’s gestation suggested disaster. As many as 14 writers were assigned to work on the script, with just as many drafts floating around. (The final version was cobbled together by the film’s lyricist E.Y. “Yip” Harburg, who essentially cut-and-pasted bits from each draft.)
Five directors were assigned to the film, although only three actually directed scenes. Richard Thorpe was on the film for barely two weeks before producers, unhappy with his work, switched him out in favor of Victor Fleming, who is the credited director on the picture and was responsible for all the scenes that take place in Oz.
But then Fleming, too, was reassigned to another movie. “He would have finished the picture,” said Troy, “except that Clark Gable, who was a good buddy of Victor Fleming’s, had just started on ‘Gone with the Wind’ and was very uncomfortable being directed by George Cukor, who was known as a women’s director.” Apparently afraid he would contract a case of cooties, “Gable demanded that Fleming be brought in to direct ‘Gone with the Wind,’ so suddenly Victor Fleming was yanked off ‘The Wizard of Oz’ with just a few weeks left to go, which left a vacuum with the Kansas scenes.” The producers brought in King Vidor, who made his name in silent films, to shoot the black-and-white portions that bracket the film.
(click here to continue reading The story behind The Wizard of Oz – chicagotribune.com.)
Dorothy and Toto
Coincidentally, we recently watched the film for the first time in years and years, and of course were captivated. The edition of The Wizard of Oz I have has a second disc full of documentary pieces which were mostly fascinating, including a bit of the jitterbugging footage mentioned by Nina Metz.