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colorful \"action\" sign being held up by the hand of a director in the center of a desert
colorful \"action\" sign being held up by the hand of a director in the center of a desert
Photo by Jakob Owens from Unsplash
TCNJ | Culture > Entertainment

Sh*t That Happened On the Set of The Wizard of Oz

Samantha Libby Student Contributor, The College of New Jersey
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at TCNJ chapter and does not reflect the views of Her Campus.

Most people have seen The Wizard of Oz film at least once in their life. The film is an adaptation to the popular 1900 Frank L. Baum book of the same name. The book is a sensation in itself for being a political allegory for American Populism, which was on the rise in the late 1880s and 1890s. Now, with the book being this political allegory, the adaptation of it to film came with a multitude of hurdles for the producers and creative team to overcome!

With Wicked: For Good coming out THIS WEEK, let’s look at the process and mishaps behind the production of The Wizard of Oz!

Before Filming

To take a book and adapt it to film at the time took a lot. After Baum’s death and the repurchase of the rights to the book by Baum’s son, (Frank L. Baum sold the rights to make ends meet), many studios sought to purchase the opportunity to film the adaptation. This included Walt Disney himself who had been working on Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. 

Baum had tried endlessly to transfer the story to film but kept failing in the adaptation process. 

Once Samuel Goldwyn bought the rights he attempted to make a musical comedy with actor Eddie Cantor as the Scarecrow, however, the project fell through and went to hell in development after the HORRIFYING Alice in Wonderland adaptation was released. Thus, scaring producers from translating the imaginary and fantastical world into live action. 

Before the rights were fully acquired, Goldwyn held an auction for the rights of Oz. Just across town, Mervyn LeRoy was newly hired at MGM Studios and met with the studio head Louis B. Mayer. After their conversation, Mayer entered the auction on behalf of LeRoy and was the highest bidder ($75,000). 

Now, LeRoy did not want to produce the film, but he wanted to direct the film and have a creative say in the process. With this, LeRoy hired and tried a multitude of writers before finalizing the script. 

With the finalization of the script, the creative team moved onto the casting process. A few of the actors were in a way pre-cast. Buddy Ebsen and Ray Bolger were originally cast as Scarecrow and Tin Man respectively, but Bolger badgered the producers until they swapped the roles, while Ebsen was content with being involved in the production. Initially, the producers didn’t know how they wanted to do the Cowardly Lion. They wanted to avoid the creepiness in the film like Alice in Wonderland and decided to remove him from the storyline. Then, they thought to use Leo the Lion (MGM’s trademark mascot), but ultimately decided to use a man in a costume (and wasn’t too scary, played by Bert Lahr). 

Judy Garland

Judy Garland was not treated well by her mother or during her entire 15 years at MGM Studios. Her mother began giving her amphetamines to perform and barbuturates to sleep at the age of 9, and kickstarted a lifelong addiction. Judy Garland was often regarded as MGM’s “fat little pig with pigtails,” and Louis B. Mayer called her a little hunchback, making comments about her weight and giving direct orders for her diet to consist of only chicken soup, black coffee, and cigarettes. To add onto the list of drugs, MGM also prescribed her a drug (also highly addictive) to suppress her appetite, which caused paranoia and insomnia. 

There was one instance where they were trying to film Dorothy meeting the Cowardly Lion and Garland could not stop laughing at Bahr because of all of the uppers and downers that she was on. The director (Victor Fleming) took her off stage to slap her across the face and yelled at her how she should be ashamed of herself. The abuse did not stop with the creative team; wardrobe and makeup would openly debate how to fix Garland’s “flaws” in front of her. 

Garland once came out about how she was not allowed any breaks. This was especially because any moment they were not shooting a scene, she was in the legally mandated tutoring sessions. With the success of The Wizard of Oz, Garland became America’s sweetheart and so her popularity soared, in turn, allowing MGM to hold even more control over her, even adding to her increasing trouble (depression and alcoholism joining the list).

Set Incidents and Mishaps

  1. A week into filming (October, 1938), a light exploded and rained sparks down onto Garland and Ray Bolger in his Scarecrow costume. 
  2. Buddy Ebsen found himself in the Emergency Room unable to breathe because he was suffering an allergic reaction from inhaling the painted-on aluminum dust that was clogging his lungs. He spent the two weeks after in an oxygen tent. The press was told he had contracted pneumonia, and LeRoy was forced to recast him with Jack Haley. The makeup was also changed, now to an aluminum paste. 

*With the halt in filming LeRoy reevaluated his director choice and decided he was not happy with Richard Thorpe, feeling Thorpe’s vision was lifeless and too broad. This is when they brought in Victor Fleming.*

  1. Two of the flying monkeys were hospitalized after falling when their wires snapped.
  2. Jack Haly (Tin Man), tripped and his costume nearly crushed his windpipe.
  3. Terry the Terrier (Toto) had an extra step on her back and needed two weeks before she resumed filming.
  4. The technicolor processing required so much light, that with the amount of lights they needed, the set reached over 100 degrees Fahrenheit and required they had firemen on hand. When the stage got too hot they had to open the stage doors to air out the room and delayed the production process.
  5. Multiple people developed Klieg eyes, which is an inflammatory eye condition from the excessive exposure to the lights.
  6. Margaret Hamilton (Wicked Witch of the West) obtained first degree burns to her face and second-degree burns to her hands while trying to film the WWW’s disappearance from Munchkinland in one shot. They did get it, however, the fire went off too early and set Hamilton’s broom and hat to flames. To make it worse, her green makeup consisted of toxic copper that needed to be removed with alcohol immediately from her freshly burned skin. 
  7. While Hamilton was out for 6 weeks they created a fireproof costume for her. Hamilton sensed something was up and refused. Her stunt double, Betty Danko, was filmed for the necessary scenes. Fleming (the director) wanted the WWW’s cape to billow in the wind but the cape hid the smoke emitting pipe. After three takes, the pipe exploded and the injury to Danko required her to get a hysterectomy. 
  8. The falling snow in the poppy field scene was not just any ordinary fake snow, it was actually Chrysotile Asbestos. 
Samantha Libby

TCNJ '28

Samantha is a Sophomore History Secondary Education Major. She loves writing, self-care, Broadway, snacking, and binging 2000s Disney and Nickelodeon TV shows and is very involved with the theatre orgs. on campus!