It's easy to imagine any of these actors performing the role beautifully, but the final choice, Frank Morgan, proved to be the perfect Wizard. Did you know that it took more than a year for deep grooves to leave Ray Bolger's face from the prosthetics? Lanky, loose-jointed dancer Buddy Ebsen was signed to play the Scarecrow, a part for which he was ideally suited. ", Sid Luft also wrote in his memoir that the older male Munchkin actors "thought they could get away with anything because they were so small." It would have been next to impossible except that Technicolor had just introduced its new, "faster" film, which today would have an ASA rating of about 50. Note: This article includes stories about suicide and assault. The mass of wires more than 1,000 altogether necessitated numerous retakes due to breaks. The green makeup contained copper, which, if ingested, could prove to be fatal. However, they were immediately bailed out so production wouldn't be stalled: "You couldn't lock them up for long because they were needed on the set. A commercial artist from Massachusetts, Newcombe entered the movie field in 1922 by producing an art film entitled The Enchanted City. They began including two-color Technicolor sequences in silent features as early as 1924, with The Uninvited Guest. "We elected to use Cineon software for automated dust-busting, with one important provision," says Feiner. The men who were hired to play the winged monkeys were attached to ''bat wings'' and a small motor suited to power windshield-wipers. Pacific Title was founded in Los Angeles in 1919, the very same year that the ASC came into being. The Kansas scenes at the beginning, directed by King Vidor, were photographed in black-and-white. The bottom of the funnel was anchored in a hidden slot that ran the length of the stage. As of today, no principal cast of the film is still alive. The Wizard of Oz | Frank Morgan got the role of the Wizard after W.C. Fields demanded too much money. ", Sidney Luft also wrote in his memoir that the older male Munchkin actors apparently "thought they could get away with anything because they were so small." The cigars just for show.. Portrayed by rapper Master P. After Vern Schillinger's daughter-in-law Carrie gave Because today at least, it washes off. That would equate to almost $2,300 per week in 2019. I would guess that the original negative was probably used to make more than 10 and perhaps as many as 200 release prints. WebPlayed one of the Munchkins in the film "The Wizard of Oz" CREDITS Broadway; Every Man for Himself (Dec 09, 1940 - Dec 11, Curtis [Little Boy] PlayOriginal. Seconds after the mishap, she looked down at her hand and saw the damage: "From the wrist to the fingernails, there was no skin on the hand. ", The digital files for both the Technicolor and black-and-white sequences were converted to intermediate film with a Kodak laser film recorder. Margaret Hamilton, on the roof, awaits her cue while Jack Haley's Tin Man has a heart-to-heart with Dorothy and the Scarecrow. Top subscription boxes right to your door, 1996-2023, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. Scroll to Crew. According to Feiner, this process requires 4K x 3K of digital data with 10 bits of log space per pixel. Because you don't take chances with green. Also that year, the Boston native played the villainous Light-Fingered Lester in an Our Gang short film and appeared as Little Professor Atom in The Marx Brothers At the Circus. Seldom accepting a role which demeaned or patronized little people, Curtis played an obnoxious vaudeville performer compelled to sit on Gary Cooper's lap in Meet John Doe (1941), a suspicious circus star willing to turn Robert Cummings over to the cops in Saboteur (1942), and one of the many fair-weather friends of The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957). Edna Mae Oliver and Margaret Hamilton were interviewed, and the role went to Hamilton. What we suggest is selected independently by the Kidadl team. A patented imbibition process was used to transfer the image information onto release prints for theaters. Mon, Jan 01 1934 Sat, Jan 01 1955. Producer Mervyn LeRoy helped persuade MGM's Louis B. Mayer to acquire the rights to L. Frank Baum's book and played a crucial role in the casting of the characters. | "It took an aesthetic eye," he explains. Diminutive American actor Billy Curtis avoided the usual onus of freak-show employment as a youth, opting for a mainstream job as a shoe clerk. Is that famous line from the film accurate? You have subscribed to: Remember that you can always manage your preferences or unsubscribe through the link at the foot of each newsletter. The co-founder of MGM, Louis B. Meyer, called Judy Garland 'My little hunchback.'. With those words, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer introduced what became the most popular Technicolor fantasy ever made, The Wizard of Oz. The dancing Scarecrow sequence was an outtake stored on 250 feet of film less than three minutes of screen time in the CRI (Color Reversal Intermediate) format. The Wizard of Oz | Jack Haley was the last one to join the cast. The Kidadl Team is made up of people from different walks of life, from different families and backgrounds, each with unique experiences and nuggets of wisdom to share with you. Toto was paid much more than the three munchkins. Maren, now 94, is the last surviving Munchkin actor. Billy Curtis' career thrived into the 1970s, notably with solid parts in the Clint Eastwood western High Plains Drifter (1973) and the crime-caper melodrama Little Cigars (1973), in which he had second billing as a diminutive criminal mastermind. Crew. He had been spotted by an MGM scout while performing in a show at the Bond Hotel in Connecticut and was the youngest of the 124 adult actors to suit up as a Munchkin. This was done in exchange for allowing Clark Gable and Jean Harlow to star in Fox's Old Chicago film. Sat, Jun 10 1922 Billy The huge camera moved smoothly and quietly over the well-lubricated tracks. Ironically, Fleming later replaced Cukor on GWTW as well. With Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney hosting screenings at Loew's Capitol Theater, it set house records. He stumbled upon the marking of his filing cabinet, and the last drawer was marked 'O to Z,' hence the name Oz came into being. Fields' Wizard would've been more of a con-man while Morgan played him as a frightened little humbug. A silent version of the book was made in 1910 by Selig Polyscope Company, which, if you want to have a look at it, is available on the internet. Category : The Wizard of Oz (film) - Wikimedia In the famous poppy field scenes of the movie where a snowstorm was shown, the snow was not snow but asbestos. Learn How rich is He in this year and how He spends money? The explosion blew me off the broomstick." Billy Curtis. The prop exploded, sending her to the hospital for 11 days and leaving her with permanent scars. Release Dates The famous song 'Over the Rainbow' almost did not make it to the final cut. In 1951, he was a mole-man in the dark George Reeves movie Superman and the Mole-Men. Billy Curtis' career thrived into the 1970s, notably with solid parts in the Clint Eastwood western High Plains Drifter (1973) and the crime-caper melodrama Little Cigars (1973), in which he had second billing as a diminutive criminal mastermind. Universals singing star Deanna Durbin was also considered, but her childish contours were blossoming. Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created many interesting family-friendly facts for everyone to enjoy! A musical adaptation also originated in 1902, which, a year later, was transformed to Broadway. Fleming was one five directors who worked on Oz, but he left before it finished to take over Gone With the Wind. He is from MA. MGM wanted 10-year-old Shirley Temple instead. The resulting composite was back-projected outside Dorothy and the window. That led to his employment by D. W. Griffith for America (1923) and, in 1925, the start of his long career at MGM. Billy Curtis may have been one of the most unusual heroes in any Western. The only remaining copies were protection fine-grain intermediates made by MGM Labs in 1960. When the Witch sets the Scarecrow on fire, Dorothy throws water on him. Ebsen claimed to have breathing problems for the rest of his life because of "that damned movie.". A dozen monkeys seen in the foreground and in scenes where they harass the heroes were men in costume, all selected because of their slight physiques. However, in 1960, the fine-grain film stocks and the techniques employed for making optical and contact copies were nowhere near as sophisticated as they are today. Principal photography of this fantastic adventure story began on October 13 with Richard Thorpe directing. The Wizard of Oz | The MGM Optical Department photographed the film's titles. In 1984, a copy was struck from one of those intermediates. Temple was signed to 20th Century Fox, and for years she was expected to star in some type of Oz film series. After several takes, the pyrotechnics ignited too soon and she was seriously burned on the face and hand. Feiner notes that the original Technicolor imagery can be re-created by making separate passes with each of the three strips directly onto an answer print. Luft recalled one event in particular, claiming, "The next day, on the set, hungover, they would make Judy's life miserable by putting their hands under her dressThe men were 40 or more years old. Billy Curtiss income source is mostly from being a successful Actor. Amen. All Rights Reserved. ", MGM Labs had set up a production line to copy the nitrate film onto CRIs, recording from the emulsion side rather than the base side. Instead, the camera moved to make the ball appear to describe the path it was to follow. The only reason she didn't sue the studio was because "I know how this business works, and I would never work again. The story exerts warmth and thrills, making it a masterpiece and a must-see film for the young and the old. ", Garland told biographer Paul Donnelly that they'd give her and Mickey Rooney, with whom she made several movies, the pills to "keep us on our feet long after we were exhaustedthen knock us out with sleeping pillsthen after four hours theyd wake us up and give us the pep pills again so we could work 72 hours in a row. Just 4 feet 11.5 inches, she could be underweight and still appear heavy or out of proportion on screen., In the memoir Judy and I: My Life with Judy Garland, Sidney Luft revealed that a lot of the older male Munchkin actors were "naughty." The digital restoration work was executed on Silicon Graphics 02 platforms and several dual-processor Octanes running Matador Paint and Cineon applications software. The tale begins in Kansas, where Dorothy lives with her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry and enjoys the friendship of three farmhands: Hunk, Zeke and Hickory. Company Credits WebBorn with dwarfism, actor Billy Curtis famously played a Munchkin city father in The Wizard of Oz in 1939. Our thanks to Fred Detmers, Buddy Ebsen, Lois January, and the late George Cukor, Billy Curtis, Marcel Delgado, Harold Rosson, ASC and Harry Wolf, ASC. In commercials, Maren picked up a paycheck as Mayor McCheese and the Hamburglar for McDonalds. "We now use wet-gate technology to protect the film when it is contact-printed or duplicated with an optical printer," Feiner explains. The Hollywood Reporter is a part of Penske Media Corporation. LeRoy wanted Ed Wynn, who felt that the part was too small. Dorothy flees with Toto but runs for home after talking to Professor Marvel, a fortune-teller and balloonist. One of the great children's films that made Judy Garland a star. By manipulating the car, the effects experts could make the tornado twist and perform erratic moves. People found the book so captivating that it sold out in the first two weeks of its distribution and remained a best-seller for two consecutive years. Wizard of Oz Any information you provide to us via this website may be placed by us on servers located in countries outside the EU if you do not agree to such placement, do not provide the information. When Feiner inspected the Scarecrow scene, the image seemed slightly off. The final cost was $2,777,000. Meaning, if seen from the perspective of the present year, 2021, Toto made $116,792 yearly. The actors of the film had to dress up in costumes that were tormenting. "We test scanned the original fine-grain and the dupe to see if there were discernible differences in resolution, sharpness and overall image quality," he says. Ray Bolger, who played Scarecrow, had to tolerate the marks his makeup left on his face even after a year since the beloved film was wrapped. When Jack Haley replaced him, the studio started using a safer aluminum paste as makeup. Gillespie had a 35' wind sock cast in thin rubber and ordered a steel gantry specially built and suspended from the ceiling. He was 98. Apparently, they spent most of their time after work at bars and "were disorderly as hell, yelling and screaming." ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. MGM wanted 10-year-old Shirley Temple instead. Even so, Rosson was astonished at the number of big arcs required to light the picture. Age information for actors in the movie The Wizard Of Oz, released on Tuesday, August 15 1939. They are passionate about turning your everyday moments into memories and bringing you inspiring ideas to have fun with your family. ", The images were stored on the high-speed disk array for display at 2K resolution. Young was always extra careful when taking off Hamilton's makeup "because you don't take chances with green." Then the individual objects that swirl past men rowing a boat, Hamilton riding her bicycle, Auntie Em in her rocking chair, etc. Ruby Slippers Pacific Title/Mirage converted it to digital format with a Kodak digital film scanner at full film resolution. Your privacy is important to us. All of the original three-strip Technicolor film from that period was recorded on a potentially flammable nitrate-based emulsion. at the Wyndham's Theatre. Because it was initially given the title of 'The Emerald City.'. Chances are that no film has been seen by more people than The Wizard of Oz. Georgina Onuorah has been announced as the lead role of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz this summer, produced by Michael Harrison and the Really Useful Group.. This was a very common practice on movie sets back in the day, as asbestos was fireproof (unlike cotton, which was previously used) and looked close enough to the real thing. The Adventures of Superman. McDonalds retired the character when Billy died in 1988. That equals $2,246 per week in the year 2021or a yearly salary of $116,792. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Anonymous Family (1) Spouse Curtis, Joann (1948 - 1988) (his death) (2 children) Trivia (7) Billy Curtis was the main reason for Judy Garland 's comment that the Munchkins were "little drunks." Her performance as the Wicked Witch would frighten generations of children, who routinely, The Wizard of Oz | Victor Fleming consults with his actors. The house has squashed the Wicked Witch of the East. That was then considered to be the archival master. This film was previously released on home video in a very truncated version with all the naughty bits removed. It might startle you to know that Dorothy wore a pink and not white shirt. We hold major institutions accountable and expose wrongdoing. The toxicity of her makeup actually prevented Hamilton from getting faster medical attention during the fiery stunt gone wrong: "It would have been another matter if she had not been wearing green makeup: makeup man Jack Young would have gently blotted off the greasepaint, and Dr. Jones, the MGM doctor, would have covered the burns with salve.
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