Wizard Of Oz Research Paper

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Jose Munguia Professor Hartmann English 152-03 1 December 2013 Success of the Wizard of Oz through Television The Wizard of Oz was a spectacular movie. The decade around Oz paved the way for many other amazing movies, which created new genres and set new standards for what a movie should be like. Some of the amazing movies that also came out during 1939 were: Gone with the Wind, Stagecoach, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Of Mice and Men, Love Affair, The Hunchback to Notre Dame, and many other great award winning movies (Films101). Each of these movies have been awarded for their amazing directors, story, actors and visual effects. However, out of all of these movies there has only been one that has been called the most popular movie…show more content…
The film stars Judy Garland; Terry the dog, billed as Toto; Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Bert Lahr, and Frank Morgan, with Billie Burke, Margaret Hamilton, Charley Grapewin, Clara Blandick, and the Singer Midgets as the Munchkins, with Pat Walshe as leader of the flying monkeys(AMC). The film became very famous for its use of Technicolor, a process of color cinematography using synchronized monochrome films, each of a different color, to produce a movie in color. During this time colors were not this vivid before. They didn't even have color television for the most part. The film was so successful because of the fantasy storytelling, musical catchiness and the abnormality of the characters the made the film stand out for the rest and becoming very unique. The film also featured what may be the most elaborate use of character make-ups and special effects in a film up to that time. The Wizard of Oz in 1939 is everybody's cherished favorite, greatest fantasy film musical from MGM during its prime years. The film was first re-released in 1949, and then in 1955, They also broadcast the film for many seasons, regularly on network TV as a prime time event; its first two showings were on CBS on November 3, 1956 and in December, 1959 (AMC). The film soon became a classic institution with annual showings for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter time, in some years, and was sort a rite of…show more content…
The movie had to deal with its own problems and issues during the shooting of the movie. The characters of Dorothy and her friends, however have become forever linked with the actors who created the roles of the movie. W.C. Fields was the first choice to play the Wizard, but a disagreement between the studio and comic actor eliminated his name from the list. Actress Gale Sondergaard, that same year being famous as the Empress Eugenie in Juarez, was auditioned for the Wicked Witch role (Turner Movie Classics). Sondergaard was an accomplished actress, whose career was halted for 20 years thanks to the Hollywood Blacklist, but her exotic beauty was in favor of Margaret Hamilton's more traditionally "witchy" look (Turner Movie Classics). Buddy Ebsen, best known today as Jed Clampett from TV's The Beverly Hillbillies began shooting as the Tin Man, but he was hospitalized with a near-fatal reaction to the silver paint used for the character's make-up and was replaced by Jack Haley. Jack was the father of one of the producers of the film. Even the role of Judy Garland was almost given to child star Shirley Temple, but the attempt to get Shirley never went through because of contract problems. Casting was not the only problem. The script was labored over by 16 writers. 13 of whom went unaccredited including cast members Jack Haley and Bert Lahr, poet Ogden Nash, and screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, who authored

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