The Wizard Of Oz was made in 1939 out of a popular children’s story and it was wildly popular when it first came out and it remains popular to this day. It stars superstar Judy Garland as Dorothy who winds up getting caught in a tornado that sends her and her house to a far away place. In order to get home she needs to see the great Oz who is the wizard of Emerald City. Along the way Dorothy picks up some strange friends in the form of a living scarecrow, a cowardly lion, and a tin woodsman who is a lumberjack made of metal. They all want something from the Wizard of Oz so they decide to band together to get to the Emerald City and make their wishes with Oz. However Dorothy has a powerful enemy in the Wicked Witch Of the West who is angry with Dorothy because Dorothy’s house landed on her sister the Wicked Witch Of The East and then the good witch Glinda gave Dorothy the ruby slippers that were on the Wicked Witch Of The East’s feet. The Wicked Witch Of The West wants the slippers and she wants to kill Dorothy to get them. The Witch tries all through the movie to stop the four happy travelers, five if you count Dorothy’s dog Toto, from getting to Emerald City to see the great Oz. It is one of the most popular movies to this day and when it first came out it won 2 Oscars and made a huge profit. But there is much more to the story of The Wizard Of Oz.

One of the long held urban legends about The Wizard Of Oz is that you can actually see one of the little people that played in the movie committing suicide in the background of one of the scenes. It is the scene where Dorothy and her friends just got done fighting off the Wicked Witch and they turn to head down the path towards the Emerald City. When the producers were making The Wizard Of Oz they wanted to give the land of Oz a feeling of make believe and wonder so one of the devices they decided to use were exotic animals that you would normally not see together in the same place. One of those animals was a large bird called a crane. As the three characters are dancing up the road and out of the scene you can see off to the left what looks like it could be someone swinging on the end of a rope. Since it seems to be a small person it was rumored that one of the actors playing a munchkin had hanged themselves and it wound up in the scene. Since this is absurd the producers never gave it a second thought because if you really look at it you can tell that all you are seeing is a crane spreading its wings and the lighting makes it look like a shadow against the back drop. But the rumor would not go away and eventually, when the movie was released on VHS tape, they had to remove the hanging scene because the stories were beginning to frighten small children and when those children could see the scene in the movie it just made it worse.

Many of the costumes used in the movie were causing the actors serious physical harm. Ray Bolger, who played the scarecrow, found the costume to be confining and hard to work with along with Jack Haley who played the tin man. The movie was a monumental task and when you bring that many people together you will get problems. The munchkins constantly threatened to walk out and Buddy Ebsen was supposed to play the scarecrow but when Bolger said he wanted to play the scarecrow Ebsen agreed to do the tin man. The make up required to do the tin man caused a horrible allergic reaction with Ebsen’s skin and he had to drop out of the movie all together. Volumes of books have been written on the making of The Wizard Of Oz and they are all a very fascinating read.