The conspiracy was disturbing enough for Warner Bros. The crane is spotted in the background several times prior to the "hanging" scene. In fact it is the silhouette of a crested crane stretching its wings, as several large birds had been allowed to wander the background to lend the appearance of mysterious creatures lurking in the woods (a close look reveals the bird's black-tipped white wing as the bird reacts to the actors passing close by). This was long rumored to be one of the crew (or, by some accounts, one of the Munchkin actors) committing suicide by hanging himself. By the third preview, held in San Luis Obispo, the film finally was down to its 101-minute running time, where it has remained ever since.Īt the end of the sequence in which Dorothy and the Scarecrow first meet the Tin Man, as the three march off singing "We're Off to See the Wizard," there is a disturbance in the trees off to the right.
After the preview LeRoy cut Dorothy's "Over The Rainbow" reprise, a scene in which the Tin Man turned into a human beehive, and the Emerald City reprise of "Ding Dong, The Witch is Dead," as well as a few smaller scenes and dialog, notably two Kansas scenes in which the Hickory character was building a machine to ward off tornadoes, as well as dozens of threatening lines by the Wicked Witch of the West. After this preview LeRoy cut the aforementioned Jitterbug number and the Scarecrow's extended dance sequence to "If I Only Had a Brain." A second preview was held in Pomona, where the film ran 112 minutes. The original film in its entirety was only seen once by an audience in either San Bernardino or Santa Barbara, and it was the only time the famed Jitterbug number was seen by the public. Three sneak previews aided in his decision of what to cut. Producer Mervyn LeRoy realized that at least 20 minutes needed to be deleted to get it down to a manageable running time. The film's running time was originally 120 minutes. With the Kansas scenes returned to their original sepia tints, however, they closely match the magical opening door and the effect is powerful.
This effect does not work on older video/TV prints where the Kansas scenes appear in true black and white, as the changeover to color is all too apparent. Once the door is opened and the camera advances through it, Garland (wearing her bright blue dress) walks through the door and the audience is none the wiser.
The inside of the farmhouse was painted sepia, and the Dorothy who opens the door from the inside is not Judy Garland but her stand-in wearing a sepia-rinsed version of the famous gingham dress. This process-cumbersome, expensive and ineffective-was abandoned in favor of a simpler and more clever alternative (a variation of this process was used, however, in 1939 release prints of The Women (1939)). MGM had originally planned to incorporate a "stencil printing" process when Dorothy runs to open the farmhouse door before the film switches to Technicolor each frame was to be hand-tinted to keep the inside of the door in sepia tone.
0 kommentar(er)
