Development Production on the film began when
Walt Disney's
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) showed that films adapted from popular children's stories and fairytales could be successful. During filming,
Victor Fleming and
John Lee Mahin revised the script further, adding and cutting some scenes. They completed the final draft of the script on October 8, 1938, following numerous rewrites.
Jack Haley and
Bert Lahr are also known to have written some of their dialogue for the Kansas sequence. Others who contributed to the adaptation without credit include three of the men who directed portions of the film or shoot,
Richard Thorpe,
George Cukor and
King Vidor; along with other writers
Irving Brecher,
Herbert Fields, Arthur Freed, Yip Harburg,
Samuel Hoffenstein, Jack Mintz, and Sid Silvers. Only Langley, Ryerson, and Woolf were credited for the script. Langley seems to have thought that a 1939 audience was too sophisticated to accept Oz as a straight-ahead fantasy; therefore, it was reconceived as a lengthy, elaborate
dream sequence. but was later dropped. Another scene, which was removed before final script approval and never filmed, was an epilogue scene in Kansas after Dorothy's return. Hunk (the Kansan counterpart to the Scarecrow) is leaving for an agricultural college and extracts a promise from Dorothy to write to him. The scene implies that romance will eventually develop between the two, which also may have been intended as an explanation for Dorothy's partiality for the Scarecrow over her other two companions. This plot idea was never totally dropped, and is especially noticeable in the final script when Dorothy, just before she is to leave Oz, tells the Scarecrow, "I think I'll miss you most of all". Much attention was given to the use of color in the production, with the MGM production crew favoring some hues over others. It took the studio's art department almost a week to settle on the shade of yellow used for the
yellow brick road.
Casting Several actresses were reportedly considered for the part of Dorothy, including
Shirley Temple from
20th Century Fox, the most prominent child star at the time;
Deanna Durbin, a relative newcomer with a recognized operatic voice; and
Judy Garland, the most experienced of the three. Officially, the decision to cast Garland was attributed to contractual issues.
Ray Bolger was originally cast as the Tin Man and
Buddy Ebsen was to play the Scarecrow. Ebsen did not object; after going over the basics of the Scarecrow's distinctive gait with Bolger (as a professional dancer, Ebsen had been cast because the studio was confident he would be up to the task of replicating the famous "wobbly-walk" of Stone's Scarecrow), he recorded all of his songs, went through all the rehearsals as the Tin Man and began filming with the rest of the cast.
Wallace Beery lobbied for the role, but the studio refused to spare him during the long shooting schedule. Instead, another contract player,
Frank Morgan, was cast on September 22. Veteran vaudeville performer
Pat Walshe was best known for his performance as various monkeys in many theater productions and circus shows. He was cast as Nikko, the head
Winged Monkey, on September 28, traveling to MGM studios on October 3. An extensive talent search produced over a hundred
dwarfs to play Munchkins; this meant that most of the film's Oz sequences would have to be shot before work on the Munchkinland sequence could begin. According to Munchkin actor
Jerry Maren, the dwarfs were each paid over $125 a week (equivalent to $ in ).
Meinhardt Raabe, who played the coroner, revealed in the 1990 documentary
The Making of the Wizard of Oz that the MGM costume and wardrobe department, under the direction of designer
Adrian, had to design over 100 costumes for the Munchkin sequences. They photographed and cataloged each Munchkin in their costume so they could consistently apply the same costume and makeup each day of production.
Gale Sondergaard was originally cast as the
Wicked Witch of the West, but withdrew from the role when the witch's persona shifted from sly and glamorous (thought to emulate the
Evil Queen in Disney's
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) to the familiar "ugly hag". She was replaced on October 10, 1938, just two days before filming started, by MGM contract player
Margaret Hamilton. Sondergaard said in an interview for a bonus feature on the DVD that she had no regrets about turning down the part. Sondergaard would go on to play a glamorous feline villainess in
20th Century Fox's version of
Maurice Maeterlinck's
The Blue Bird (1940). Hamilton played a role remarkably similar to the Wicked Witch in the Judy Garland film
Babes in Arms (1939). According to Aljean Harmetz, the "gone-to-seed" coat worn by Morgan as the Wizard was selected from a rack of coats purchased from a second-hand shop. According to legend, Morgan later discovered a label in the coat indicating it had once belonged to Baum, Baum's widow confirmed this, and the coat was eventually presented to her. However, Baum biographer
Michael Patrick Hearn says the Baum family denies ever seeing the coat or knowing of the story; Hamilton considered it a rumor concocted by the studio.
Filming Ebsen replaced by Haley The production faced the challenge of creating the Tin Man's costume. Several tests were done to find the right makeup and clothes for Ebsen. Ten days into the shoot, Ebsen suffered a toxic reaction after repeatedly inhaling the aluminum dust (which his daughter, Kiki Ebsen, has said the studio misrepresented as an "allergic reaction") contained in the aluminum powder makeup he wore. He recalled taking a breath one evening, and "nothin' happened," Ebsen's way of saying he wasn't receiving any air into his system. He was hospitalized in critical condition. He spent two weeks on oxygen and was subsequently forced to leave the project. In a later interview (included on the 2005 DVD release of
The Wizard of Oz), he recalled that the studio heads appreciated the seriousness of his illness only after he was hospitalized. Filming halted while a replacement for him was sought. No footage of Ebsen as the Tin Man has ever been released, only photos taken during filming and makeup tests. His replacement Jack Haley assumed Ebsen had been fired. The makeup used for Haley was quietly changed to an aluminum paste, with a layer of clown white greasepaint underneath, in order to protect his skin. Although it did not have the same dire effect on Haley, he did at one point suffer an eye infection from it.
Victor Fleming, the main director as Glinda and Judy Garland as Dorothy Cukor did not shoot any scenes for the film, but acted merely as a creative advisor to the troubled production. His prior commitment to direct
Gone with the Wind (1939) required him to leave on November 3, 1938, when
Victor Fleming assumed directorial responsibility. As director, Fleming chose not to shift the film from Cukor's creative realignment. Producer LeRoy had already expressed his satisfaction with the film's new course. All the Oz sequences were filmed in
three-strip Technicolor, requiring the use of large, hot lights, while the
opening and
closing credits, and the Kansas sequences, were filmed in black and white and colored in a
sepia-tone process. which had been introduced in
The Gulf Between (1917) as a
two-color additive process.
Oz was also not the first to use three-strip Technicolor, the three-color subtractive process (officially known as "
Technicolor Process 4" or "Glorious Technicolor") which allowed for a wider range of reproducible hues compared to the earlier Technicolor processes. Three-strip Technicolor had its live-action debut in a sequence for an earlier MGM feature, the
Jeanette MacDonald musical
The Cat and the Fiddle (1934) and then made its first three-strip Technicolor process that same year in a
Traveltalks' travelogue short
Holland in Tulip Time (1934).
Becky Sharp (1935), a
Pioneer Pictures/
RKO Radio production, was the first feature fully produced in three-strip Technicolor,
The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936), a
Paramount/
Walter Wanger production, which was the first fully produced film to be shot outdoors,
Dancing Pirate (1936), also produced by the makers of
Becky Sharp, was the third feature film and the first musical in that format,
The Garden of Allah (1936), a
Selznick International/
United Artists production, was the fourth film fully produced in the process, and another Jeanette MacDonald musical,
Sweethearts (1938), was MGM's first feature fully produced in the process, four years earlier since the release of the Traveltalks short film
Holland in Tulip Time. It was during the production of
Sweethearts that MGM made the decision to produce most of
The Wizard of Oz in Technicolor, Production on the bulk of the Technicolor sequences was a long and exhausting process that ran for over six months, from October 1938 to March 1939. Most of the cast worked six days a week and had to arrive as early as 4 AM to be fitted with makeup and costumes, and often did not leave until 7 PM or later. Cumbersome makeup and costumes were made even more uncomfortable by the daylight-bright lighting the early Technicolor process required, which could heat the set to over 100 °F (38 °C); this also had the side effect of bringing the production's electricity bill to a staggering estimate of $225,000 (). Bolger later said that the frightening nature of the costumes prevented most of the Oz principals from eating in the studio commissary; and the toxicity of Hamilton's copper-based makeup forced her to eat a liquid diet on shoot days. It took as many as twelve takes to have Toto run alongside the actors as they skipped down the Yellow Brick Road. In Hamilton's exit from Munchkinland, a concealed
elevator was installed to lower her below stage level, as fire and
smoke erupted to dramatize and conceal her exit. The first take ran well, but on the second take, the burst of fire came too soon. The flames set fire to her green, copper-based face paint, causing third-degree burns to her hands and face. She spent three months recuperating before returning to work. Her green makeup had usually been removed with
acetone due to its
toxic copper content. Because of Hamilton's burns, makeup artist Jack Young removed the makeup with alcohol to prevent infection. The studio went to extreme lengths to change her appearance, including binding her chest and giving her
Benzedrine tablets to keep her weight down, along with
uppers and
downers that caused giggling fits. There were claims that various members of the cast pointed out her breasts and made other lewd comments. Victor Fleming slapped her during the
Cowardly Lion's introduction scene when Garland could not stop laughing at Lahr's performance. Once the scene was done, Fleming, reportedly ashamed of himself, ordered the crew to punch him in the face. Garland, however, kissed him instead. She continued to wear false teeth that fit over her own upper teeth that were misaligned. She also wore a rubber disc in each nostril to change the shape of her nose. She would wear the teeth and discs on camera for another five years until her involvement in
Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), whereupon makeup artist Dorothy Ponedel promptly threw the teeth and discs in a drawer after Garland said, "I'm supposed to wear these." Claims have been made in memoirs that the frequently drunk actors portraying the Munchkins propositioned and pinched her. Garland said that she was groped by
Louis B. Mayer. ==Special effects, makeup and costumes==