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From: bch@unc.UUCP (Byron Howes )
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: Re: The Wizard Of Oz
Message-ID: <5975@unc.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 5-Oct-83 03:01:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: unc.5975
Posted: Wed Oct  5 03:01:37 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 6-Oct-83 02:07:28 EDT
References: ihuxw.514
Lines: 19

While The Wizard of Oz was not the first color film, it was one of only
three major-studio color films made in 1939.  (Anybody else remember
the other two?)  One can hardly complain that the film is not high-tech.
For 1939 it was about as high-tech as you can get.  To correct a few
facts presented in Tom O'Connor's article:  Ray Bolger was originally
cast as the Tin Woodman.  Bert Lahr had always been intended as the
Cowardly Lion ... the script was written with him in mind (at the time
he was a popular and accomplished vaudvillian.)  The maker of the
"home movies" was none other than Harold Arlan, the composer of all
the songs and movies in the film (not to mention a few other popular
songs like "Stormy Weather".)   The reason the number was cut at the
last minute is that "The Jitterbug" had just come out as a popular
song/dance and the studio thought that there would be confusion in
addition to trying to cut the film to fit a proper (by 1939 standards)
length.

					Byron Howes
					UNC - Chapel Hill
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