The slippers were silver in the book
L. Frank Baum's book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz came out in 1900, and in it DOROTHY's shoes are silver. For the 1939 film, the studio changed them to RUBY SLIPPERS, because the bright red would show off the new Technicolor colour process against the YELLOW BRICK road.
The film starts in black and white, tinted brown, in KANSAS, and bursts into colour when Dorothy opens the door onto the land of Oz after the TORNADO — a moment that was astonishing to audiences who had rarely seen colour on screen. The film was expensive and only modestly successful at first. Its lasting fame came later, when American television began showing it once a year from 1956, and generations of families watched it together.
The first Tin Man ended up in hospital
The actor first cast as the TIN MAN, Buddy Ebsen, wore make-up that included powdered aluminium dusted on his face. He breathed it in, fell seriously ill and had to be taken to hospital. He was replaced by Jack Haley, and the make-up was changed to a paste. Haley recorded new versions of the songs, although Ebsen's voice can still be heard in one of them.
Filming was difficult in other ways too. The WITCH's green make-up contained copper and was hard to remove, and her actor, Margaret Hamilton, was badly burned by a trapdoor effect of fire and smoke.
A song they nearly cut
Over the Rainbow, sung by the sixteen-year-old Judy Garland in the Kansas farmyard, is now one of the most famous songs ever written. During editing, studio executives thought it slowed the film down and that a star should not sing in a farmyard, and it was cut out more than once before being put back. It won the Oscar for Best Original Song.
Our musicals page covers Wicked, which retells the story from the witch's side.
Stolen slippers and a well-paid dog
Several pairs of ruby slippers were made for the film. In 2005 a pair was stolen from a museum in Judy Garland's home town in Minnesota. It was not found until 2018, when American federal agents recovered it. TOTO was played by a female Cairn terrier called Terry, who was paid more each week than some of the actors who played the Munchkins.
The MUNCHKIN actors, many of them adults with dwarfism, came from across Europe and America, and several spoke about the tough conditions on set in later years.
The friends and the grid
Dorothy's companions each want something: the SCARECROW a brain, the Tin Man a HEART, and the cowardly LION COURAGE. GLINDA, the Good Witch, sends them to the Emerald City, where the WIZARD turns out to be an ordinary man hiding behind a curtain. The EMERALD city is green because in the book everyone must wear green-tinted glasses. The book's Wicked Witch of the West has only one eye, which can see as far as a telescope, and Baum went on to write thirteen more Oz books.
The CYCLONE, or TWISTER, carries Dorothy's house to Oz, and a field of POPPY flowers sends them to sleep. And the RAINBOW is where it all begins.