![]() ![]() We love stories about the problems on the set between personal feuds, sweltering costumes, partying munchkins and the costume designer who had to keep up with Judy Garland's developing bust line. We know the legend of Buddy Ebsen who had to drop out due to an allergic reaction to the Tin Man makeup and Margaret Hamilton whose dress caught fire and nearly had her face burned off because of the copper-based make-up. We love the legends about the rotating directors, from George Cukor to King Vidor to Victor Fleming. The movie, in front of and behind the scenes, has become movie folklore. The reason this movie remains the most beloved of Hollywood films even after six decades is because 'The Wizard of Oz' is unique among motion pictures in that it mirrors our longings and imaginations as children. Almost everyone you talk to has a memory of their first experience. In the case of 'The Wizard of Oz' it's hard to imagine anyone who might not have seen it at some point in their lives. Other films like 'Gone With the Wind', 'Citizen Kane', 'The Godfather', 'Star Wars', have been seen by a lot of people but in each case I can imagine people that might not have seen them. The fact that it comes to us as children is probably the reason why. I have a theory that this movie has probably been seen by more people than any other movie. Network airings in the 1990s were uncut and not time-compressed the film aired in a 2-hour, 10-minute time period. CBS, which had shown the uncut version of the film in 1956, and again from the films first telecast until 1968, finally started to show it uncut again beginning in 1985, by time-compressing it. By the 1980s, the other excised shots included: the film's dedication in the opening credits, continuity shots of Dorothy and Toto running from the farm, establishing shots of the cyclone, the aforementioned tracking sequence in Munchkin Land, the establishing shot of the poppy field, and tiny bits and pieces of the trip to the Wicked Witch's castle. Also according to Fricke, more wholesale cutting of the film took place when CBS regained the TV rights in 1975. According to film historian John Fricke, these cuts started with solely a long tracking shot of Munchkin Land after Dorothy arrives there. As the amount of commercial time on network television gradually increased, more scenes were cut. From 1968 to 1984, on NBC-TV and CBS-TV airings of the film, the film was edited to sell more commercial time. ![]()
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