NEW YORK -- The legendary rumours of Munchkin mischief during production of The Wizard of Oz have been greatly exaggerated, according to one of the 124 little people who populated Victor Fleming's set at MGM studios.
"We wouldn't have the film the way it is if that had been going on!" Munchkin actor Ruth Duccini tells Sun Media during 70th anniversary celebrations for the 1939 film, which has just been spectacularly restored to its original glory and premiered on Blu-ray by Warner Bros., which owns the early MGM library. Duccini says shooting would never have been finished if the Munchkins were actually doing what has been alleged. "I would admit there were probably some, but there are some in any group, people who drink too much or ..."
Duccini, a soft-spoken, mild-mannered 91-year-old woman, does not finish the "or ..." part of her sentence. Her manners are too refined to go into details. But the rumours, which have built up to ridiculous levels over the 71 years since the shooting took place late in 1938, concern the alleged carousing, drunken debauchery and sexual escapades. The Chevy Chase comedy Under the Rainbow later gave the rumoured antics even more currency.
"But all of that stuff was exaggerated," Duccini says, adding that Judy Garland, who played Dorothy as a teenager of 16 and befriended the little people on set, later dined out on myth-making storytelling. "Judy was just so good at telling a story when she was on Jack Paar," Duccini says of Garland's habit of taking a grain of truth and spinning it into a fanciful story for the amusement of talk show host Paar, who was the Leno or Letterman of his day.
Angela Lansbury, who hosts many of the bonus materials available on the DVDs and Blu-ray editions of The Wizard of Oz, once said of "The Singer Midgets," as they were originally billed, "only a few are rowdy -- most are enthusiastic! The legends of Munchkin mischief begin almost immediately. Most stories are greatly exaggerated, some are true."
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SURVIVORS: Only six of the original 124 little people who played Munchkins are still alive today. Five showed up for the recent 70th birthday bash in New York, including a charity fund-raising night at the Tavern on the Green, which happens to be owned by the family of the late filmmaker Mervyn LeRoy. As one of the power brokers at MGM in that era, LeRoy produced The Wizard of Oz.
Duccini, who played a Munchkin townsperson in a peaked hat and peasant dress, was joined by Jerry Maren (the Lollipop Guild member), Margaret Pellegrini (the flowerpot hat dancer), Karl Slover (the first trumpeter who heralded Dorothy's arrival at Munchkin City Hall) and Meinhardt Raabe (the coroner who proclaims that the witch is "really most sincerely dead!"). Raabe, 94, is the oldest of the group and confined to a wheelchair. But he is still as active as possible, still ready to recite the famous death declaration on the Wicked Witch.
"It's wonderful when you think of how they survived this life," Duccini says of her fellow survivors. She says, despite the obstacles all of them have faced in American society because of the hardships of being little people, they have found ways to enjoy life. And there is one important element: "Most of them have a great sense of humour!"
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URBAN MYTH: THE HANGING: No one was ever found hanging from a tree on the set of Oz, despite the persistent urban myth. That is the word from Wizard of Oz historian John Fricke.
The myth, which began with the release of the movie on grainy VHS in 1980, has many versions, including one that claims a Munchkin wrapped himself in tinfoil and hung himself from the tree on the set. This was supposedly during the wooded scenes in which Dorothy and the Scarecrow have rescued the Tin Man and are heading towards the Emerald City.
"Do you think that 75 people would not notice an over-roasted Munchkin swinging from the tree?" Fricke asks incredulously, referring to the approximate number of cast and crew members who would have been on-set at MGM when those scenes were filmed. "I think not!"
It turns out that the hanging Munchkin -- or whatever the different versions of the urban myth allege -- is a bird. Specifically a species of crane that was hired from the Los Angeles Zoo, along with a toucan and other birds, to populate the set. The silvery crane was flapping its wings in the background as the scene was shot. In the restored print, especially in the new Blu-ray version, it is absurdly obvious that it is a bird and not a person.
"First it was supposed to be a stagehand who got caught in the shot," Fricke says of the way the urban myth evolved from 1980 on. "As America's got more gratuitously ugly in its urban legends, it became an actress who hung herself because she wasn't cast as Dorothy. Then it was a Munchkin who hung himself because Judy Garland wouldn't date him. Then, as the print began to be restored and it become little clearer, it was a Munchkin who wrapped himself in aluminum foil and hung himself because Judy Garland wouldn't date him."
Now that decades of restoration efforts have culminated in a near-perfect image, all that has been debunked as nonsense, Fricke says. The urban legend is dead, unless you're a birdbrain.
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WIZARD OF OZ SPIN-OFFS: Lorna Luft, Judy Garland's eldest daughter, is no fan of any spin-off productions inspired by the 1939 version of The Wizard of Oz. That includes the failed sequel, Return to Oz (1985) and even the enormously successful Broadway musical, Wicked.
"I guess I'm not the person to talk to about other projects," she tells Sun Media. "I am a bit of a purist. So when people take the story and do other things to it, I ..." Luft does not complete her rant. Instead, she rolls her eyes and waves her hand dismissively.
Meanwhile, on-going rumours of an Oz re-make really get her dander up.
"I hope not!" she says of the possibility, especially in a Hollywood that seems to re-make everything because executives are so afraid of new ideas. "I mean, there always has been a rumour out there: 'Oh, there're going to re-make The Wizard of Oz!'
"'Oh, stop it!' I think to myself. 'Why? You think you're doing to do better than this? I don't think so! Just leave it alone! You're not going to improve on perfection!' "
In the DVD and Blu-ray documentary Memories of Oz, filmmaker John Waters calls the notion of a re-make ridiculous, or worse: "It would be suicide! The movies you should re-make are the bad ones, not the good ones."
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OVER THE RAINBOW: One true rumour about The Wizard of Oz is that Garland's famous song, Over the Rainbow, was cut out of the movie after the first previews. It was finally edited back in after bitter battles at the studio over the scene, which takes place in Kansas before the tornado takes Dorothy and her farmhouse to the land of Oz.
Luft, who talked about the signature song with her mother many times, says Garland also credited the producer for setting things right. "Mervyn LeRoy fought for the song, yes he did!" Luft says now.
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DOROTHY AS A BLOND: "Every single director had his own vision," Luft says of the five directors who worked on The Wizard of Oz. One left the director's chair before shooting even started. Richard Thorpe then shot for a couple of weeks, with Dorothy dressed in a long blond wig and looking more New York hip than Kansas country. Thorpe's footage was discarded and all the scenes later re-shot.
Next up was George Cukor, who came in as a temporary measure to get the film back on track before he went off to take over shooting on Gone With the Wind. Among other changes, Cuckor did two things that signficantly transformed the Oz film. He made Dorothy a pig-tailed red-head who actually looked like a farmgirl. And he turned the Yellow Brick Road into a pathway that actually looked like it was made out of bricks.
Cukor then gave way to his friend Victor Fleming, who shot most of what we know as The Wizard of Oz. Ironically, Fleming left with a couple of weeks of shooting remaining because MGM needed him to replace Cukor -- who had been fired -- on Gone With the Wind. As a result, Fleming is the primary credited director on two of the most memorable film of 1939 -- and of all time.
Verteran director King Vidor came in to finish Oz, mostly the sepia-toned Kansas scenes that are the prelude to the fantastical Technicolor scenes in the land of Oz.
"I think all the directors (contributed)," says Luft, again relying on the stories her mother used to tell her children at the dinner table about the film that catapulted her to Hollywood stardom. "I think some of them were a bit funny. The blond wig! All of the makeup! All of the costume tests! I don't think they had a real vision (in the early stages of the production). Don't forget, Dorothy in the book was younger. In all the Oz books, she was really a kid."
That is why Hollywood child star Shirley Temple was seriously considered for the role, Luft says. "They offered it to her. Thank God that Fox (20th Century Fox, where Temple had a contract) wouldn't release her. It would have been a completely different movie!"
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MAKING OF THE LEGEND: The Wizard of Oz cost $2.6 million to shoot in 1938-39. That was an enormous budget for a family film -- or any film -- in that era. While Oz proved to be popular on first release, it did not break even and start to make money until a theatrical re-release 10 years later.
In the early days of television, The Wizard of Oz started to become a legend. It made its TV debut in 1956. It returned in 1959 and then, throughout the 1960s, became a yearly staple. By 1970, insiders claimed that it was the most watched movie in history -- and may still own that record today.
Luft remembers her first viewing. "It was on television and there was a big to-do about it." Her mother was in New York performing. Luft and her bother Joey were at home in Los Angeles. The nanny got the kids excited about seeing their mother's movie.
"Well," Luft says of the experience, "I saw this child who had my mother's voice and then the witch and the monkies and all that. I proceeded to get hysterical!"
When Garland called to find out how her children liked the movie, Luft recalls, "We were both hysterical! She had to calm us down. I was sobbing that the monkies had taken her to New York! And she said, 'I'll never let you watch it alone again!' -- and she didn't.
"So I have never really thought of The Wizard of Oz as a children's film. In fact, you've got to be really careful because this movie has terrified people, terrified children. I know that they are supposed to be sophisticated and all of that now, but kids really, really get into believing!"
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THE CULT: The Wizard of Oz appeals to a lot of cults, including members of the gay community who like to dress up as Dorothy. Luft finds it strange.
"It takes a lot of getting used to once you grow up and you try to understand the legacy. It's overwheming and, yes, sometimes it's odd," she says of the general effect of The Wizard of Oz. "Yes, it's odd to see men dressed up as Dorothy. It's odd. And don't think I haven't seen it. I think I've pretty much seen everything. There are people who revere the movie and love the movie, and then there are people who are obsessed by it. That's good but, to be obsessed by anything is always, to me, 'interesting'!"
Filmmaker John Waters is part of the gay cult around Oz. "I'm the only child in the world that always wondered why Dorothy ever wanted to go back to Kansas," he says in Memories of Oz. "Why would she want to go back to Kansas on this dreary black-and-white farm with an aunt who dressed badly and seemed mean, to me, when she could live with magic shoes, winged monkeys and gay lions? I never understood it!"
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THE COMMISSARY: It is true that Dorothy's best friends in Oz were banned from the MGM commissary for lunch during the shooting of the film, Luft says. Her mother had confirmed it and so did Jack Haley Jr., who made a landmark documentary about the film that is part of the new Ultimate Collector's Edition DVDs and Blu-rays. We are talking about Ray Bolger, as The Scarecrow, Jack Haley as the Tin Man and Bert Lahr as the Cowardly Lion. When some of their facial makeup was stripped off for lunchtime, pieces were left dangling along with gobs of blue, Luft says.
"They would go in the commissary and people were disgusted by them and they were asked: 'To please keep these actors on the set because they are making other actors in the commissary sick!' "
That just added to the misery for Bolger, Haley and Lahr, who all loved the finished film, adored the young Garland but hated the ordeal of making The Wizard of Oz. In Lahr's case, his Cowardly Lion costume weighed 90 pounds and was made from a real lion's hide, with added ornaments such as the Goldilocks mane. Meanwhile, temperatures soared to more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit on the set, due to the intense lighting required for the Technicolor film shoot. "I don't think they had a great time," Luft says of the trio of character actors. "I know Bert Lahr was suffering throughout the whole making of the film."
None ever took their frustration out on Garland. "I thought she was the most adorable creature that was ever put on this Earth -- and so right for the part of Dorothy," Bolger once said (his interview clip is in the 1990 documentary, The Wizard of Oz: The Making of a Movie Classic, which is also part of the Ultimate Collector's Editions on DVD and Blu-ray). "She was like a little girl from Kansas, with great big eyes. She wasn't pretty. She was plump. but, in a way, she was beautiful!"
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ITS PLACE IN HISTORY: Historian John Fricke has written five books, three on The Wizard of Oz (including a 70th anniversary coffee table book) and two on Judy Garland. He is, obviously, a specialist who also happens to love the film. Warner Bros. repeatedly turn to Fricke to give people a sense of the historian importance of The Wizard of Oz. Fricke did the beautiful souvenir book that is part of the new DVD and Blu-ray collections, and he also prepared the reproduction version of the 1939 campaign book that is also included as a collectible in the box sets. Fricke also helped Warner Bros. find the new Oz-related silent films that are included as bonus materials on the discs.
"What it basically boils down to is that I am kind of the go-to guy for Warner Bros. for Judy and Oz," Fricke says. "And that's great because I've been in love with all of this since I was five years old -- and it was never suppsed to become a career. According to my creditors, it still hasn't become a career. But that's a whole other topic. I've seen it about 125 times, but you have to realize there are four-year-olds who have seen it more than I because they watch it three times a day on home video!"
Is that healthy for a child? "Of course it is heathyly! What could be more healthy than The Wizard of Oz? I don't mean to sound like a company man but, gee whiz! A lot of kids have driven their parents crazy with that movie, but it's a good way to go."
As a result of his passion, his research and his standing with the film, we will let Fricke explain why he thinks it is a classic:
"I think that The Wizard of Oz is a film that typifies the very best of the American musical comedy entertainment. You had MGM -- the only studio that would have taken the money to do Oz at that time -- with the best people in front and behind the camera. And you had Judy Garland, who for my money -- and history is kind of proving -- is arguably one of the greatest, if not the greatest, entertainers of recorded time."
With all the other attributes of the film, such as the musical comedy and the adventure and the state-of-the-art special effects, The Wizard of Oz is "a true American classic," Fricke says with authority. Ding dong, the wicked witch is dead, but The Wizard of Oz lives on forever.
