The Making of the Wizard of Oz

Aljean Harmetz

Published by Alfred A. Knopf Inc, New York, New York, U.S.A., 1977

From the scriptwriters at work (all ten of themâ " including Herman Mankiewicz and Ogden Nash - in relays) to the scandal headlines of Munchkin orgies at the Culver City Hotel to the Witch's (accidental) burning, to the director (the second of four) who stayed on the set just long enough to replace Judy Garland's blond wig with brown braidsâ " here is The Making of THE WIZARD OF OZ. This richly detailed re-creation brings alive, as never before, a major Hollywood studio and reveals, through hundreds of interviews (with cameramen, screen writers, costume designers, directors, producers, light technicians, actors, et al.), how the factorylike (Rube Goldberg-like) Hollywood system of moviemaking miraculously produced one of the most enduring and best-loved films ever made. We watch it happenâ "the bright idiosyncratic, wildly devoted MGM-ers approaching Production #1060 as they would any of the 52 MGM productions scheduled a year, giving it shape in a thousand ingenious ways: inventing the lines, the songs . . . flying hordes of monkeys through the sky . . . growing a poppy field . . building the Emerald City (and 60 other sets) . . . designingâ "and sewingâ "the nearly 1,000 costumes . . . pinning up colors (for Technicolor) , . enduring the pressures from the front office (studio executives re Garland's "Over the Rainbow": "Why does she sing in a barnyard? Take it out!"} â ¦ choosing the actors . . . Jack Haley on makeup wizardry: "I couldn't breatlie through my face" . Bert Lahr on the cowardly lion skin: "It was like carrying a mattress around with you" . Margaret Hamilton analyzing the Wicked Witch: "She enjoyed every minute screaming about those slippers" . . . From the MGM music chief who recycled Mendelssohn (for Toto's escape from the Witch's Castle) to the search for the beautiful Wicked Witch of the West, to the auction of the ruby slippers more than three decades later ($15,000 . . . Sold!)â "here is Oz. Here is a marvelousâ "an unprecedentedâ "experience of studio life (chaotic, frantic, driven, astonishingly productive) as it was lived day by day, detail by detail, department by department, at the most powerful and flamboyant studio Hollywood has ever known at its moment of greatest power. ALJEAN HARMETZ was born and grew up in California. Her articles on filmmaking-and film-makers appear regularly in The New York Times. And she writes as well for McCalls, the Los Angeles Times, and the Atlantic Monthly. All orders shipped protected in a box. Seller Inventory # 000964

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Making of the Wizard of Oz
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf Inc, New York, New York, U.S.A.
Publication Date: 1977
Binding: Hardcover
Illustrator: Photographs
Condition: New
Dust Jacket Condition: New
Edition: 1st Edition.
Book Type: Book