Young Dorothy Gale and her dog Toto are swept away by a tornado from their Kansas farm to the magical Land of Oz, and embark on a quest with three new friends to see the Wizard, who can retu... Read allYoung Dorothy Gale and her dog Toto are swept away by a tornado from their Kansas farm to the magical Land of Oz, and embark on a quest with three new friends to see the Wizard, who can return her to her home and fulfill the others' wishes.Young Dorothy Gale and her dog Toto are swept away by a tornado from their Kansas farm to the magical Land of Oz, and embark on a quest with three new friends to see the Wizard, who can return her to her home and fulfill the others' wishes.
- Won 2 Oscars
- 13 wins & 14 nominations total
- The Munchkins
- (as The Munchkins)
- Munchkin
- (uncredited)
- Munchkin
- (uncredited)
- Munchkin
- (uncredited)
- Munchkin
- (uncredited)
- Munchkin
- (uncredited)
- Emerald City Manicurist
- (uncredited)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaMany shots were trimmed down or edited out of the film because they were too intense for families and children. In particular, one deleted shot shows the tornado completely enveloping the farmhouse. Also, later in the film a lot of The Wicked Witch of the West's scenes were either trimmed or deleted entirely, as Margaret Hamilton's performance was thought to be too frightening for audiences.
- GoofsAfter the Wizard gives the Scarecrow his diploma, he says, "The sum of the square roots of any 2 sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square root of the remaining side." This is a misstatement of the Pythagorean Theorem, which is, in fact, about right triangles and not isosceles ones. However, this statement is not true about any triangle, and so it is completely wrong.
- Quotes
Dorothy: How can you talk if you haven't got a brain?
The Scarecrow: I don't know! But some people without brains do an *awful* lot of talking, don't they?
Dorothy: Yes, I guess you're right.
- Crazy creditsToto is listed in the end credits as being played by Toto, when he was actually played by a female dog named Terry.
- Alternate versionsFrom 1968 to 1984, on NBC-TV and CBS-TV airings of the film, the film was edited to sell more commercial time. As the amount of commercial time on network television gradually increased, more scenes were cut. According to film historian John Fricke, these cuts started with solely a long tracking shot of Munchkin Land after Dorothy arrives there. The rest of the film remained intact. Also according to Fricke, more wholesale cutting of the film took place when CBS regained the TV rights in 1975. 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. 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. Network airings in the 1990s were uncut and not time-compressed; the film aired in a 2-hour, 10-minute time period.
- ConnectionsEdited into Chain Lightning (1950)
There's no doubt that part of the appeal of the story and the characters comes from them being such old friends to so many cinema fans, but there are also good reasons why they have endured for so long, and have been able to hold up even after becoming so familiar. Although Dorothy is not a particularly complex character, she represents an innocent but deep yearning that is easy to identify with. Likewise, the 'Oz' characters are bizarre enough to remain interesting, but there is a core of substance that again is easy to believe in. Who does not feel that he or she could use at least one of the things that Dorothy's friends want?
The adaptation from the original story is done quite well, making fine choices for the characters and episodes that would work on film. The settings and visual effects may not impress the devotees of today's computer imagery, but in their time they certainly demonstrated a great deal of skill and planning, and even now, in their own way they are more believable than are most of the computer tricks that have become so overused.
The popular story has also been used for a number of more recent adaptations, and some of them have had some good points of their own. But this Wizard remains by far the most wonderful of the versions of the classic tale.
- Snow Leopard
- Sep 27, 2004
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Official site
- Language
- Also known as
- Čarovnik iz Oza
- Filming locations
- Stage 28, Sony Pictures Studios - 10202 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, USA(Witch's castle drawbridge; Wash and Brush Up Company; Witch's entrance hall; Witch's tower room; Yellow Brick Road montage song)
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $2,777,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $24,668,669
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $5,354,311
- Nov 8, 1998
- Gross worldwide
- $25,637,669
- Runtime1 hour 42 minutes
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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![Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Bert Lahr, and Frank Morgan in The Wizard of Oz (1939)](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BY2NjNDU1ZjctN2VhZi00Nzc5LTljNmItMTZiOTg1ODkwYjgwXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNTkxMzEwMzU@._V1_QL75_UX90_CR0,2,90,133_.jpg)