'THE WIZARD OF OZ' PREMIERES IN LOS ANGELES IN 1939

Today, The Grandma has been watching The Wizard of Oz, the American film, that premiered at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Los Angeles, California, on a day like today in 1939.

The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). An adaptation of L. Frank Baum's 1900 children's fantasy novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, it was primarily directed by Victor Fleming, who left production to take over the troubled Gone with the Wind.

It stars Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Jack Haley, Billie Burke and Margaret Hamilton. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, while others made uncredited contributions. The music was composed by Harold Arlen and adapted by Herbert Stothart, with lyrics by Edgar "Yip" Harburg.

The Wizard of Oz is celebrated for its use of Technicolor, fantasy storytelling, musical score, and memorable characters. 

It was a critical success and was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, winning Best Original Song for Over the Rainbow and Best Original Score for Stothart; an Academy Juvenile Award was presented to Judy Garland.

While the film was sufficiently popular at the box office, it failed to make a profit for MGM until its 1949 re-release, earning only $3 million on a $2.7 million budget, making it MGM's most expensive production at the time.

The 1956 television broadcast premiere of the film on CBS reintroduced the film to the public. According to the U.S. Library of Congress, it is the most seen film in movie history.

In 1989, it was selected by the Library of Congress as one of the first 25 films for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant; it is also one of the few films on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register.

The film was ranked second in Variety's inaugural 100 Greatest Movies of All Time list published in 2022. It was among the top ten in the 2005 BFI (British Film Institute) list of 50 films to be seen by the age of 14 and is on the BFI's updated list of 50 films to be seen by the age of 15 released in May 2020.

The Wizard of Oz has become the source of many quotes referenced in contemporary popular culture. The film frequently ranks on critics' lists of the greatest films of all time and is the most commercially successful adaptation of Baum's work.

Production on the film began when Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) showed that films adapted from popular children's stories and fairytales could be successful.

In January 1938, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer bought the rights to L. Frank Baum's popular novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz from Samuel Goldwyn. Goldwyn had considered making the film as a vehicle for Eddie Cantor, who was under contract to Samuel Goldwyn Productions and whom Goldwyn wanted to cast as the Scarecrow.

Several actresses were reportedly considered for the part of Dorothy, including Shirley Temple from 20th Century Fox, at the time, the most prominent child star; Deanna Durbin, a relative newcomer, with a recognised operatic voice; and Judy Garland, the most experienced of the three. Officially, the decision to cast Garland was attributed to contractual issues.

The Wizard of Oz is famous for its musical selections and soundtrack. Its songs were composed by Harold Arlen, with lyrics by E. Y. "Yip" Harburg. They won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for Over the Rainbow. The song ranks first in the AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs and the Recording Industry Association of America's 365 Songs of the Century.

MGM composer Herbert Stothart, a well-known Hollywood composer and songwriter, won the Academy Award for Best Original Score.

The film premiered at the Orpheum Theatre in Green Bay, Wisconsin on August 10, 1939. The first sneak preview was held in San Bernardino, California. The film was previewed in three test markets: in Kenosha, Wisconsin and Dennis, Massachusetts on August 11, 1939, and at the Strand Theatre in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, on August 12.

The Hollywood premiere was on August 16, 1939, following a preview the night before at Grauman's Chinese Theatre. 

The New York City premiere, held at Loew's Capitol Theatre on August 17, 1939, was followed by a live performance with Garland and her frequent film co-star Mickey Rooney. They continued to perform there after each screening for a week. Garland extended her appearance for two more weeks, partnered with Rooney for a second week and with Oz co-stars Ray Bolger and Bert Lahr for the third and final week. The film opened nationwide on August 25, 1939.

More information: Roger Ebert

 'The Wizard of Oz' is my favourite.
It explains what life on this planet is about.
Although Dorothy reaches Oz,
she finds she had what she needed to go back to Kansas
all along, but the Good Witch tells her
that she had to learn it for herself.
 All of the answers to the meaning of life are there.

RuPaul

'FIDDLESTICKS', THE FIRST SOUND CARTOON IN COLOUR

Today, The Grandma has been watching some cartoons. She loves them. She has chosen Fiddlesticks, a cartoon directed and animated by Ub Iwerks with Flip the Frog as the main character, that was released on a day like today in 1930.

Fiddlesticks is a 1930 Celebrity Pictures theatrical cartoon short directed and animated by Ub Iwerks, in his first cartoon since he departed from Walt Disney's studio. The short features Iwerks' character Flip the Frog.  

It is the first complete sound cartoon to be photographed in color. The film went into the public domain after the copyright owner failed to renew the copyright after the film's 28 year term.

Flip the Frog is an animated cartoon character created by American animator Ub Iwerks. He starred in a series of cartoons produced by Celebrity Pictures and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer from 1930 to 1933. The series had many recurring characters besides Flip; including Flip's dog, the mule Orace, and a dizzy neighborhood spinster.

More information: Cartoon Research

Ubbe Ert Iwwerks (March 24, 1901-July 7, 1971), known as Ub Iwerks, was an American animator, cartoonist, character designer, inventor, and special effects technician.

The film was simultaneously released with King of Jazz, a musical revue, and was released with a cartoon depicting how Paul Whiteman, the music director of the film, became the King of Jazz.

Flip is seen dancing on lilypads until he reaches land and dries himself off. He walks to a party, where he performs a dance for the audience, accidentally climbing to a spider web. He also performs a duet, playing piano alongside a mouse (who bears a striking resemblance to Mickey Mouse, which Iwerks co-created with Walt Disney during his days at Disney's company) playing the violin. They perform two songs. In the first song, the mouse starts crying, and so do Flip and the piano. The second song makes Flip start hugging the piano, which then kicks Flip. The cartoon ends with Flip beating on the piano; he kicks all the piano keys into the air, and they drop onto him.

Fiddlesticks was the first in the Flip the Frog series. The sound system was Powers Cinephone, the same system used for Disney's Steamboat Willie (1928).

The unnamed mouse in the cartoon bears a striking resemblance to Mortimer Mouse, the original concept behind Mickey Mouse, both of whom were first animated by Ub Iwerks.

More information: WDW Magazine

Kids cannot follow stories.
They don't know what the hell is going on in a cartoon.
They like to see funny visual things happening.

John Kricfalusi

GOLDWYN PICTURES IS FOUNDED IN CULVER CITY, CA

Today, The Grandma is relaxing at home. She has decided to watch some classic films, and she has chosen Goldwyn Pictures ones, a corporation that was founded on a day like today in 1916.

Goldwyn Pictures Corporation was an American motion picture production company that operated from 1916 to 1924 when it was merged with two other production companies to form the major studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

It was founded by Samuel Goldwyn.

The studio proved moderately successful, but became most famous due to its iconic Leo the Lion trademark. Although Metro was the nominal survivor, the merged studio inherited Goldwyn's old facility in Culver City, California where it would remain until 1986. The merged studio also retained Goldwyn's Leo the Lion logo.

Lee Shubert of Shubert Theater was an investor in the company.

Goldwyn Pictures Corporation was founded on November 19, 1916, by Samuel Goldfish (an executive at Paramount -formerly the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation-, also better known as Samuel Goldwyn) partnering with Broadway producers Edgar and Archibald Selwyn using an amalgamation of both last names to create the name.

Goldfish had left Lasky's Feature Play Company, of which he was a co-founder, in 1916 when Feature Play merged with Famous Players. Margaret Mayo, Edgar's wife & play writer, and Arthur Hopkins, a Broadway producer, joined the trio as writer and director general.

More information: The Famous People

At the beginning, Goldwyn Pictures rented production facilities from Solax Studios when it and many other early film studios in America's first motion picture industry were based in Fort Lee, New Jersey. The company's first release was Polly of the Circus, an adaptation of Mayo's 1907 play Polly of the Circus, in September 1917 starting Mae Marsh.

By April 1917, Goldwyn Pictures agreed to rent the Universal Pictures studios in Fort Lee, then having the second-largest stage, and had two film companies operating at the time with plans for more production companies. The company management planned on having 12 films done by September 1, 1917, without distributing the films to be able to show advanced footage to the theatres.

Goldfish also associated the company with Columbia University via Professor Victor Freeburg's Photoplay Writing class in 1917 to increase the company's artistic standings. The company also released other production companies films with Marie Dressler's Dressler Producing Corporation film, The Scrub Lady, in 1917.

The company was forced in October 1917 to switch out The Eternal Magalene for Fighting Odds, both starring Maxine Elliott, after the National Board of Review cleared the Magalene film while censors in Pennsylvania state and Chicago city did not approve the film. Thais starring Mary Garden was released in late 1917 which was a costly loss.

In January 1918, Goldfish signed director Raoul Walsh and prematurely announced it, as there were two years left on Walsh's contract with Fox. With Thais being the company's second costly loss, Goldwyn decreased film budgets, partly by not using theatre divas to cross over to film and reducing design driven films. Instead, he relied on comedies starring Madge Kennedy and Mabel Normand.

In August 1918, Goldwyn Pictures signed Will Rogers, at that time a Broadway Follies favourite, to star in a Rex Beach production, Laughing Bill Hyde, filmed at the Fort Lee studio for release in September. The company purchased the Triangle Studios in Culver City in 1918.

Goldwyn then headed west out of Culver City in the Winter of 1918 which opening operations there also caused an increase in film expenses. Seeing an opportunity in December, Samuel Goldfish then had his name legally changed to Samuel Goldwyn.

In 1919, Frank Joseph "Joe" Godsol became an investor in Goldwyn Pictures. Since 1912 Frank Joseph Godsol had been making deals for the Shubert organization in the U.S. and abroad.

Goldwyn began looking to follow other film companies, like Loews Theaters/Metro Pictures and First National, into vertical integration. Goldwyn and the company backers were looking at renting the Astor Theatre for film premiers. Instead, with the Capitol Theatre's financial problems in May 1920, the backer purchased a controlling interest in that theatre. Shubert and Godsol, however, did not want the theatre to rely only on Goldwyn films and operated it separately from the company.

By 1920 in addition to owning its Culver City studio, Goldwyn Pictures was renting two New York studios and nearly ceased operations in Fort Lee.

After personality clashes, Sam Goldwyn left the company in 1922. Frank Godsol became Chairman of the Board and President of Goldwyn Pictures in 1922.

In 1923 Lee Shubert of Shubert Theater contacted Marcus Loew about merging the company with Loew's Metro. Loew agreed to the merger. Louis B. Mayer heard about the pending merger and contacted Loew, and Frank Godsol, president of Goldwyn Pictures, about adding his Louis B. Mayer Productions into the post merger company, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

More information: MGM

God makes stars. I just produce them.

Samuel Goldwyn