'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

THE WATSONS SEARCH THEIR END 'OVER THE RAINBOW'

Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz

Today, The Watsons and The Grandma have continued studying their English for Sales course. They have arrived to their last day of theorical classes and they have chosen There was-There were to finish their formation.

Judit Watson has given a beautiful present to every member of the family, an interesting editon of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the American children's novel written by author L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow.

More information: There was-There were

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is an American children's novel written by author L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow, originally published by the George M. Hill Company in May 1900.

It has since seen several reprints, most often under the title The Wizard of Oz, which is the title of the popular 1902 Broadway musical adaptation as well as the iconic 1939 live-action film.

The story chronicles the adventures of a young farm girl named Dorothy in the magical Land of Oz, after she and her pet dog Toto are swept away from their Kansas home by a cyclone.

The book is one of the best-known stories in American literature and has been widely translated. The Library of Congress has declared it America's greatest and best-loved homegrown fairytale. Its groundbreaking success and the success of the Broadway musical adapted from the novel led Baum to write thirteen additional Oz books that serve as official sequels to the first story.

In January 1901, George M. Hill Company completed printing the first edition, a total of 10,000 copies, which quickly sold out. It sold three million copies by the time it entered the public domain in 1956.

More information: Mental Floss

The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time, it is the most commercially successful adaptation of L. Frank Baum's 1900 children's fantasy novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Directed primarily by Victor Fleming, who left the production to take over the troubled Gone with the Wind, the film stars Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale alongside Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, and Bert Lahr.

Characterized by its use of Technicolor, fantasy storytelling, musical score, and memorable characters, the film has become an American pop culture icon. It was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, but lost to Gone with the Wind, also directed by Fleming. It did win in two other categories: Best Original Song for Over the Rainbow and Best Original Score by Herbert Stothart.

While the film was considered a critical success upon release in August 1939, it failed to make a profit for MGM until the 1949 re-release, earning only $3,017,000 on a $2,777,000 budget, not including promotional costs, which made it MGM's most expensive production at that time.

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

In 1989, it was selected by the U.S. Library of Congress as one of the first 25 films for preservation in the 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 Watsons under the rainbow

The film 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, issued in May 2020.

The Wizard of Oz is the source of many quotes referenced in contemporary popular culture. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, but others made uncredited contributions. The songs were written by Edgar Yip Harburg and composed by Harold Arlen. The musical score and the incidental music were composed by Stothart.

Over the Rainbow is a ballad composed by Harold Arlen with lyrics by Yip Harburg.

It was written for the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz and was sung by actress Judy Garland in her starring role as Dorothy Gale.

It won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and became Garland's signature song.

About five minutes into the film, Dorothy sings the song after failing to get Aunt Em, Uncle Henry, and the farmhands to listen to her story of an unpleasant incident involving her dog, Toto, and the town spinster, Miss Gulch. Aunt Em tells her to find yourself a place where you won't get into any trouble. This prompts her to walk off by herself, musing to Toto, Some place where there isn't any trouble. Do you suppose there is such a place, Toto? There must be. It's not a place you can get to by a boat, or a train. It's far, far away. Behind the moon, beyond the rain..., at which point she begins singing.

More information: History

On October 7, 1938, Judy Garland recorded the song on the MGM soundstage with an arrangement by Murray Cutter. In September 1939, a studio recording of the song, not from the film soundtrack, was recorded and released as a single for Decca.

In March 1940, that same recording was included on a Decca 78 four-record studio cast album entitled The Wizard of Oz. Although this isn't the version that appeared in the film, Decca continued to release the cast album into the 1960s after it was reissued on disc, a 33​1⁄3-rpm album.

The film version of Over the Rainbow was unavailable to the public until the soundtrack was released by MGM in 1956 to coincide with the television premiere of The Wizard of Oz. The soundtrack version has been re-released several times over the years, including a deluxe edition by Rhino in 1995.

After The Wizard of Oz appeared in 1939, Over the Rainbow became Garland's signature song. She performed it for thirty years, singing it as she had for the film. She said she wanted to remain true to the character of Dorothy and to the message of being somewhere over the rainbow.

The rainbow flag, also known as the gay pride flag or LGBT pride flag, is a symbol of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) pride and LGBTQ social movements. While this use of the rainbow flag originated in San Francisco, it is now used worldwide.

Originally devised by artist Gilbert Baker, the design has undergone several revisions since its debut in 1978, first to remove colors then restore them based on availability of fabrics.

The first flag had eight colors, however the traditional and still most common variant consists of six stripes: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. The flag is typically flown horizontally, with the red stripe on top, as it would be in a natural rainbow.

It has been suggested that Baker may have been inspired by Judy Garland's singing Over the Rainbow and the Stonewall riots that happened a few days after Garland's death, she was one of the first gay icons.

More information: Gutenberg

Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high
There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby, I
Oh, somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue
Clouds high over the rainbow, makes all your dreams come true, ooh.

Judy Garland