-
1. What is the young heroine's name?
Dorothy Gale
Baum's first novel calls her plain Dorothy; the surname Gale arrived with the 1902 stage musical and stuck through the later books. The others have strange worlds of their own: Wendy from Peter Pan, Alice from Wonderland and Polly Plummer from Narnia.
-
2. Who plays Dorothy?
Judy Garland
Garland was sixteen and was strapped into a corset to pass for a younger girl; MGM had first tried to borrow Shirley Temple from Fox. The Academy gave her a juvenile Oscar the following year for this film and Babes in Arms.
-
3. What is Dorothy's dog called?
Toto
Toto was played by a female Cairn terrier named Terry, who earned more per week than the actors playing the Munchkins. She missed part of the shoot after one of the Witch's guards stepped on her foot, and her owner later renamed her Toto for good.
-
4. Which U.S. state is Dorothy from?
Kansas
The Kansas scenes were shot in sepia tone, and the switch to Technicolor comes when Dorothy opens the farmhouse door onto Oz. Baum had lived on the prairie in South Dakota, but he put the farm in Kansas and the film kept it there.
-
5. What weather event carries Dorothy's house away?
A tornado
The twister was a long muslin sock hung from a gantry and spun by a wind machine, with dust blown through it to blur the edges. Among the things Dorothy sees whirling past the window is Miss Gulch on her bicycle, turning into the Witch on a broomstick.
-
6. What color are Dorothy's famous slippers in the film?
Ruby red
Baum wrote silver shoes, and the screenwriter Noel Langley changed them to red so they would show up better in Technicolor. Several pairs survive; one was stolen from a museum in Garland's Minnesota hometown in 2005 and recovered by the FBI in 2018.
-
7. What road does Dorothy follow?
The Yellow Brick Road
The road starts as a spiral in the middle of Munchkinland, wound together with a red brick road that nobody ever mentions, and the Munchkins sing her onto the right one. The yellow paint photographed green in early tests and had to be changed.
-
8. What does the Scarecrow believe he needs?
A brain
Ray Bolger plays him, having been cast first as the Tin Man and campaigning to swap with Buddy Ebsen, since he had wanted the Scarecrow all along. The Wizard's cure is a diploma, after which the Scarecrow recites a garbled version of the Pythagorean theorem.
-
9. What does the Tin Man believe he needs?
A heart
Buddy Ebsen started in the role and landed in hospital when the aluminum dust in his makeup got into his lungs, so Jack Haley took over in a paste instead. The Wizard gives him a heart-shaped watch that ticks, which is as close as he gets to a transplant.
-
10. What does the Cowardly Lion believe he needs?
Courage
Bert Lahr played him in a costume made from real lion skins, murder under the hot lights Technicolor needed. The Wizard's remedy is a medal for valor, and the Lion's solo in the Emerald City, If I Were King of the Forest, gives Lahr his vaudeville turn.
-
11. Which city is home to the Wizard?
The Emerald City
The travelers arrive after a sleep in the poppies and ride in with a cabbie whose horse changes color between shots, done with colored gelatin powder. Frank Morgan plays the cabbie, the doorman, the guard and Professor Marvel as well as the Wizard.
-
12. Who plays the Wicked Witch of the West?
Margaret Hamilton
Hamilton, a former kindergarten teacher, was badly burned when the fire for her exit from Munchkinland went off before the trapdoor had taken her down. Gale Sondergaard was cast first, as a glamorous witch, and left when the studio decided on an ugly one.
-
13. Who plays Glinda?
Billie Burke
Burke was the widow of the Broadway showman Florenz Ziegfeld and in her fifties when she floated in on a bubble. The film merges Baum's Good Witch of the North with Glinda, who in the book rules the South and only appears at the end.
-
14. Which song does Dorothy sing before leaving Kansas?
Over the Rainbow
Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg wrote it, and it won the Oscar for best song, though MGM executives nearly cut it after a preview for slowing things down. The Kansas scenes, song included, were shot by King Vidor after Victor Fleming left for Gone with the Wind.
-
15. Who wrote the novel on which the film is based?
L. Frank Baum
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz came out in 1900, and Baum went on to write thirteen more Oz books before his death. In the book the Emerald City is green only because everyone is made to wear green spectacles, a detail the film quietly drops.
