How to go
What: “The Wizard of Oz” 70th Anniversary High-Definition Event
When: 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 23
Where: Dayton Showcase South Cinema, 95 Mall Woods Drive, West Carrollton; Hollywood Stadium 20 at Fairfield Commons, 2651 Fairfield Commons Blvd., Beavercreek; and Miami Valley Center, 1020 Garbry Road, Piqua
Cost: $10
Contact: Participating theater box offices and www.fathom events.com
70 things among many more to love about “The Wizard of Oz”
1. Fire. The Wicked Witch of the West threatens the Scarecrow with it, but Margaret Hamilton, who played the witch, was the one who got burned (during the witch’s pyrotechnic exit from Munchkinland). She was out for six weeks while healing.
2. Water. Which causes the legendary meltdown.
3. Hot Air, both the kind the Wizard can’t control very well during his balloon launch to Kansas and the nonsense he spouts the first time he meets Dorothy and her friends.
4 & 5. Those ruby slippers.
6. Movie-crazed 1939, when MGM alone also released 49 other films. “Gone With the Wind,” “Goodbye Mr. Chips” and “Tarzan Finds a Son” were just three of the others.
7. Bargain 1: The $3.7 million it took to make the movie. Money well spent, even though it fell $750,000 short at the first-run box office.
8. May 15, 1856: The birthdate of creator Lyman Frank Baum.
9 through 20. The 12 seconds (by the stopwatch) it takes Meinhardt Raabe as the Munchkin Coroner to proclaim the passing of the Wicked Witch of the East, flattened by Dorothy’s house. His words: “As Coroner, I must aver, I thoroughly examined her. And she’s not only merely dead, but really most sincerely dead.”
21. Bargain 2: The $125 a week Toto was paid.
22. Bargain 3: The $500 a week Judy Garland made as Dorothy.
23 & 24. The film’s only two Academy Awards: for best score and best song (“Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” which almost got cut).
25. Terry, the 5-year-old female Cairn terrier that played Toto. Her escape from Miss Gulch’s basket was no act. She really didn’t like being in there.
26 through 37. The 12 memorable minutes Hamilton is on the screen as Miss Gulch or the witch.
38 & 39. The two tin-man “costumes” created for the movie.
40. The 40,000 artificial flowers used to create the poppy field.
41. 2.25 feet: the height of the smallest munchkin.
42. 25 cents: The price of an adult movie ticket in 1939. Kids paid 10 cents.
43. 50 pounds: Weight of Bert Lahr’s Cowardly Lion costume. Ample gravitas for the self-appointed King of the Forrrrrrest.
44. Scarecrow’s courteous, inclusive and pre-GPS directions when Dorothy wonders which way to go: “Pardon me, this way is a very nice way,” he says, and adds, “Of course, some people do go both ways.”
45 through 55: the 11 songs in the movie. It smacks of sacrilege that Andrew Lloyd Webber is planning to add five or six new ones for his upcoming new stage musical version.
56. The staying power of a movie for all ages and multiple generations.
57. 124 munchkins.
58. 300 extras in the Emerald City scenes.
59. Five months well spent. That’s how long it took to make the movie.
60-62. That earlier “Wizard of Oz.” There were three related versions of a stage musical that long preceded the movie. Basically the same show, but with additions and subtractions, all had story and lyrics by Baum. The first opened in 1902 in Chicago to critical acclaim. The 1903 Broadway production ran for almost a year. The 1904 revival, with several different songs, ran even longer.
63. Ted Ross. He isn’t in “The Wizard of Oz,” but the Dayton actor and singer won a Tony Award playing the Lion in the smash 1975 Broadway musical spinoff “The Wiz.”
64 & 65. Michael Jackson (Scarecrow) and Diana Ross (Dorothy) in the 1978 film version of “The Wiz.” Ross played the Lion again.
66. “Wicked”: The current Broadway blockbuster, also inspired by Baum’s stories, is finally coming to Dayton this season.
67. 1956: The movie is shown on American television for the first time.
68. 1900: Baum publishes “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” the children’s novel that started it all.
69. Winged monkeys.
70. Sept. 29: Release date for Warner Home Video’s DVD of the remastered “Wizard of Oz.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2377 or tmorris@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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