The Wizard of Oz

Continuity mistake: Dorothy raises her right arm and points at the horizon and cries, "There's Emerald City!", then lowers her arm. A shot later from the angle shot from behind, it's raised again and she's repeating all previous movements. (00:54:41)

Sacha

Continuity mistake: When Toto escapes from the castle, jumping over the moat, Dorothy starts crying. A shot later, her right arm is leaning on the wall. (01:17:46)

Sacha

Revealing mistake: When Dorothy bumps into the Tin Man, she knocks on his foot, which sounds metallic. However, her fist sinks, revealing it is made of a soft material.

Sacha

The Wizard of Oz mistake picture

Continuity mistake: In the beginning while Dorothy is still on the farm, she walks along the pig pen fence and then falls in. When Bert Lahr picks her up out of there her dress is perfectly clean. (00:03:45)

Revealing mistake: When the Lion runs out of the Wizard's room, the group disappears because it is an obvious backdrop.

Sacha

The Wizard of Oz mistake picture

Revealing mistake: When the Wicked Witch scares the Munchkins in Munchkinland, where Dorothy lands, she disappears into a cloud of smoke she creates. But you can see her sneak down into a trap door below. [As a sidenote to this entry, Margaret Hamilton was hospitalized for severe burns after a take of this shot (not the final one used) when the stage elevator got stuck and the explosion went off.] (00:30:45)

The Wizard of Oz mistake picture

Continuity mistake: During the scene when Dorothy and Scarecrow are fighting with the trees, Scarecrow says "I'll show you how to get apples" and he gets hit by the apples. In the very next shot, a quick view of Dorothy reveals she is wearing black shoes, not her ruby slippers. (00:40:15)

The Wizard of Oz mistake picture

Continuity mistake: During the sequence where Dorothy meets the Scarecrow, Dorothy's pigtails are first short (above her shoulders) and as the song progresses her hair gets longer (below her shoulders), then short, and then long again. (00:35:15)

The Wizard of Oz mistake picture

Revealing mistake: Soon after Dorothy slaps the Cowardly Lion, she looks as though she is about to laugh out loud. This happens about 10 seconds or so after the slap. She even tries to put Toto in front of her face to cover up her smirking. (00:48:45)

The Wizard of Oz mistake picture Video

Revealing mistake: When the guard tells Dorothy that she may not see the Wizard, Dorothy starts crying and tells a sob story about Auntie Em. Then, it shows the guard crying, but the tears aren't coming from his eyes. They're coming from above his eyebrows. (01:08:00)

The Wizard of Oz mistake picture

Revealing mistake: When the Lion is pulling up the Tin Man with his tail on the way to the castle, you can see a square block inside the Lion's costume to hold the tail on. (01:20:00)

Revealing mistake: During the Lion's song of, "If I only had the nerve." You can see the cameraman's shadow pass over Dorothy, the Lion, and then the log on the side of the road. Watch carefully, it comes back. (00:52:18)

Continuity mistake: When Scarecrow, Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion are marching into the Wicked Witch's castle after taking the guards' uniforms, all three of them are shown holding the same types of spears as the guards, so when they go rescue Dorothy out of the locked room and Tin Man chops through the door with his axe, where did the axe come from? (01:22:50)

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: I'm 63 years old and still watch The Wizard of Oz. If I remember correctly, the axe was taken off a nearby wall.

There is no scene of him taking the axe off the wall, nor is there any axe seen on any of the walls. Plus, it's the same axe he had the whole time. But the 3 also take off their coats/disguises while the camera is on Dorothy and it's possible he had the axe tucked away in the coat.

Bishop73

In the books, the Tin Man always has his axe and he uses it often. Perhaps it is the same in the movie.

The Wizard of Oz mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When trying to escape the Witch's castle, the big doors close, and the gang stands in a line and starts banging on the doors. Between shots, Dorothy and the Tin Man switch sides. (01:21:15)

Hamster

The Wizard of Oz mistake picture

Continuity mistake: As the chandelier falls on the guards at the witch's castle, all the candles are blown out by the time it lands. The next shot shows some of them relit. (01:24:50)

Visible crew/equipment: Glinda sends Dorothy off saying, "Just follow the Yellow Brick Road" and Dorothy walks through the shadow of the camera's crane. (00:32:05)

????

Audio problem: At the very end of, "We Welcome You to Munchkin Land," at the very last 'fa la la la la laaaaaa' right before the Wicked Witch interrupts the song with her explosive arrival, you can hear someone scream before the explosion even occurs. (00:29:04)

The Wizard of Oz mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When the Witch melts, the broom is laying several inches from her dress. In the next shot, the broom is practically touching her dress. (01:26:20)

brantlee

Dorothy: There's no place like home.

More quotes from The Wizard of Oz

Trivia: "Over the Rainbow", which the American Film Institute recently named the greatest movie song of all time, was nearly cut from the film.

More trivia for The Wizard of Oz

Question: It is implied strongly in this movie that water makes witches melt, and this is spoofed in other media. I've only ever seen this referenced to wicked witches. Does water make good witches, such as Glinda, melt too?

Answer: In all likelihood, probably not. Water is often depicted and represents purity, and cleansing. It flows smoothly, is beautiful, clear, and responsible for life on Earth. Everything the Wicked Witch is not. Where as the good Witch is pure and of a true heart. So it makes sense that something so evil and impure as the evil witch would be effected by the purest substance there is, yet not harm the good witch because she is good.

Quantom X

Answer: In the original book, water caused the wicked witches to melt away because they were so old and shriveled that all the fluid in their bodies had long since dried away. Meanwhile, the film Oz: The Great and Powerful instead implies that the Wicked Witch of the West is weak against water due to being a fire-elemental witch, which could also be the case for this incarnation, meaning it wouldn't apply to other witches like Glinda (whose element in both films appears to be ice) or even the Wicked Witch of the East (whose powers are never shown in this film, but were electricity-based in Oz the Great and Powerful).

More questions & answers from The Wizard of Oz

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