The Wizard of Oz corrections

The Wizard of Oz (1939) - 70 corrections

Directed by Victor Fleming, starring Bert Lahr, Billie Burke, Frank Morgan, Jack Haley, Judy Garland, Margaret Hamilton, Ray Bolger

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When Dorothy and the Scarecrow find the Tinman and oil him, they oil his mouth so he can talk, his arms so they can move but they don't oil his legs and yet he walks away. [He has considerable trouble "walking" away, and at this point, Dorothy oils his right leg and the scarecrow oils his left. Also, they were oiling him from the top down. So some oil could have dripped and made its way down to his legs, helping to free him.]

After the Wicked Witch melts, Dorothy asks the Winged Monkey guards if she may have the broom. One of the Monkey guards replies by saying, "Yes, and take it with you." Well, what else is she going to do with it? Of course she's going to take it with her, that's why she asked. [The monkey's line is illogical, but that doesn't make it a mistake.]

Picky point, but hey, that's what this site is about. When the Wicked Witch is dying, you hear her screaming "I'm melting, I'm melting". She really isn't melting. She is changing from the solid state to the gaseous state, which is sublimation. Therefore, she is sublimating. Melting is changing from the solid state to the liquid state. [This is a character's error, you can't expect a witch to know proper science. If a character's stupidity isn't a mistake then neither is their ignorance.]

When Dorothy and the others enter the Haunted forest, the sign reads "Witches Castle One Mile." "Witches" is plural. To be grammatically correct, it should have said "Witch's Castle," making it possessive. [Nobody said witches have good grammar.] Corrected by Matty Blast

In the scene where Dorothy picks the apple from the tree and the tree scares her, Toto runs up towards the tree. Just before this you see an arm come out from behind the tree to prompt Toto to come to the tree. [Where? My kids and I have watched this over and over, and we never see an arm come out anywhere. Can you be more specific about when this happens?]

When the Lion, Scarecrow, Tin Man, Toto, and Dorothy are coming out of the woods, it appears that there are miles and miles of Yellow Brick Road before they reach the Emerald City. However, when it shows them emerging from the forest and walking through the flowers, it shows that the city's a couple of hundred meters away and there's no Yellow Brick Road. [Its true there is no yellow brick road because they didn't follow the road around the poppy field they took a shortcut through the poppy field.]

When Lion is singing "If I Were King" and the other three roll out the green carpet. They put the rug on Lion, when they're walking back towards the steps and Dorothy gets tripped up a bit by the carpet. You can see the carpet where it's flipped up. [This isn't really a mistake. When the Lion walks back up the carpet, his 'robe' catches the end of it and flips it up. Since it doesn't jump back to being suddenly flat again, there's no continuity problem.]

In the scene where the Scarecrow, Lion, and Tin Man are trying to free Dorothy, the door has door knobs, but after the Tin Man strikes it, the door has no fixtures. [When the Tin Man strikes the door, he hit the higher part of the door and the handles aren't visible in that shot.]

When Glinda's bubble arrives, Dorothy's sticks her hand into it for a brief moment. [Dorothy sticks her hand in front of the bubble, not into it.]

When Dorothy meets the Scarecrow, she never tells him her name, but after the song and dance, the Scarecrow calls her Dorothy. [It isn't until later when they get to the apple trees that he calls her "Dorothy." They could have been walking for miles after the song and dance before they reached the apple trees. Dorothy even remarks that they've been walking a long way.]

When the 4 characters are in the witch's forest, the flying monkeys come out and take them, when they take the Scarecrow apart, the scene changes to the castle then back to them fixing the Scarecrow's straw, when he stands up and says "Don't you see, he's come to take us to Dorothy" as he stands up you can see a small black ditch that Ray Bolger was sitting in to make it look like his head was lying there. [It is not a ditch, it is a rock. In the first scene, where he is unstuffed, he is in an open area. In the second scene he is sitting up with a tree right behind him. There is no ditch because this is not the place where he lay when he was unstuffed.]

During the scene where the Tin man begins chopping down the door to save Dorothy there are no handles but when he continues chopping the handles appear. [The handles are there, they are just farther down the door than can be seen in the tight shot when the ax first hits the door. The wide shot as they approach the door shows the handles on the door. What I wonder is why they use the ax at all, since there doesn't actually seem to be any locking mechanism for the door on the outside or the inside.]

In the scene in the beginning when Miss Gulch is trying to take Toto inside the house, Dorothy says: "Don't let HIM take toto," instead of "don't let HER take Toto." [Dorothy actually says "...Don't let 'EM take Toto..." and then goes on to say "Don't let her take him - please."]

It has been said in some published works that the "Wizard of Oz" would never been remade as it is, because there are not that many little people qualified to assume the role of the Munchkins today as it was in the late 1930s. This is in part due to the availability of growth hormone treatment and an improved diet in today's people. [I don't know the exact numbers but I suspect there were no more than a hundred little people used in The Wizard of Oz. In a country of almost three hundred million people, I'm sure that several thousand dwarves could be found despite improved diets or growth hormone.]

At the end of the movie, when they melt the witch for her broom, notice the broom has metal bindings around it. Earlier, when the witch lights the broom to scare the scarecrow, the broom is fanned out. [The metal bands are always on the broom, below the fanned-out bristles. Now that the bristles have burnt away, it just looks like they are on the top holding it together. They're just there to bind the bristles onto the broomstick. Most old brooms are like that.]

In the haunted forest when the Tin Man is levitated then dropped, the tin surrounding his lower left leg gets bent on impact. Later in the movie, the tin is perfectly formed and unbent. [The bent tin is on his upper left leg, not lower.]

When Dorothy and her friends meet the wizard for the first time, the wizard scares the lion so much that he faints. Dorothy starts saying to the wizard "frightening him like that when he came to you for help-"etc, watch the scarecrow. He is trying to make the lion wake up by tapping/slapping his face but he is only hitting air and not coming into contact with the lions face at all. [He was fanning the lion's face with his hand.]

The Wizard claims to have been in Kansas when his balloon was whisked off to Oz, yet the balloon reads State Fair, Omaha. Omaha is in Nebraska, not Kansas. [He didn't say the balloon was from Kansas, though. It's likely he got it at the Nebraska State Fair and has been using it since.] Corrected by Bob Blumenfeld

During the Tin Man's dance, you can see a stagehand caught unaware as he dashes behind the cheesy tree props as he tries to hide. [I looked and I looked and I looked (even in slow-motion on my DVD) - and, frankly, there's NO stagehand visible anywhere in the background.] Corrected by cinecena

During the scene where Dorothy and the Scarecrow are inspecting the Tinman for the first time, Dorothy starts out with an apple in her right hand, switches it to her left and then drops it behind the Tinman. But in the next shot, it's back in her left hand. [Dorothy has an apple in each hand at first. She drops the apple that was in her left hand and, when trying to pick it up, she finds Tin Man. Then, she stands and we can see that she REACHES to pick the apple - that's why she still has two apples in the next shot and why she can drop the apple again.] Corrected by cinecena