The Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz mistake picture

Continuity mistake: At the end when the Wizard and Dorothy are in the balloon basket, the tie down ropes on the right side keep going from tied to untied and back to tied again through different shots. (01:34:55)

The Wizard of Oz mistake picture

Continuity mistake: After both Dorothy and Scarecrow have oiled Tin Man's elbows, Dorothy pulls the Tin Man's arm down and we see her throw the apple that she's holding down behind him. In the next shot it reappears in her left hand. (00:41:55)

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The Wizard of Oz mistake picture

Continuity mistake: In the scene where the Wizard is about to bestow 'awards', the Scarecrow is lined up second from the left as the Wizard begins to speak. In the next shot while the Wizard is still speaking, the Scarecrow 'jumps' to the far right. (01:29:10)

The Wizard of Oz mistake picture

Revealing mistake: As Dorothy is about to walk into the cyclorama (backdrop) as she leaves Munchkinland, Munchkins are blurred, including a Munchkin soldier on the very far right, who becomes transparent with the matted-in flowers. (00:33:40)

The Wizard of Oz mistake picture

Continuity mistake: In the scene where the Wicked Witch in Munchkinland goes over to observe the ruby slippers on her dead sister's feet, when she is up close there's not much space between her and the slippers but when she turns around and says "they're gone," she's further away, then she's closer again in the next shot.

The Wizard of Oz mistake picture

Visible crew/equipment: The seams in the floorboard under the Haunted Forest set can be seen several times under the leaves. The best is in the close-ups of Toto. (01:15:30 - 01:19:35)

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The Wizard of Oz mistake picture

Continuity mistake: The Tin Man starts chopping the Witch's door and it's not the same one we just saw three shots before. The wood is a different color and the dark metal brace has been polished in the close-up. (01:23:40)

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The Wizard of Oz mistake picture

Character mistake: 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," if one witch, or "Witches' Castle" if more than one.

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Suggested correction: Not necessarily. There was a time when apostrophes were not consistently used to indicate possession, and even today, usage varies. In earlier periods, the apostrophe was used more sparingly, and there was less standardisation in its application. Today, apostrophes aren't used on street names (e.g. Queens Road) and many pub names (e.g. The Bulls Head), etc.

The Wizard of Oz mistake picture

Revealing mistake: When Toto reveals the Wizard by pulling the curtain aside, he doesn't use his mouth; the curtain is tied to the dog. Dorothy can even be seen later removing the rope.

moviefan2345

The Wizard of Oz mistake picture

Visible crew/equipment: Near the very beginning, when Dorothy is with Prof. Marvel, after she runs out of his trailer and the wind starts blowing, he follows her and goes towards his horse tied up outside. As he's walking towards the horse, you can see the shadow of a boom mic along his trailer. (00:14:55)

The Wizard of Oz mistake picture

Revealing mistake: After the witch says "Hey scarecrow, wanna play ball" she throws a fireball at him. But you can see the ground catch on fire before the fireball hits the ground. (00:46:20)

The Wizard of Oz mistake picture

Continuity mistake: At the start of the "lions and tigers and bears, oh my" sequence, Dorothy, the Scarecrow and Tin Man are all standing separately, then the shot cuts and they're suddenly arm in arm. (00:48:45)

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The Wizard of Oz mistake picture

Continuity mistake: Just before the Wicked Witch leaves Munchkinland she says to Dorothy, "just try to stay out of my way" and her broomstick is facing upwards. In the next shot it's facing downwards. (00:30:35)

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Suggested correction: In between shots, in order to threaten Dorothy more, the Witch leaned down towards her more than in the first shot. Therefore, she had to lower the broom so she could do that without the broom getting in the way.

These shots are back-to-back. There's literally no time for her to have lowered the broom between shots. She would have had to have done it in 1/24th of a second... about 8 times faster than it takes you to blink your eyes once at normal speed. It's just not possible.

TedStixon

The Wizard of Oz mistake picture

Continuity mistake: Glinda tells Dorothy, "Their magic must be very powerfulÂ…" and Dorothy has her left hand around Toto. In the next shot she's holding the flowers in front of her. (00:30:20)

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The Wizard of Oz mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When the Munchkins come out onto the Yellow Brick Road, one of them comes out of a sewer hatch on the yellow bricks. It's located on the ground in front of the first small white cottage with the thatched roof, right behind Dorothy's house. Throughout this scene, the dark hatch is visible whenever we see that specific location, such as when the Wicked Witch of the West asks, "Who killed my sister? Who killed the Witch of the East? Was it you?" but as Dorothy begins to "follow the yellow brick road", there is an overhead shot followed by a front shot and the dark hatch has disappeared.

The Wizard of Oz mistake picture

Continuity mistake: There are two actresses playing Dorothy (and two dogs playing Toto) as she opens the door to Oz. The first is a stand-in wearing a dull colored dress in order to make it look black and white. After she opens the door and moves out of the way, Judy Garland is who we actually see walking through. Look at the different pleats on the two dresses. (00:19:25)

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The Wizard of Oz mistake picture

Continuity mistake: After the Tin man opens the door with his axe chopping its wood, Dorothy steps out and the door is totally fixed. One can see the unblemished door when the Lion removes his paw.

Sacha

The Wizard of Oz mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Dorothy slaps Lion on the nose for chasing Toto and shouts, "Shame on you!" in the wide shot, we see Dorothy's right arm with no mark on her skin. It then cuts to the medium shots, and there's an inexplicable long, thin blue mark (it's not a loose thread) on Dorothy's arm near her elbow, while she's holding Toto. This blue mark vanishes in the wide shot when she puts Toto down, and Lion begins to sing. (00:50:25)

Super Grover

More mistakes in The Wizard of Oz

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: At the very end of the movie after Dorothy says "Oh, Auntie Em, there's no place like home," normally, it fades out to the credits, but once - and only once - when I was very young, I thought I remembered seeing the camera pan away from her face and down to the foot of the bed where you see the ruby slippers tucked underneath the bed, then a fade to the credits. It is obviously a black-and-white shot, but there were the glittering shoes. Has anyone else seen this version of the ending?

Macalou

Answer: Another fine example of the Mandela Effect. None of the "making of" books reference this alternate ending. The original book ends with Dorothy losing the slippers on her journey back to Kansas.

wizard_of_gore

I also remember this scene; however, I remember it in a television movie, and it was at the beginning, not the end, of an entirely different movie.

Chosen answer: Yes. I'm sure I've seen that version. It shows that Dorothy didn't just dream about Oz and makes for a more satisfying conclusion. This version was original but edited out because it didn't follow the book's storyline for "Return to Oz" and the other long series of Oz books. The sequel pertains that she loses the slippers in transit back to her home and falls to the gnome king who destroys Oz which in turn causes Dorothy to return. So seeing the slippers at the end of the bed, while more satisfying, wouldn't really stay true to the Oz series.

I absolutely remember that version with the shoes at her bedside, but nobody I know remembers it.

Thank you! I remember that too but everyone I know thinks I'm nuts.

I remember that version and after that I expected to see the same ending but no I never saw that ending again. I got the response that no-one I know saw that ending of the movie where the ruby slippers being on her feet in her bed. Thank you for that answer. This was a long time mystery.

I absolutely remember that scene.

I remember that too - and I've asked so many people and they said no, I must have dreamed it. Thank you.

I saw that version once when I was a little kid too! I remember it vividly. Now I know I'm not crazy.

Answer: This seems to be one of those mass examples of people remembering something that never happened. There are also other variations, like people claiming to remember the film switching to color as the shot pans down to her slipper-clad feet, or the slippers being in color against the sepia-toned B&W footage. But sadly, it seems no officially released version of the film has had such an ending. It's similar to how everyone thinks Darth Vader says "Luke, I am your father," or how everyone thinks Humphrey Bogart says "Play it again, Sam!", even though neither of those lines are real, and people are merely incorrectly remembering them. The film is so ingrained in pop-culture, that people think they know it forwards-and-back, and false memories are created.

TedStixon

I agree that people think they remember things that never happened, but usually for things like this, remembering a scene wrong misquoting a movie lines, it comes from parody versions and people are (correctly) remembering the parody. I've never seen "Silence of the Lambs", but I know the line "Hello, Clarice" from films like "Cable Guy" and not from a false memory of the film.

Bishop73

Answer: https://criticsrant.com/mythbusters-dorothys-ruby-slippers/ This website gives some confirmation it's one of those myths that spread around and get mixed up in people's memories to being convinced they have seen it despite no evidence of it existing. In a film as big as the Wizard of Oz where die hard fans have collected original scripts, notes, and "lost" imagery over the years; we certainly would have something to back this up other than eye witness memory. Especially if it supposedly made it to the final print for viewing audiences as the original Wizard of Oz footage has been carefully preserved, as it's considered one of the most important films of all time. This footage wouldn't be completely lost if it made it to final showing print. Surely somebody would have posted it by now on YouTube. It is possible somebody made a skit or parody of this though contributing to the idea that it was actually in a print of the real movie.

Answer: I and a friend of mine remember seeing the ruby slippers under Dorthy's bed at the end of the movie. Glad to know we didn't imagine it.

You may have seen the scene, but it wasn't at the end of this movie for reasons stated above.

Answer: I remember this being part of a special that was hosted by Angela Lansbury in 1990 and they showed that this ending was considered for the movie. For many years I couldn't remember why I remembered that ending and Angela Lansbury until I looked it up. I wish that it had been left like that. Kids always want their dreams to come true.

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