THE JITTERBUG

I think we'd have had a Moonbase by now, there would be peace in the Middle East, and Al Gore would be leaving the White House in January.

I blame all our ills on that. ;oP

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Actually none of the Wizard of Oz song intros (including that racist one) were written for the film.

They were all written afterwards for the sheet music releases.

Still... there were two big problems with that number. 1) It slowed the film down in a section where it didn't need to be slowed down. 2) It was based on a trendy popular dance craze that many felt would date the film, once the trend died down.

Even though the jitterbug dance craze lasted all the way into the 1950s, it still would date the film quite a bit today. And although there are no songs at all in the movie after the lion sings "If I Were King of the Forest," I still don't think adding one in there, or anywhere else in the final sequences of the film would have helped it in any way. It wasn't needed.

Of course they found that out after filming the whole thing and scrapping it. I would LOVE it if the footage were found some day. For now, we have the soundtrack recording and Harold Arlen's home movies to give us a glimpse of what it would have been like:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Mhsc6bMTi-Q

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It works great on stage. We did it too, when I played the Tinman, and the audience loved it. They like big, splashy production numbers. And they don't mind halting the story to see one.

It doesn't work the same way in movies though.

And Wizard of Oz was revolutionary in its day, where ALL the songs that are included serve to either advance the story or develop character.

The Jitterbug would have done neither. It's a "stop and sing" number, which was the norm back then in the 1930s, but Freed, Harburg and Arlen were trying to do something new. And they did.

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I still think I, personally, would enjoy the film much more had "The Jitterbug" and Judy's heartbreaking reprise of "Over the Rainbow" been included. I also would have liked to see the "Ding Dong Emerald City" sequence included as I've always felt the transition between the witch melting and the return to the wizard was too abrupt.

"just think, somewhere theres a time continuum where shirley temple got the role!"

...and Jed Clampett played the Tinman!

...and Gale Sondergaard was the (glamorous) Wicked Witch!

...and Fanny Brice was Glinda!

...and Mickey Rooney was the Scarecrow!

...and W.C. Fields was the Wizard!

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I believe Buddy Ebsen originally was to be the tin man but had to drop out as it turned out he was allergic to the silver paint he had to be made up with.

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Far from allergic. They were blowing aluminum powder in his face, breathing it is is poisonous to anyone. Once Ebson was taken to the hospital the makeup people had to change what they were using.

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Buddy was actually hired first to be the Scarecrow, after it was decided that Mickey Rooney would be too busy with other projects to spend so much time on "Oz" (which was a very long production schedule, and he was the #1 box office star in the world that year!). So, Buddy was the Scarecrow, based on a very successful dance routine he had done the year before with Judy Garland in Broadway Melody of 1938. Ray Bolger was approached to be the Tinman. He really wanted to be in the movie, but he talked with Freed, Mervin LeRoy and L.B. Mayer and begged to be the Scarecrow. He really thought his talents would be better suited for that part. They asked Buddy if he objected to switching roles with Ray. And Buddy thought it was fine. His billing and salary would remain the same, and he didn't much care which part he played. He liked them both.

...and that decision is what ultimately led to his life-threatening illness due to inhaling the silver "dusted" makeup. He spent weeks in an iron lung, and nearly died. And of course he had to be replaced. MGM borrowed Jack Haley from 20th Century Fox to play the Tinman, with almost no rehearsal or any preparation.

In fact, they threw him into re-recording only the solo parts the Tinman sings in the movie, because there wasn't time to bring everyone else back in with the orchestra to redo the group stuff as well. They had already lost six weeks of filming.

So... you can still hear Buddy Ebsen's voice as the Tinman, every time they sing We're Off To See the Wizard! Jack only sings the solo bits. When they sing as a trio or a quartette it's Buddy!

I do find it interesting that as close as Buddy had come to death in 1938 during the early filming of "Oz" he actually outlived both Bolger and Haley by quite a few years.

For such a perfect film, it sure had a lot of fateful changes along the way!

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DG---I didn't read his biography, and I'm surprised he was so bitter! Wow...

That makes me sad, too.

And don't worry. Shirley Temple was only considered briefly, until Fox literally LAUGHED at MGM at the thought of loaning out the most popular star in the entire world to a rival studio for their big-budget movie.

"Over the Rainbow" was written AFTER Garland had the role, when the songwriters KNEW they had a singer who could do it justice.

We might have gotten a much simpler "barnyard ditty" had Temple actually played Dorothy. But not the soaring melody of (IMO) the best song ever written.

...ASCAP thinks so too.

...so does AFI.

It's a completely perfect song.

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For anyone who doesn't have them, I highly reccomend both:
Wizard of Oz: 50th Anniversary Pictoral History by John Fricke
and
Wizardry of Oz by Willard Stillman (I think?)

Both have TONS of pictures and lots of great information about the original versions.

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Updated On: 1/23/09 at 03:44 AM

Those books are great, Husk!

CatsNY--That photo was taken during the first six weeks of filming, when Richard Thorpe was directing the movie. Buddy Ebsen was the Tinman, Judy was blonde, Maggie had her hair down, and only wore a fake nose (no fake chin yet). They shot most of the sequences in the Witch's castle toward the end of the story, plus the first meeting of Dorothy and the Scarecrow in the (much different-looking) cornfield.

When Thorpe was fired, all of the above changed. They brought in George Cukor for all of three days as an "interim" director. He didn't shoot any film during those days, but he did give us one MAJOR contribution. He looked at the footage of Judy and said, "She's supposed to be a little girl from Kansas!" He ordered the heavy makeup removed from her face, asked that her hair be a "natural" color in a simple hairstyle. Basically, he is the reason she looks the way she does in the final film.

Not a bad contribution for only 3 days on the picture! Then they brought in Victor Flemming, who directed everything but the final few weeks on the film---the Kansas scenes. He was taken off of "Oz" to go save Gone With the Wind. So King Vidor stepped in and directed all the Kansas scenes at the end of the shoot, including Over the Rainbow.

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