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Post by BATouttaheck on Aug 25, 2019 20:29:25 GMT
Premiere August 25, 1939 Seems to have aged extremely well and become a true Classic ! Saw it first on a small black and white tv .. seeing it in color was a VERY Memorable experience, Seeing it on a BIG Screen … simply amazing !
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Post by mattgarth on Aug 25, 2019 20:33:35 GMT
"I hope my film holds out!"
"I hope your tail holds out!"
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Post by BATouttaheck on Aug 26, 2019 13:51:17 GMT
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Post by koskiewicz on Aug 26, 2019 14:26:23 GMT
I bought a used DVD copy for $1 recently. I watched it and it brought back some fond memories. The flying monkeys creeped me out when I was a kid.
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Post by Doghouse6 on Aug 26, 2019 14:28:55 GMT
We're still being encouraged to pay no attention to the men behind the curtains.
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Post by BATouttaheck on Aug 26, 2019 14:43:22 GMT
The flying monkeys creeped me out when I was a kid. My sister was taken to see it in a theater when she was apparently too young for it. She had to be removed from the theater when the monkey's appeared because she was really scared and crying ! She still refuses to voluntarily watch any sort of fantasy film including animated BUT , I did get her to watch A Bugs Life and UP and she liked them both.
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Post by hitchcockthelegend on Aug 26, 2019 14:45:32 GMT
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Post by BATouttaheck on Aug 26, 2019 14:50:46 GMT
Terrific write up and pictures (as always). Thanks! "As Judy sings Somewhere Over The Rainbow I melt and feel as though I'm being sent spinning into another world, that's the power of the piece, because as a sepia Kansas becomes the glorious colour of Oz, nothing else in my world matters, I'm in hook line and sinker." Me too !
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Post by koskiewicz on Aug 26, 2019 14:53:08 GMT
Bat: I'd like to know if your sister has seen "Pan's Labyrinth" which IMO is a wonderful fantasy film, though it does have its dark side. Overall, the film has a very melancholy but satisfying climax.
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Post by BATouttaheck on Aug 26, 2019 15:08:33 GMT
Bat: I'd like to know if your sister has seen "Pan's Labyrinth" which IMO is a wonderful fantasy film, though it does have its dark side. Overall, the film has a very melancholy but satisfying climax. I doubt it very much as I have not shown it to her and she would never watch a movie like that on her own. She has missed many many great movies.
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Post by divtal on Aug 26, 2019 16:45:27 GMT
A few years ago, a local theater ran a weekend of special showings. It was a treat to see it on the big screen.
One thing that struck me was Toto's performance. Actually a female, named "Terry," she was quite the little scene-stealer. During Over the Rainbow, when she's sitting up on the plow (or whatever it is), she cocks her head slightly, and my eyes went to her immediately. I wasn't the only one to notice, because there was a little murmur of laughter throughout the theater. I hadn't ever paid as much attention to Toto, unless he/she was the focus on the screen ... like running away, or pulling the curtain.
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Post by teleadm on Aug 26, 2019 17:46:29 GMT
A timeless classic. Remember being scared by the angry moving apple trees, many years ago.
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Post by fangirl1975 on Aug 26, 2019 18:04:58 GMT
I'm such a fan of this movie I went to a Halloween party as Dorothy.
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Post by divtal on Aug 26, 2019 18:42:50 GMT
What a fun costume that would be!
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Post by BATouttaheck on Aug 26, 2019 18:50:15 GMT
teleadmWhen out in the orchard picking up apples ..I always think of those trees … especially when an apple falls and clocks me on the noggin !
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Post by politicidal on Aug 28, 2019 3:15:35 GMT
Honestly trying to remember the last time I saw it in its entirety. Probably ten, fifteen years.
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Post by vegalyra on Aug 28, 2019 13:59:17 GMT
Great film, I never really get tired of it. I always thought this was a well shot and well executed special effect sequence.
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spiderwort
Junior Member
@spiderwort
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Post by spiderwort on Aug 29, 2019 15:45:06 GMT
Great film, I never really get tired of it. I always thought this was a well shot and well executed special effect sequence.
Talking about special effects, I came across this recently in some research I was doing about that. It says so much about the brilliance of the filmmaking process before the days of CGI.
Kansas City Star - By James A. Fussell - August 15, 2014 06:11 PM
They had no computers. No green screens. No Industrial Light and Magic.
So how did filmmakers create the snarling tornado and other wonders in “The Wizard of Oz”?
Seventy-five years ago, special effects had to be truly special. If you wanted visual sorcery that left audiences spellbound, it took a movie MacGyver to make some magic.
And for “The Wizard of Oz,” that magician was A. Arnold “Buddy” Gillespie. From 1936 to 1962 Gillespie served as the head of special effects at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer on more than 180 feature films, including “Ben-Hur,” “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo” and “Forbidden Planet.” He was nominated for 12 Academy Awards and won four.
We asked John Fricke, a New York City “Oz” historian and author, how Gillespie did it.
The twister
The special effects experts couldn’t just take a camera out to Kansas and wait for a tornado. They had to make one.
“They tried a test first with a water vortex, and talked about rubber, and finally settled on cloth,” Fricke said. “They came up with a 35-foot-long muslin stocking that they wrapped around chicken wire to give it a conical appearance.”
Gillespie rigged up a gantry crane, rotated by a motor, that traveled the length of the soundstage. The base of the tornado was fastened to a car below the stage, where the crew moved it along a track.
The farmhouse, fence, barn and prairie all were done in miniature, and clouds were painted on glass. Wind machines and dust added the final touch. They filmed the tornado sweeping across the prairie from several angles, at distances, coming close to the camera and going away, Fricke said.
“Once the (tornado) film was complete, they showed it as rear projection behind the actors,” he said.
How realistic was it?
“The Weather Channel did the one hundred most memorable moments in weather history,” Fricke said. “Number fifty-something was the tornado in ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ Several meteorologists said it was that depiction of a tornado that made them want to pursue careers in meteorology.”
The winged monkeys
In one of the most frightening scenes in the movie, the Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton) sends her army of flying monkeys to abduct Dorothy (Judy Garland) and attack her friends. Gillespie considered animating the scene but scrapped the idea after realizing it wouldn’t look right.
“So they employed about a dozen diminutive men,” Fricke said. “Some were jockeys, and they used a couple of little people who played Munchkins. They put them in costumes and hung them by very thin piano wire from the sound stage, like live marionettes. Battery packs on their back caused their wings to flap.”
Gillespie used rubber miniatures to add scores of other flying monkeys to the scene.
The melting Witch
Dorothy throws a bucket of water on the Wicked Witch of the West, “liquidating her,” as the Wizard later explained.
“It was the most basic thing in the world,” Fricke said. “They put Margaret Hamilton on a small elevator platform that dropped below the soundstage. They tacked the hem of her witch’s dress around the outside of the elevator so it would stay up. Then the air rushing up the elevator shaft puffed up her skirt.
“Also under the skirt they put dry ice for the steam effect. And then the finishing touch was they put a bigger witch’s hat on her head when she was melting so it would look like her face was smaller.”
Hey, who needs computers?
THE END
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