The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Gala!

This Fun Blog Party
is being hosted by
my dear friends at ...

Like so many of you, I'm in love with
The Wizard of Oz, too ... ~sighs~

I thought it would be fun to share
some of my favorite photos, movie lines,
and fun-facts-to-know ...
Won't you join me, please?

I was always facinated by the Wicked Witch
and her sky-writing skills ... were you?

Originally the image above was going to read:
"Surrender Dorothy or die WWW"
It was later edited to the two words
"Surrender Dorothy"

How it was done:
In Aljean Harmetz's book,
The Making of the Wizard of Oz,
Jack McMaster was the man who created
and performed this final scene.
Below he describes the procedure:
"I had a glass tank six foot square" ...
"The bottom of the tank was glass. The sides
were wood. The tank was only three inches
deep; and the bottom was covered with an
inch and a half of water mixed with calla oil.
That was supposed to be the sky. The
camera was beneath the tank, shooting up.
The water and oil mixture was opaque,
so it hid me. The miniature Witch who did
the skywriting was three eighths of an inch
high, and the broom she was riding was a
hypodermic needle. I filled the hypodermic
needle with a combination of canned milk
and nigrosine dye. I wrote
SURRENDER DOROTHY OR DIE
upside down and backward in the fluid in
the tank, using the needle in place of a pen.
I practiced for two months before I did it.
My hand wasn't in the tank, but the Witch
and the broom needle were. The skywriting
seemed to come out of the tail of the
Witch's broom. To give the writing the
appearance of smoke that was drifting, I
had a fifty-gallon drum of water feeding into
the tank. I had tinted the water the same
milky color as the liquid in the glass tank.
The water current was a stream--
like an air stream--blowing the letters apart."

I think this woman holding the cat is beautiful ...
and I've always loved her rosey-red cheeks!
Her name is Lois January.

She actually apears a couple times in the
movie. She's also one of the ladies helping
freshening up Dorothy. Lois is on the far
right, and that's her below,
many years after OZ was filmed.

Of course,
I love Dorothy's Ruby Slippers ...

Many Birthday candles were blown out
with wishes of owning those Ruby Slippers!

So far, the closest I've come has been to
see them at Smithsonian's National
Museum of American History.

At least four pairs of ruby slippers walked
off the set of The Wizard of Oz. Decked
out in sequins and crystals, the "slippers"
were really pumps, and they almost
weren't ruby at all. L. Frank Baum's book
specified silver. By the time the movie
was produced, 70 years ago in 1939,
the studio had picked red to
show off its new Technicolor ability.

The Ruby Slippers Blue Print states that
on the Bow of each Slipper there are
46 Red Rhinestones, 42 Red Bugle Beads,
and 3 Red Jewels. I colorized this Blue
Print copy, and I encourage you to click
on the image to enlarge it so that you
can truly appreciate all of the work
that went into creating them!

Did you know that Toto's
real-life name was Terry?

She made $125 a week, and
barked 44 times in the movie!

"Ohhhhh! You cursed brat!
Look what you've done!
I'm melting! Melting!
Oh, what a world! What a world!
Who would have thought
a good little girl like you could
destroy my beautiful wickedness?"

I must confess that a few of those
Birthday wishes of mine were
spent on hopes of also owning the
complete outfit that Glinda
the Good Witch wore ...
it's just so enchanting!

There's no place like home.
There's no place like home.
There's no place like home...

~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~

I'd like to say a very special
Thank You to our hosts ...

and to the wonderful creator of
The Wizard of Oz ...
Lyman Frank Baum

Thank you for stopping by to visit
and share in some of my favorite
things from this awesome movie!

Hmmm...
You just never know where
those flying monkeys will pop up!

Until another time ... Pearl

Please visit Twyla and Lindsey for
a list of those participating in
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Gala.

Much of my information was collected from
Wendy's Complete Directory of Oz,
and many Google searches.

Please see Part 2 of this post here