The Flames.

Nearly everyone loves The Wizard of Oz, and most of us have seen it enough times to quote certain lines verbatim ("I'll get you my pretty, and your little dog too!") or break into an a cappella version of 'We're Off to See the Wizard" at a moment's notice. Since Oz is about to celebrate its 75th anniversary next year, here's a fun peek at a few details that may have escaped the attention of even the most ardent Ozophiles.

1. Dorothy's Cruller. Just before singing "Over the Rainbow," Dorothy takes one of the "just fried" crullers Aunt Em offers the farmhands. She takes a small bite, tosses a piece to Toto and from there it seems to vanish. But watch closely, she's still holding it as she begins to sing and at the beginning of the second verse, she tosses the remainder into the barnyard (hopefully Toto saw it!).

2. Miss Gulch's Umbrella. As Miss Gulch pulls up to the Gale farmhouse, you can see an umbrella strapped to the front of her bicycle. This is an "insider" allusion to the water allergy of her Ozian alter ego, the Wicked Witch of the West. In the original L. Frank Baum book, the Witch carries an umbrella, not a broom.

3. Dorothy's Dresses. Here's a question sure to stump family and friends: How many dresses is Dorothy seen wearing? The answer is two, not one. When Dorothy meets Professor Marvel, he glances at a portrait of Dorothy and Aunt Em in their Sunday best -- both are wearing wardrobe only seen for this brief moment. (Look closely: the professor never returns the photo either!)

4. The Coroner's Death Certificate. When the Munchkin coroner pronounces the Wicked Witch of the East "really most sincerely dead," he displays the official death certificate which is dated May 6, 1938 -- exactly 19 years after L. Frank Baum, author of the original Wizard of Oz book, passed away.

5. Toto's Deleted Dance? When dance director Bobby Connolly was interviewed in 1939, he discussed the challenges of teaching the Munchkins how to dance in unison but he also mentioned that Toto's trainer was tone deaf, so Connolly had to give the trainer the music cue a couple beats ahead so the trainer could translate the signal to the dog. When "Ding-Dong! The Witch is Dead" is reprised, Toto trips down the steps of the city hall and falls in line behind the Munchkin soldiers with no further explanation -- was this the "Toto Trot" to which Connolly was referring?

6. The Wooden Sawhorse. Another reference to the Oz book series may be the inclusion of a wooden sawhorse in the background of the Tin Man scenes. In Baum's The Land of Oz book, a similar sawhorse is brought magically to life and becomes a permanent resident of the Emerald City thereafter.

7. The Munchkin Suicide. The Wizard of Oz was never envisioned to play on a screen as small as a TV set, so confusion has arisen about the unusual motion in the background as Dorothy skips away with the Scarecrow and Tin Man. One silly urban legend says it is a Munchkin suicide-hanging caught on film. In actuality, the movement is that of a large stork reacting to the dancing by rising up and unfolding its wings defensively.

8. Dorothy's Giggles. When filming the scene where Dorothy slaps the Cowardly Lion, Judy Garland kept flubbing each take for laughing at Bert Lahr's ridiculous blubbering. Even in the final-version scene, she is composed until the Lion reaches for his airborne tail -- and misses -- at which Judy breaks character and cracks a small smile!

9. The Witch's Hourglass. Remember when time ran out and the Witch shattered her hourglass in a rage? The sand was made of pulverized red sequins (like those on the Ruby Slippers) to give it that Technicolor sparkle. And the hourglass the Witch throws had holes drilled into it so it could glide the length of a wire and hit the same mark for each take.

10. Dorothy's Time Warp. It seems as though The Wizard of Oz all takes place in the span of one day. Indeed at the conclusion, Dorothy's family and friends are all wearing the same clothes they had on at the beginning. But in the parallel universe of Oz, time functions differently. Listen carefully and you'll hear Dorothy say she tried to get home "for days and days."

shipoopoi

Big Wall climber
oakland

Aug 2, 2013 - 08:36pm PT
body and soul, another scary day in my youth. i walked out with the kid(kurt smith) without the usual feeling of doom cause the kid had requested to lead it. yeah, i'll go belay on that. so, kid doesn't feel it and backs off the double bolts and offers the lead to me. hey, is this a sandbag?

so i go up and start climbing above the double bolts to the roof, and i'm feeling pretty good for a bit, but then it starts getting real thin, and finally, the last move to the undercling is desperate, like 12a, and i just stick it and slam a cam. that would be a super rude fall from there. i can't do the boulder problem(12b) above the roof, so i lower off.

i come back a couple of days later consumed with a feeling of dread like i always did when i went out to honor bachar by possibly dying trying to do one of his routes. john barbella was my partner. i had left a sling on the first cam i had left in the roof. the result was that i was able to clip the cam before doing that hideous move to the roof. so, my ascent was less that perfect, with preplaced pro, a pinkpoint not a redpoint. i slung a knob going out the roof, which was decent, then committed to the face above. this is a huge fukking runout, maybe 40 feet from the cam, and 35 feet from the tied off knob to this big ledge. it's medium 5.10, on knobs and edges, and goes through a slightly overhanging bulge at one point. as one nears the ledge, the ground becomes a factor, nearly 80 feet below. but it's only 5.10 here, and although the routefinding is a bit tricky, i did not have any problem here, though it did take all the skill and courage i could muster. barbella followed, if you could call it that, and eventually commented that he should have just taken jumars.

it was the second ascent of one of the most feared pitches in yosemite, and i had survived only to try and die on another bachar testpiece. kurt commented to me a few years ago that we were lucky to live through those times. i wholeheartedly agree.

Steve Schneider
Oakland, CA

ps thanks to CAN'T SAY(do i know you) for pointing out lechlinski's role in what must have been a hairball first ascent