It seems fair to say that the 1939 film adaptation of The Wizard Of Oz from MGM Studios is at least as well known, if not more so, than its source material, the 1900 children’s fantasy novel The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz by L Frank Baum. Countless airings on television starting in 1956 and continuing on into the 1980s when home video took over the job helped to keep the film in the public eye and introduce it to successive new generations of fans.
Over the years, there have been a number of Oz adaptations, spinoffs and pastiches, most springing up after the novel entered into the public domain in 1956. But none of them, and that includes the Broadway show Wicked, based on Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel, which has now been turned into a big screen two-film adaptation from director Jon M. Chu and Universal Pictures, are allowed to use any specific material created by MGM for their film adaptation. Those elements are still covered by the studio’s copyright for their film and are off-limits for another decade until 2035.
That doesn’t mean that Chu and his collaborators on the film adaptation haven’t slipped in a few winks and nods here and there to the iconic 1939 version that helped to inspire Maguire to write his original novel from which the stage show and movie sprung.
Vintage Universal Studios Card
Wicked announces itself right away as being somewhat indebted to 1939’s Wizard Of Oz right from its very first frame, as the film opens with a green-tinted version of Universal Studio’s logo from that period. The art deco logo, which featured a silver orb around which the words “A Universal Picture” rotate while stars twinkle around it, first came into use in 1936 and lasted through 1947.
Over The Rainbows
The most famous song to come out of the MGM version of The Wizard Of Oz, has to be “Over The Rainbow.” Written by MGM staff composer Harold Arlen with lyrics by Yip Harburg, the song has become indelibly associated with the film, Judy Garland and the Wonderful Wizard of Oz story itself. So while Wicked can’t outright use the song, there are four instances where the song is visually referenced in ways stretching from metaphorical to literal.
Wicked is something of a prequel to the story of The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz, with some events from the novel being re-contextualized in the second act of the musical. However, the entire show, as well as its film adaptation, opens with news of the death of the Wicked Witch spreading out from her castle, Kiamo Ko. Once the news reaches Munchkinland and Glinda arrives to confirm, the story reverts to flashback, showing us how Glinda and the Wicked Witch, when she was just known as Elphaba, were friends at Shiz University and the tragedy that led to her becoming an enemy of all Oz.
In these opening moments of the film as the news begins to spread, director Chu’s camera sweeps across the landscape of Oz, passing by a waterfall. And in that moment, because the sunlight is shining through the waterfall’s mist, we naturally get those shafts of sunlight refracted into a rainbow. Now Chu could have staged the shot so the camera ducked under the rainbow or moved right through it. Instead, he chose to go – you guessed it – over the rainbow, a subtle wink to the 1939 film’s most famous song.
The second, far less subtle, visual reference comes a few moments later as news of the Wicked Witch’s demise has reached Munchkinland and children run through a field of lilies all arranged in colorful rows that very intentional recall a rainbow.
The final rainbow comes at the end of Elphaba’s song “The Wizard And I.” She has run out of Shiz University and through a wheat field that ends with a tall cliff, under which the Impassable Desert – the parched wasteland that surrounds all of the Land of Oz – stretches towards the horizon. As she’s running, she leaps through the air, far higher and further than an ordinary person could, presaging the film’s climactic “Defying Gravity” number. And as she does leap, a faint rainbow can be seen in the background. And finally, when Elphaba gets to the cliffs and the Impassable Desert, off in the distance we can glimpse another rainbow. Perhaps that one is the magical barrier that Dorothy passes over when a tornado picks up her house in Kansas?
Dorothy
In the stage version of the show, The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz‘s heroine, the twister-tossed Dorothy Gale, is virtually an unseen presence. When it comes time for the Wicked Witch to get doused with the fatal splash of water, the action happens in shadow, so we never get to see her on stage. But, as the film opens in the above mentioned shot, the camera passes over the Yellow Brick Road as we see Dorothy and her compains the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsman and the Cowardly Lion heading back to the Emerald City with the Witch’s broom in hand. Dorothy is dressed in her familiar blue and white checked dress. However, that particular fit for her was an invention of the MGM costuming department and was a very different look than the more plain frock that designed by William Wallace Denslow, the original illustrator of Baum’s books.
The Title
As the film’s prologue gives way to the title card, we see Wicked is spelled out across the screen in a rather familiar font. Although not an exact match, it is remarkably close to lettering used in title for the 1939 film.
The Tunes Sound Familiar
As the Munchkinland children run through the rainbow orchid fields towards town, carrying the news of the Wicked Witch’s demise, the orchestral music on the soundtrack swells. And if your ears are sharp enough, you can hear just a smidgen of the melodies from three songs from The Wizard Of Oz being quoted – “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead,” “Over The Rainbow” and “Gulch’s theme.”
Ruby Slippers
In Baum’s original novel, the magical footwear that Dorothy receives after her house drops onto the Wicked Witch of the East are silver, and not ruby, slippers. The reasons for the change in the MGM film are two-fold – With the 1939 movie being shot in three-strip Technicolor, red slippers would give a visual pop that silver slippers wouldn’t. Additionally, had the slippers remained silver, they would reflect back whatever their wearer was standing on, making Dorothy’s feet look the color of the yellow brick road, essentially making them blend in with the road. However, Wicked for both the stage show and the film, revert back to Baum’s original silver slippers. Keep an eye out for the rubies that line the box in which the Silver Slippers are presented to Elphaba’s sister Nessarose by their father.
There is a second instance of ruby red footwear in the film during the song “Popular.” As Galinda goes through her voluminous wardrobe in her makeover of Elphaba, she comes across and hands to her a pair of glittery red shoes. But by the end of the verse Galinda decides that they are not right for Elphaba and casually tosses them aside.
Miss Gulch
The residents of Oz have a few words in their language that differ from the English we use. Many of them are often just two words smashed together such as “pronuncify,” “pessimistical,” or “braverism.” But there are a few words that sound close to the version of the word that we know. For example, at one point Shiz University’s Miss Coddle says “gulch,” instead of “glitch.” But if “Gulch” sounds familiar, that is because that is the name of Miss Gulch (Margaret Hamilton), the mean woman in Kansas who wants to take Toto away from Dorothy and will serve as the template for the Wicked Witch in Dorothy’s dream of her Ozian visit in the 1939 film.
Bike Baskets
As the Wizard starts to exert more control on the populace of Oz, he decrees that the talking Animals should be removed from their positions as professors at Shiz University, resulting in the forced ejection from his classroom the Goat history professor Dr. Dillamond. In the aftermath, human instructors introduce the idea of caging animals, something which outrages Elphaba. Along with Fiyero, she frees the lion cub used in the demonstration, stealing a pair of bicycles with which to transport the cub to freedom out in the woods. If the bikes, and the basket behind the seat, Elphaba puts the lion cub into look familiar, it is because they resemble the bicycle the mean Miss Gulch rode when she came to steal Toto away from Dorothy in the opening scenes of classic film.
The Wizard Will See You Now
One of the surprise cameos in Wicked is that of the musical’s composer Stephen Schwartz, who plays the gate keeper to the Wizard’s palace in the Emerald City. On the podcast The Business, Schwartz stated that director Jon M Chu wanted to put him in a mustache for his brief appearance in the film where he announces “The Wizard will see you now!” to Elphaba and Glinda. He then elaborated that he insisted on a large bushy one like Frank Morgan wore for a similar moment in the original film.
Follow The Road
During Elphaba and Glinda’s meeting with the Wizard, he shows off a large model of the Land of Oz with details about a brick road system he wants to build, “the Oz of tomorrow!” While Elphaba and Glinda help him decide which color to make the bricks on the road – no spoiler that they settle on yellow – the Wizard talks about how he wants people to “follow the road, follow the road” to the Emerald City. It is, of course, a reference to the other most famous song from the MGM film version, “Follow the Yellow Brick Road.”
