The Wizard of Oz

Oz the Great and Powerful will be released in theaters in March. And there are other productions (like Wicked) in the works that deal with Oz. One look at these productions should convince you that they owe just as much to Frank Baum's original story as to Victor Fleming's 1939 version.

The Wizard of Oz travels through time unhindered, and still remains a holiday classic favorite. There are aspects of the film that you may not know.

Much as been said about the fact that the famous Over the Rainbow sequence was almost cut from the picture at the last minute. Fortunately, it was decided otherwise. However some scenes, although filmed and edited, were indeed deleted from the film.

Every time Dorothy meets a friend on her way to Oz, he gets to sing "If I only had ..." and then goes into an extended dance routine. From the very first meeting with the scarecrow, the dance was drastically cut short. Originally Scarecrow was to interact with a crow which stole some straw off him, and he was to fly through the air with the help of a (slightly visible) cable. The sequence was preserved and is featured in That's Dancing! which was directed by the Tin Man's son Jack Haley Jr..

Buddy Ebsen and cast

Jack Haley was not the first choice for the part which was originally played by Buddy Ebsen. The latter was poisoned by the aluminum makeup used on his face.He was in such a bad shape that the production had to change the actor as well as the makeup. But Ebsen had pre-recorded his tracks and his voice can still be heard in choruses. Even Jack Haley's take was also shortened, as was Ray Bolger's.

For good measure, the cowardly lion's song If I Were King of the Forest was also cut short.

Haven't you ever wondered what the witch meant when she says she sent a "little insect" to take care of Dorothy and her friends? This line of dialog refers to a deleted musical sequence called the Jitterbug named after an insect which attacked our heros. The full soundtrack has been preserved although the track presented on the DVD is the rehearsal track with Dona Massin standing in for Judy. (She was the film's choreographer and appears as the woman grooming the lion in the film). The footage is now lost, however the scene is presented in the special features of the Blu-ray illustrated with color home movies of a camera rehearsal by composer Harold Arlen. 

Dorothy, when trapped by the witch, was originally supposed to sing a reprise of Over The Rainbow while crying. Unlike other musical sequences, and due to the nature of the scene, the track was not pre-recorded but Judy sang live with a piano accompaniment to favor her acting over the singing. And she does give an extraordinary performance although we can only judge by the preserved soundtrack, since the footage is now also lost.

A reprise of Ding Dong the Wicked Witch is dead was appropriately planned near the end of the film but here again, only the final soundtrack remains and a snippet of the scene is visible in the original trailer.

Finally, there's an alternate track available for the short end titles on the soundtrack which reveals that many key sequences were longer when they were scored. These include the cyclone, the appearance of the Witch of the West, her return on the rooftop (where she used to turn the Tin Man into a bee hive) the spell in the poppy field, etc.

You may not know this, but the off-screen voice of Juliet singing "Wherefore art thou Romeo?" during "If I Only Had A Heart" is Adriana Caselotti, who had recorded the voice of Disney's Snow White only two years earlier.
Anyway, the restoration is quite beautiful and you want to see this on Blu-ray!

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Kingdom of the Sun

The Disneystudios often found inspiration in Japanese anime. So much so that their hit The Lion King is an obvious remake of Osamu Tezuka's Kimba the White Lion, down to the name of the protagonist. Soon afterwards, the universe of The Mysterious Cities of Goldmay have inspired director Roger Allers for a project launched in 1997 called Kingdom of the Sun.

The genesis and eventual demise of the film was told in a rather obscure 2002 documentary called The Sweatbox that Disney did not see fit to release on home video. The sweatbox, as the prologue explains, was a room in the Disney studio in Burbank with no windows and no air conditioning where the artists would review their work on the moviola.

Owen Wilson as Pacha

To recapture the recipe of The Lion King, Sting was approached by the studio to write songs for the project before the script was finalized. The story was basically that of a young Inca named Pacha, “a lama herder who loves the sun. He believes there’s always a way to bring a light into any situation. Pacha comes to the city and when he’s put into a position of leadership, he transforms the city”. He takes the place of Manco the arrogant, self-centered Prince, in a Prince and the Pauper style of story, and the villain of the story, Yzma, turns Manco into a lama.

Prince Manco and the Pauper Pacha

Voices, music and songs were recorded, a good deal of the animation was done but before they completed the animation process, the studio had to greenlight their work.

Sting

It seems the animation department heads Tom Schumacher and Peter Schneider, once they were presented the full project on story reels, found there were problems with the pacing of the story and felt that it was not clear if they were making a drama or a comedy (among many other problems).

Director and composer in a staff meeting

Disappointed but challenged, the crew went back to work and went out to change some of the aspects of the film drastically. From 6 different outlines, they kept the core of the idea: a common man could teach an arrogant one how to be a good ruler. Manco became the main character and was given the new name of Kuzco (apparently Manco means “pussy” in Japanese and “bad movie” in Turkish) and the film was also renamed Kingdom IN the sun. Some characters were introduced (Kronk), others were changed (Pacha ages 20 years), and some were simply wiped out of the story (a talking talisman called Hucua), which took a definite turn for comedy.

Unfortunately, Roger Allers did not want to be part of the film now that it was changed so much, feeling, rightly so, that it was different movie. Co-director Mark Dindal took over on his own but some of the crew, including Sting felt ill-at-ease about the changes, partly because he felt that his contribution was far from over, as he had previously thought. Since he had to concentrate on his album, he did not feel like writing whole new songs and so only two of the ones he had previously written were used.

A deleted character makes a cameo in the finished film

Andreas Deja felt the same and left his duties of animating Yzma which were taken over by Dale Bear.

Disneyexecutives liked the new way the film was evolving but whole sections of the film like Pacha’s pregnant wife still were unclear and kept going back and forth between decisions which confused the assigned animators.

Once the film was almost completed, Mark Shaiman was hired to write the atmospheric score. Unfortunately his work was considered “too busy” and after rewrites proved ineffective, he was replaced by John Debney.

Here is a glimpse at the deleted musical sequence “Snuff out of the light” (available on the soundtrack) sung by Eartha Kitt whose other musical number “Perfect world” was also cut. Yet some scenes were used for the theatrical trailer for the film which was eventually released as The Emperor’s New Groove.

The new Pacha in the DVD deleted scene

It's interesting that, in the DVD special features, although they contain a short deleted scene (from the new version of the film though since it deals with the "new" Pacha) documentary featurettes, and a whole feature commentary, the fascinating story of the picture's erratic development is never once evoked.

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Queen of Sheba

Queen of Sheba, like many early Fox successes, has been lost for ages in a fire of the Fox vaults. Originally released in 1921, it starred Betty Blythe. When you come across her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, chances are you won't remember who she was. She achieved stardom thanks to this film and her willingness to appear semi-nude in front of the camera.
As a matter of fact, she used to joke that all of her 28 costumes for the film could fit in a shoe box. And the remaining stills of the film tend to prove her right. When her star faded, she went on working, mostly uncredited, as a character actress until 1964, where she appears quite briefly in My Fair Lady.

The script of the film apparently was rather different than the later films dealing with the Queen. It seems closer to the story of Ben Hur with its theme of rivalry (there's even a chariot race!).
In this film, The Queen's name is Balkis and her throne has been stolen by evil Armud (George Siegmann from Birth of a Nation) so Balkis, her sister Nomis and her people lived by the red sea, away from her kingdom. There she finds the crown of the Kingdom washed away by the waves. Armud abducts Nomis who drowns herself to avoid the shame of his assaults. When the crowd hears of her suicide, a revolution occurs and Armud has to make a concession. He offers marriage to Balkis (even though he was bethrothed to lovely Princess Vashti) to appease the tensions. Balkis tricks him into thinking she accepts and stabs him on their wedding day. Now the Queen of Sheba again, she leaves to the court of King Solomon (Fritz Leiber from Romeo and Juliet) to seek his advice on ruling her Kingdom. Unfortunately, Princess Vashti has taken refuge there and, helped by Solomon's brother Adonijah, she plots against Balkis and King Solomon who fall in love for each other.

The Queen's caravan

Betty Blythe

One day, a chariot race is organized in honor of the Queen. And while Adonijah poisons Solomon's horses, Vashti challenges Balkis to race them against her. Balkis accepts, but with a different set of horses, and wins the race. Adonijah tries to molest her but Solomon comes to the rescue and bans his brother out of the Kingdom. Solomon and Balkis confess their love. But Solomon is already married and his wife, Pharaoh's daughter, warns her father that she may be repudiated. Fearing a war with Egypt, Balkis decides to leave Solomon after she has spent a last night with him and he has given her a ring and a son that she names David (played by child actor Pat Moore who was the son of Pharaoh in The Ten Commandments and who later worked with its director Cecil B. DeMille on the remake as a sound editor).

David at his father's court

Solomon and David

Five years later, she sends little David to meet his father and recognizing the ring attached on a golden chain around his neck, Solomon is overjoyed and proceeds to spend all his time with him. Vashti and Adonijah (who came back to the court) kidnap the child and hold him hostage in the Kings' tomb. Warned by Solomon, Balkis raises an army and kills Adonijah. She thinks she arrives too late to save her son when she finds his lifeless body but Solomon's prayers bring a miracle and the boy awakes. Balkis and her son safely return to the Kingdom of Sheba while King Solomon watches them from his castle.

The following film clip (mislabeled "Cleopatra") is apparently all that remains of this lavish production, originally intended for Fox's star Theda Bara.

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Destino

Early in 1946, Walt Disney started a collaboration with famous surrealist painter Salvador Dali, fresh out of his first collaboration with Hollywood: the design of a dream sequence for Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound.
Somewhat frustrated by the fact that a good portion of  the dream had been cut out, Dali embarked on what he thought would be a more appropriate medium for his art: animation.

Walt Disney teamed him up with studio artist John Hench who had worked on Fantasia, Dumbo, Bambi, etc.
Their assignment was a short film based on a song called Destino by Dora Luz (who had appeared in The Three Caballeros) which struck a chord with Dali because of his interest in Destiny. At the time, Disney manufactured mostly shorts or "package features" (a mixture of shorts put together) with smaller production values than for Snow White because the War had left the studio somewhat crippled financially. So a musical short in the style of Make Mine Music or Melody Time with a Dali twist seemed the thing to do.

The two artists exchanged their knowledge and ideas and many production sketches came out of it. There was even color test footage made from a production background and two cels sliding towards each other to reveal the form of a dancer when they merged together.

Apparently, Dali designed sketches, scenes and moods and it was John Hench's task to find continuity between these sequences.

For some unclear reason, the project was shelved, probably under Disney's orders (he apparently disliked the base-ball player idea), and Dali was paid off.

But it was not the end of Destino. Some 50 years later, during production of Fantasia 2000, the staff came across the filed-away artwork for the film and with the support of Roy Disney and help of John Hench, it was decided to give French director Dominique Monfery the task of making a short film from this basis. It was made in the now-defunct French animation studio in Paris.

The film is now available on youtube but I strongly suggest you buy the Fantasia 2000 Blu-ray for pristine quality and also for the very informative and complete documentary about the film: Dali & Disney: A date with Destino.

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