The Wizard of Oz

Revealing mistake: As Dorothy skips off on her journey at the very end of the song "Follow the Yellow Brick Road", the shot cuts just in time to prevent her hitting the painted backdrop. The join between the ground and the backdrop is visible.

Continuity mistake: When the Wizard says, "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain" he pulls the curtain closed and Toto's not there. In the next shot Toto's tied to the curtain again. (01:28:35)

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Continuity mistake: When Dorothy first meets the scarecrow, there is a patch of grass in front of the field the scarecrow is in. On the grass there's two beds of flowers. The flowers change colors from when Dorothy meets the Scarecrow, to when the Scarecrow starts his "If only I had a Brain" song. (00:33:00 - 00:35:30)

Hamster

Continuity mistake: During the storm the farm hands let the horses go and Dorothy runs to the back of the house as the wind blows directly in her face. If you look closely a large wood plank is sent sliding on the road, in the wrong direction into the wind. (00:15:50)

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Continuity mistake: Glinda says to Dorothy, "I'm afraid you've made a rather a bad enemy of the Wicked Witch of the WestÂ…" and the mayor of the Munchkin city walks up from behind them. In the next shot he re-approaches them from the left. (00:31:00)

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Continuity mistake: When the Lion is singing about being King of the Forest, the Tin Man breaks a flower pot to "crown" him. Pay close attention, as the break marks on the pot change. In one shot there's a big jagged edge sticking up (obviously longer than the others) and in the next shot most of the edges are even.

Audio problem: The talking trees throw their apples at Dorothy and the Scarecrow and if you look closely behind the tree on the right, Toto can be seen barking his head off, but we never hear a thing. (00:40:20)

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Continuity mistake: When Dorothy first meets the Scarecrow there are no pumpkins on the left side of the Yellow Brick Road. Later when he starts to dance pumpkins have been added. (00:33:55 - 00:36:50)

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Continuity mistake: Before Dorothy leaves Munchkinland she has a blue flower in her basket. She never touches the basket but as she dances out of town it's not there. (00:32:55)

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Continuity mistake: Near the end of the movie, when Dorothy is saying good-bye to the Scarecrow, he is looking at Dorothy and begins to wave good-bye. In the next shot, his head is down and he lifts it slowly and begins to wave. (01:38:30)

Continuity mistake: As the Munchkins send Dorothy off singing "We're off to see the Wizard" the red coated guard is hanging out of his booth as he waves his sword. In the next shot he's inside the booth tapping time with his sword. (00:33:30)

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Continuity mistake: As the Scarecrow yells for "help" in the poppy field, the Tin Man goes from holding the head of his axe to holding his head between shots. (00:56:15)

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Continuity mistake: At the witch's castle, the witch throws a sand timer to the floor from a banister, and it smashes in front of a large group of her guards. But in the next shot, when the candle chandelier lands on all the guards, you can see that the smashed timer has disappeared. (01:21:20)

Hamster

Continuity mistake: When singing 'Ding Dong the Witch is Dead', in a wide shot, many Munchkins run up to Dorothy, in a big crowd right beside her. But in the next wide shot when the mayor is saying 'From now on you'll be history' the crowd has gone. (00:27:20)

Hamster

Continuity mistake: After they put the green robe on the Cowardly Lion, the flowers in the three pots on the right are different that what we saw at the beginning of the scene. (01:05:50)

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Revealing mistake: When Dorothy runs to the back of the house during the storm a crewmember is moving the rocking chair in the room on the left. The wind never stops blowing, but the chair stops moving after it's left alone. (00:16:35)

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Other mistake: In the close-up as the Wicked Witch pets him, Toto, who has been referred to as a "he" throughout the movie appears to be a she. In actuality, Toto is a female Cairn terrier. (01:16:05)

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Visible crew/equipment: Dorothy walks around Munchkinland and when we first see the Munchkin's heads popping up the crew's shadow can be seen on the flowers to the right of the screen. (00:20:55)

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Dorothy: There's no place like home.

More quotes from The Wizard of Oz

Trivia: The "tornado" was a thirty-five foot long muslin stocking, photographed with miniatures of a Kansas farm and fields.

rabid anarchist

More trivia for The Wizard of Oz

Question: At the very end of the movie after Dorothy says "Oh, Auntie Em, there's no place like home," normally, it fades out to the credits, but once - and only once - when I was very young, I thought I remembered seeing the camera pan away from her face and down to the foot of the bed where you see the ruby slippers tucked underneath the bed, then a fade to the credits. It is obviously a black-and-white shot, but there were the glittering shoes. Has anyone else seen this version of the ending?

Macalou

Answer: Another fine example of the Mandela Effect. None of the "making of" books reference this alternate ending. The original book ends with Dorothy losing the slippers on her journey back to Kansas.

wizard_of_gore

I also remember this scene; however, I remember it in a television movie, and it was at the beginning, not the end, of an entirely different movie.

Chosen answer: Yes. I'm sure I've seen that version. It shows that Dorothy didn't just dream about Oz and makes for a more satisfying conclusion. This version was original but edited out because it didn't follow the book's storyline for "Return to Oz" and the other long series of Oz books. The sequel pertains that she loses the slippers in transit back to her home and falls to the gnome king who destroys Oz which in turn causes Dorothy to return. So seeing the slippers at the end of the bed, while more satisfying, wouldn't really stay true to the Oz series.

I absolutely remember that version with the shoes at her bedside, but nobody I know remembers it.

Thank you! I remember that too but everyone I know thinks I'm nuts.

I remember that version and after that I expected to see the same ending but no I never saw that ending again. I got the response that no-one I know saw that ending of the movie where the ruby slippers being on her feet in her bed. Thank you for that answer. This was a long time mystery.

I absolutely remember that scene.

I remember that too - and I've asked so many people and they said no, I must have dreamed it. Thank you.

I saw that version once when I was a little kid too! I remember it vividly. Now I know I'm not crazy.

Answer: This seems to be one of those mass examples of people remembering something that never happened. There are also other variations, like people claiming to remember the film switching to color as the shot pans down to her slipper-clad feet, or the slippers being in color against the sepia-toned B&W footage. But sadly, it seems no officially released version of the film has had such an ending. It's similar to how everyone thinks Darth Vader says "Luke, I am your father," or how everyone thinks Humphrey Bogart says "Play it again, Sam!", even though neither of those lines are real, and people are merely incorrectly remembering them. The film is so ingrained in pop-culture, that people think they know it forwards-and-back, and false memories are created.

TedStixon

I agree that people think they remember things that never happened, but usually for things like this, remembering a scene wrong misquoting a movie lines, it comes from parody versions and people are (correctly) remembering the parody. I've never seen "Silence of the Lambs", but I know the line "Hello, Clarice" from films like "Cable Guy" and not from a false memory of the film.

Bishop73

Answer: https://criticsrant.com/mythbusters-dorothys-ruby-slippers/ This website gives some confirmation it's one of those myths that spread around and get mixed up in people's memories to being convinced they have seen it despite no evidence of it existing. In a film as big as the Wizard of Oz where die hard fans have collected original scripts, notes, and "lost" imagery over the years; we certainly would have something to back this up other than eye witness memory. Especially if it supposedly made it to the final print for viewing audiences as the original Wizard of Oz footage has been carefully preserved, as it's considered one of the most important films of all time. This footage wouldn't be completely lost if it made it to final showing print. Surely somebody would have posted it by now on YouTube. It is possible somebody made a skit or parody of this though contributing to the idea that it was actually in a print of the real movie.

Answer: I remember this being part of a special that was hosted by Angela Lansbury in 1990 and they showed that this ending was considered for the movie. For many years I couldn't remember why I remembered that ending and Angela Lansbury until I looked it up. I wish that it had been left like that. Kids always want their dreams to come true.

Answer: I and a friend of mine remember seeing the ruby slippers under Dorthy's bed at the end of the movie. Glad to know we didn't imagine it.

More questions & answers from The Wizard of Oz

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