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The Wizard of Oz & London After Midnight
40 Plays1 year ago
We’re getting settled and talking about movies!
Nylene uncovers a piece of lost media that perhaps motivated a manic man to murder. Then, Nym destroys everyone’s childhood by exposing the brutal experience of filming The Wizard of Oz. Toxic touch-ups, Poorly-planned pyrotechnics, and on-set violence - Oh my!
Enter the nightmare for notes and sources!
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Transcript
00:00:25
Speaker
Welcome
Introduction to Nightmare Cottage
00:00:26
Speaker
to Nim and Nyleen's Nightmare Cottage, where we explore history, mysteries, and other tales of the macabre. I'm Nim. And I'm Nyleen. Let the nightmare begin.
00:00:41
Speaker
Disturbing and mature content to follow. Into the nightmare, if you dare.
Moving into the Cottage
00:00:56
Speaker
So it's been quite the day. We've been moving into the cottage. It's been intense. Yeah. To say the least. Yeah. Also, disclaimer, I know that I was laughing a lot during the last episode. So I know that Nim mentioned, you know, she she struggles with with some anxiety.
00:01:12
Speaker
Me too. yeah Don't we all, right? So sorry about the laughter. It's nervous laughter. Yep. I am so guilty of that. I laugh at the worst times. Yes. And it's not that I think that any of this is funny. It's people have been murdered and, you know, Or died from really tragic cases, but definitely not. ah Yeah, we're definitely not amused by any of this. But I have this tendency to even, i do this with my boss a lot. I just, I giggle at the end of everything. Oh, oh no, me too. Yes. Especially when I get nervous or I'm delivering some bad news. Yeah, my boss has told me that too. She's like, it makes it sound like, like you don't care. And I'm like, it's not that I don't care. It's that I'm really nervous and I don't know what to do with my hands except my face.
00:01:54
Speaker
And my voice. no one's No one's called me on it. But I hear myself do it every time. And there's a point where I feel like my like one of my bosses in particular, once I've done it three times in a row, he ends the conversation because I think he thinks I'm done with him.
00:02:14
Speaker
I don't know. He's like, okay, I'm going to exit the room because you're not. It's like that. That's crazy. Well, it's usually in my office. That's crazy. That's great. Yes. Yeah. So. Oh, that's so crazy. Yeah. So that's, that's the nervous laughter. It happens. We're not trying to be disrespectful of anybody. We understand the gravity of these situations.
00:02:36
Speaker
Yeah. Just working on it, getting through it, building in the cottage and the vibes, building vibes, building the vibes for sure. So what have you been up to this week? My cat got a hoodie.
00:02:48
Speaker
griothy Grimothy. Grimothy. Grim got a hoodie. It's just a plain black hoodie. He's adorable in it. I have to exchange it for a slightly bigger size. Because he's a trunky.
00:03:00
Speaker
He's a long cat. How old is he now? He's not one yet, is he? He is. He's one in February. I missed his birthday. didn't miss his birthday. He had a birthday. I'm so excited you didn't have mine.
00:03:10
Speaker
Well, now I know. Well, I've been buying him enough presents. I'm sure I made up for it. That's true. Aside from me, you buy him the most presents. I mean, I feel like every time I go to the pet store, I kind of just have to. have to. just have to. There's just one. They're just so cute. And I'm never going to have cat.
00:03:28
Speaker
You are practically his anyways. So, yeah. He's your cat. It's fine. He's communal. He just lives with me. In my away from the cottage cottage. so how did he feel about the sweater time?
00:03:39
Speaker
Well, he did a little bit of the flopping he does when we first put his harness on. He's like, please, no. ah But he didn't seem about it. Was he still able to climb and stuff? Yeah. Or he didn't care to?
00:03:52
Speaker
Oh, he jumped and and moved and and he played. like but When we were doing our harness training, we always started by playing with some of his favorite things. We tried to apply the positive. Anyways, he's super cute and I will put pictures of that on Instagram as so everybody can see my adorable Grimm in his hoodie. Yeah, what about you? What have you been up to? Man, everything that's been kicking my butt lately... And so i finally, it finally stopped raining, which was amazing.
00:04:18
Speaker
So I was able to take Dojo, my little baby boy, was able to take him to the doggy park. And I haven't taken him in forever, honestly, because it's just like the weather's either like been too hot or it's like sweat or it's just like everything's just weird. My allergies, whatever, right? Always excuses. But I finally took him to the dog park and there's this new one over here that I took him to. he,
00:04:41
Speaker
he loved it like it was great because there was no one there when we first got there which was really nice because he's a grumpy old man he's like eight now I think and so he he gets real cranky whenever like there's other dogs and they're sniffing his butt like he just doesn't like it but this little this little as I say a little that dog was bigger than him and apparently it wasn't even one came up to him after the fact and he was so excited to be playing with this dog they had such a good time It gives me hope that he can like maybe go to dog parks again because like before it was like any dog that came near him. He was like, please leave me alone. So, but I'll post a picture of him too. that way you can see both of our little fur butts.
00:05:23
Speaker
He was adorable at that doggy park. So yeah, it really helped honestly, like just to get out with my baby
Exploring Dark Films
00:05:30
Speaker
boy. what are we talking about today?
00:05:37
Speaker
what are we talking about today We're going to be talking about dark films again. Okay. So I am going to talk about London After Midnight today. London After Midnight. i've I've heard about this, but I don't know much about it. Yeah. I'd never actually heard about it before I started researching it. Yeah. So I was starting to look into it and like, apparently it was, it's a really old movie just to get a little relevant backstory. Right. So it's this movie that this murder is based on.
00:06:08
Speaker
And it was a silent horror film. So it was released by Todd Browning in 1927. And then i don't know if you know who Lon Chaney is. I do. Yeah, because was in a lot of old movies, right? He was known as the man of a thousand faces. love Lon Chaney. Yeah, apparently he was just really good with horror face, right?
00:06:27
Speaker
And I found that really interesting because I did end up pulling up like a lot of pictures to kind of see the craziness. But yeah, so it was really cool. So it starred him. he was known as Leonidas Frank. Lon Chaney, also known as the man of thousand faces, due to his advanced makeup techniques. So like I said, he just, he could change exactly what he looked like. Um, so he was cast as the villain Edward C Burke.
00:06:51
Speaker
He was actually supposed to be a Scotland Yard inspector and then eventually revealed later on to be the villain. Right? So the movie was actually a flop interesting enough, but the reason that it's remembered is because it was lost in the 1965 fire at MGM's vault seven studio.
00:07:07
Speaker
Because they made the film with, like, wet nitrates back then. And so, like, it apparently, like, the whole thing lit on fire. They lost a bunch of films, and this was one of them, so it was a lost film. Something about me is that one of the things that pisses me off more than anything in the entire universe was the burning of the Library of Alexandria. Right? Yes! Because it's, like, really how advanced were things back then? We don't know. We really don't know. Right, in all of the history that was lost, like, anyway, so this is kind of,
00:07:36
Speaker
That's so funny because I was thinking about this when i was putting my notes together for our next episode. So this is like that losing of this is the only copy. This is the only way we have it. And now it's just gone. And interesting enough, though, back then, like not to get too off topic, apparently it wasn't really a big deal for them to keep a lot of the copies. Like a lot of movies, they would just show them and then they would just destroy them because they were like, well, on to the next one. Right. Right. I mean, i don't think they really...
00:08:02
Speaker
thought that it would get to where it is now, where we, don't know, where where we can access so much media, right? So anyways, it was lost in the 1965 Nitrate film Real Fire, right, at MGM Studio. So it destroyed the final known copy of the movies. That's really what made it famous, as people were like, well, like, it was supposedly this big, horrifying movie, but it was a flop, because it didn't make sense, but Lon Chaney and his amazing art, right?
00:08:27
Speaker
In 2003, Turner Classic Movies actually reconstructed the film. Hmm. And they use stills that were like that they were able to find, like obviously not the full film, but stills. And I actually will link to our page. There's two of them. So one of them is the original 45 minute long that Turner Classic put together. and it it's the full one that they created.
00:08:49
Speaker
But it's only stills because remember, the dialogue wasn't included at the time. So it stills with just the dialogue on the screen. Right. And then it was a silent film. So it's silent. But somebody did piece together the basis of the movie, right? And it's 18 minutes long. It includes original pieces from the Turner Classic movie and a really pretty score that just, it highlights it so beautifully. So I'll link both of those so that, you know, someone really wants to see the whole 45 minutes, they can, or they can just see the 18 minute one. That's awesome. I was about to ask how to find it because I need it. Yeah, it's really pretty. Yeah, it's beautiful.
00:09:25
Speaker
It was really, really pretty neat part of movie history, I think. I mean, I never obviously got to see the full thing with the full music, original music. But so this is extremely relevant because let's see, I sent you a picture of Lon Chaney as the villain. So look at that link I just sent you and I'll put this on our page as well.
00:09:43
Speaker
So he is pretty creepy looking, right? And I love it. Just look at that first picture, right? So it's beautiful, right? It it is really beautiful with those old pictures. So Browning eventually produced London After Midnight as a talkie later on, but he starred Lugosi instead, right?
00:09:59
Speaker
And how do we know Lugosi? Because he has fans for doing Dracula, right? And so many, many things. Yes. So Browning named the remake of the movie Mark of the Vampire that was remade in 1935, but this one didn't really seem quite as spooky. And then there was a recent movie to The Babadook.
00:10:17
Speaker
Yes. It was released in 2014. So it said that the monster in that movie the Babadook was based on the image of Lon Chaney in London after midnight. So I sent you that second picture and you can kind of see like the similarities in the eyes and that crazed smile. Yeah. No, before you even sent that second picture, I i can immediately see the, reality of it yeah. Yeah.
00:10:40
Speaker
And so I've seen this one too. And and it was, it they do look pretty similar and it's a decent watch if anyone hasn't seen it, but I am scared of everything. So, you know, just go into annoying that.
00:10:51
Speaker
It's all relevant because in October 23rd, 1928, Robert Williams, he was 28 years old, unemployed. He was a Welsh carpenter. He was discovered on the ground London Heights Park and he was discovered bleeding from the neck and he was disoriented. So this was after the movie? Yes, was after the movie released. The released in
00:11:15
Speaker
1927, think? Yes, and this happened in 1928. Okay. So Robert Williams, discovered by the ah groundskeeper, right, who was just checking the grounds out. Beside him was a blood-covered razor and an Irish housemaid named Julia Mangan, and she was age 21.
00:11:31
Speaker
So the patrol officer stated that he leaned down to help Williams, and he heard him state, quote, I did it. She's been teasing me. And then Mangan, he looked, she was just laying there clutching her neck wound, And bleeding out. So she was still alive at this moment, but she couldn't do anything, right? Because she was bleeding out. So she was rushed to the hospital, but died the next day.
00:11:51
Speaker
Information on this case is a little bit spotty. I'm not sure because it was in 1928 or just because it was pretty straightforward. But according to Julia's brother, Robert Williams and Julia Mangan had been seeing each other for about a month.
00:12:05
Speaker
And over this month, Williams' mental state seemed to decline. He admitted that for like two or three days before the murder, He had carried around the razor blade that he used in an attempt to end his own life. He wanted to end his own life.
00:12:18
Speaker
And he had also asked, apparently been asked by Mangan to stop drinking at one point in the relationship. So it kind of seems like maybe he was just drinking a lot, was a little suicidal, but he was telling investigators that he would never actually want to hurt her. So he doesn't know what happened. So he told investigators that he and Mangan were friends.
00:12:39
Speaker
He wanted to marry her and then she had refused. So Williams claimed the last thing he remembered was hearing Mangan whistling and then, quote, then I felt as if my head were going to burst and the steam was coming out of both sides.
00:12:54
Speaker
All sorts of things came to mind. I thought a man had me in a corner and was pulling faces at me. He threatened and shouted at me that he had me where he wanted me. End quote. Williams claimed to have seen visions of Lon Chaney's character urging him to kill Mangan, but that he never intended to hurt her.
00:13:13
Speaker
So he says everything went black. He woke up at the hospital with a nurse washing his feet. And after seeing Lon Chaney's face from the movie, i mean, can see where that face would stick with somebody, especially in like in the 1920s, right? They aren't seeing these kinds of things every day like we are. They don't have all this information on the how a horror movie makeup is made, whatever. i can see where this would have been extra horrifying, but not excusing the murder, but I can see where he's scared at least.
00:13:39
Speaker
But he's saying that basically Lon Chaney... convinced him to do it. So Robert Williams was charged with attempted suicide and murder. And during his child, he told the court that he committed the murder due to an epileptic fit after seeing the horrifying vision of Lon Chaney.
00:13:55
Speaker
The defense resulted in a hung jury and then a retrial was issued in 1929. So like a year later. And in this trial, the judge claimed he saw nothing that would indicate Williams was epileptic or that the vision of Chaney was enough to cause one.
00:14:11
Speaker
After being given this direction by the judge, the jury found Williams guilty and he was sentenced to death by a hanging. Two weeks later, the sentence was reversed by Home Secretary Sir William Johnson Hicks after reading the official medical report claiming william Williams was in fact insane.
00:14:27
Speaker
Yeah, so there's medical reports saying he was insane, but the original judge was like, nah, nah, he's not epileptic. Let's just, let's just kill him. It's fine. So it was decided that William should serve his sentence at Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum instead.
00:14:43
Speaker
And i hate to say that I honestly don't know which one's worse. Knowing what we know of asylums at the time. Right. kind of might have preferred, I know it's not a quick death to be hung, but those asylums were not great places to be during that time. Do we know what his stay was like or how he was treated once he was there? No, no. There's nothing on him after that, right? So there's no records after that. But London After Midnight did become the first motion picture to ever explicitly be named as part a murder case trial. So that's so interesting because, like I said, was the 1920s. It was silent film originally. It was lost in a fire. Apparently was a flop.
00:15:19
Speaker
And yet it's still remembered to this day because it was the first one that was ever named as part a murder trial. That's so sad because if mental health care was... anything at the time. Yeah, I mean, we've come a long way. And we we all know, like, and especially, like I said, with the judge just being like, yeah, no, he's not crazy, even though there were plenty of things, apparently enough for the Home Secretary to be like, nah, man, he's insane. We need to back off, you know?
00:15:45
Speaker
I wonder how that person knew. I agree. Yeah, no, there wasn't a lot of information. Like I said, I did so much digging, trying to find out where did these records come from or about the trial. But I do think, you know, maybe with it,
00:15:58
Speaker
the way that she was murdered or something. There just wasn't a lot of information on it. I mean, that's it. That's that's the that's the end of London After Midnight. And I just thought it was a really interesting case, like I said, because of how it was lost and yet from my home.
00:16:20
Speaker
So tell me about Wizard of Oz because I love that movie. so I know it's like so overplayed and everyone thinks it's either really great or really horrible, but it's considered one of the greatest
Diving into 'The Wizard of Oz'
00:16:29
Speaker
movies of all time. Still, when people do the big major lists on Time magazine and things like that,
00:16:35
Speaker
It's still in the top 10 pretty consistently across the board. So I'm i'm actually, I was was going to ask if you had Wizard Oz in your childhood because I very much did. Yeah, it was one of my my sick day movies. Me too! yeah That's in my notes. Yeah, it was definitely one of my sick day movies. Whenever I wasn't feeling good, I remember we put on Wizard of Oz on VCR. Yes. And I loved how it would start in black and white and turn to color later.
00:17:00
Speaker
And I remember I would sit there with a bowl of Lipton's chicken noodle soup. with the noodles, the noodle kind, not the one with the chicken in it, and some crackers. And I would just eat that and just just fall asleep to the music and wake up every once in a while. But I love that movie. I've seen it so many times. And I love all of the music that goes along with it. And I know it has some like pretty weird weird things that happen during the, not just the filming of it, but also like during the, just with the cast in general, like in and casting. So i'm right I'm excited to hear about that. So first I need to talk about how much I love
00:17:34
Speaker
Wizard of Oz. It's been a big thing in my family. it was also a sick day movie for me. Me and my mother have quoted it at each other my whole life and still continue to do so. Not even just one part, but just so much of it. And I actually hadn't seen it in a really long time. And I guess sometime within the last year I rewatched it.
00:17:56
Speaker
And I was... Now I have to rewatch it. I'm going to rewatch it again after talking about it. But I was amazed how much every word of that movie is part of my DNA. And Judy Garland. ju Oh my God, Judy Garland. I love Judy Garland in that one. Yes. Judy Garland was also a big part of my childhood. Probably a big part of that was because of Wizard of Oz.
00:18:16
Speaker
Just her voice was beautiful. And then, you know. Yeah. She, uh, we're going to talk about that a little bit. but but we'll We'll get there. Okay. I had mentioned her films before and I,
00:18:27
Speaker
As I was even researching my first cursed film, i I just became to hate the word cursed. Yeah, because it's like, it makes it feel like it was a horrible, mean, you know, horrible things happen. It makes a story for yourself to make it easier. I also watched the Cursed Films documentary Shudder to get information for this, as well as other places, and I'll link in the show notes. But in that was Adam Savage, who was in Mythbusters. Yes. that is Okay. He was one of the people who was talking about it, with one of the talking heads for the stories and he had this great quote so i'm going to quote adam savage i think that when some people look at films that are super beloved and they hear stories about the difficulties or tragedies that that happen on set they then go on to ascribe that production as cursed because it's hard to hear of these stories of tragedy and you want to believe that at least someone or something is in charge is because the reality is no one's in charge and the universe doesn't care about you but that is too crushing to encompass with our minds So we come up with the idea that this production is cursed because it makes us feel a little bit better about the terrible things that have happened on set.
00:19:28
Speaker
I don't want to like poke at anybody's beliefs or anything like that. It's mostly this the fact that we use that to cope. in this In this kind of situation, we use that to cope. Yeah. And that's fine. We're going acknowledge that. but I'm going to stop saying that movies are cursed. So, but I am going to talk about the very dark things that happen on set. But first, a wee bit of history. Okay. The Wizard of Oz is based off of the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz written by Frank L. Baum. I forgot about that. Yeah, man. I had this hardback set when I was a child, itty-bitty thing in the 80s. And i Don't date yourself.
00:20:04
Speaker
I'm pretty sure that that's going to happen no matter what because of I have to explain things this way. That's fair. But man, I wish I still had that book set because, well, one, I would give it to to Bash. It was just, it was the hardback. It had all of this art and it was beautiful. And it was from decades before that because they were my mom's. Yeah. So I don't know where they ended up or yeah where we parted ways, but that memory. But anyways, the books, but we're going about the first book.
00:20:29
Speaker
But that came out, the book was published in 1900. It was written by somebody who was in the United States in the late 1890s or in the 1890s and in the things that were going on in America at that time. So...
00:20:44
Speaker
People frequently talk about the analysis um of Henry Littlefield. and He wrote his theories about the wonderful Lizard of Oz in the 60s, so it was much later. Basically, he he claimed that the novel is an allegory for the political and economic issues of the 1890s. It allegedly alluded to the rise of populism movement, which is basically the political approach that tries to appeal to the everyman, but their concerns are super disregarded from the elite groups, like everything's kind of run by the elite. Sound familiar? Yes. Yeah, a little bit.
00:21:11
Speaker
So Littlefield claimed that every aspect of the book represented a significant nod to American politics at that time. The Scarecrow represented farmers. The Tin Man represented industrialism. Dorothy represented the everyman. Supposed to be you, your self-insertion. A bit more specifically, he says that the Cowardly Lion was represented William Jennings Bryan, who ran against William McKinley for president.
00:21:32
Speaker
McKinley is represented by the Wizard of Oz himself. I mentioned the the Yellow Rift Road is the gold standard, which is how you measure what your money's worth. yeah The country uses gold. Is that still? They wanted to go to silver or a bimetallism kind of thing. Bimetallargic? I don't know. There was a weird word in somewhere in my notes.
00:21:49
Speaker
And then the Emerald City being green, green being the color of money. And how they were like locking themselves in, yeah. Yeah. And then the, ah in the book, she had silver slippers, but because of Technicolor, they wanted to do the ruby slippers yeah because they can really show that off. But so there's the gold and silver there that was um indicated in the books. So this is just an analysis by this guy decades later. And there's there's a lot more to that theory and it's, it's a fun read. So going to link that whole thing in the show notes. Cool.
00:22:16
Speaker
But having said that, while there were intentional American specific symbolism and references, when I was reading about the author, Frank L. Baum, it feels more like this was more intended to be like a wonderful story for kids with thoughtful breaststrokes of Americana. Baum had an affinity for Alice in Wonderland and the works of Brothers Grimm, which oh we know my cat's name, and it's named after for Brothers Grimm. Pictures on the Instagram. Okay. So he set out to create an American fairy tale. And that's really what he did. i also just want to mention the inclusion of the good witch is likely influenced by his admiration for his feminist mother-in-law, Matilda Jocelyn Gage.
00:22:51
Speaker
And the research she did on the horrible things that happened to women who were accused of witchcraft. So even, even back then, our feminists were. I love that. Yeah. Again, links to all of those, because there's just so much to the story and I can't cover everything. So, so we're going to move on to the film. So it was made in 1938 and released in August of 1939. So the book was written in early It was, it was published in 1900. Okay. And then the movie was made like what, 20, 30 years later? 39 years later. 39 years. Okay.
00:23:20
Speaker
Yeah. So what's going on in 1939, you know? No, I don't. It's towards the end of the Great Depression. Okay. And the movie released in the United States, I think it's it's one or two weeks before World War II started. Oh, wow. America wasn't involved yet. We did the whole being neutral. Saying they were claiming neutrality is the words I'm looking for. Okay.
00:23:42
Speaker
That timing of this releasing is at least part of the extreme success of the movie because everybody needed some hope at that time. And MGM, they found out that Snow White, which was a film for the family, it was a family film, did extraordinarily well for Disney and they wanted to capture that too, but they were going to do it live action and they were going to do it in technical. Yeah, because Snow White was one of the first ones that was in color, wasn't it? Yes. Yeah, it was one of the first. The first big ones that was, yeah you know, really out there. Yeah. Because I remember like that movie started with it started in black and white until after the she got to the new land. When she got to Oz. Yes. After the cyclone and her wonderful rendition of Somewhere Over the Rainbow. But MGM was super invested in making the best film piece of art, we're gonna call it that.
00:24:27
Speaker
It does not excuse all of the shit that happened. Everything that happened was horrible, but they were committed to making this be as perfect as it could be. but There was a lot of writers involved, there was a lot of things going on that could have made this fail, but it was just kind of this perfect storm that made that perfect movie that we see mostly perfect. We'll talk about that later. was like, I thought it was beautiful. but We already talked about how this was our sick day movie, this is where that landed in my notes. Did you ever watch the watch the movie with Dark Side of the Moon, the Pink Floyd? I think I did. Fair. I never did. i always loved Pink Floyd. and I always loved Wizard of Oz, but I never actually sat down to do it. I think I always meant to, or and maybe it was on in the other room, but I never did it. so But apparently that's a fun thing to do, and it matches up with different things in the music. So I'll find link for that for everybody. to know all them yeah yeah
00:25:16
Speaker
But there's a lot of talk about the bad things that did happen on set. A lot of people talk about the munchkin that's supposedly hanging himself in the background. Yeah, but I never saw that. And I don't know, maybe I saw a remastered version or something, but I don't remember that. hat I'm not saying it didn't happen, but i don't remember it being on the actual film. Right. So the claim is that they remastered it to take out what was there and they put in birds instead. I've seen both and I don't really care why they remastered it. Has it been confirmed as real?
00:25:47
Speaker
No. Oh. I don't think that even the one that they say is the real thing. It doesn't look like that. Those set trees are not going to hold a body like that. It's like, it's, I mean, I don't mean to be dark. I'm sorry, but I don't believe that that happened. Yeah.
00:26:02
Speaker
ah There's people online, you can find videos online of people who swear and they like point at it and they have their grand theories. And I think that one's a little far fetched. Yeah. I'm not going to spend too much time. We're going to talk about the real things that actually happened. I'm not going to spend too much time on any particular one of them because I want to cover as many as I can.
00:26:21
Speaker
All right. So first we're going to about the Tin Man. Have you heard about the Mayfair stuff with that? Okay. And I heard that it wasn't the original actor that they chose. Exactly. So originally the role went to Buddy Epson. Well, okay. So it didn't originally go to Buddy Epson. It went to, I don't know if I'm pronouncing it right, but it's Ray Bulger or Ray Bulger. Okay. Okay.
00:26:38
Speaker
But he originally got the role of Tin Man, but he really wanted the role of Scarecrow. Oh, interesting. So he approached the director and Buddy Epson was originally going to be the Scarecrow. Ray went to the director and said, I really want to be this.
00:26:52
Speaker
He went through the whole thing. Everybody was cool with it. Buddy was cool with it. He didn't care. they both just switched? They just switched. They just switched. And they, you know, Buddy Epson was a dancer, which is why they wanted him to be the Scarecrow because he could move into that Scarecrow. all the yeah. Yeah. But he taught Ray how to do it. And so he was able to do the moves and everybody was happy with this. They went through rehearsals, but then it came time to film. What happened, the base of his makeup was like regular clown white grease paint, but then they dusted it with this aluminum powder. Yeah. And not only is that aluminum toxic to you in general,
00:27:25
Speaker
like to touch your skin. But I mean, they say that they had that barrier, right? But it also, he was breathing in that dust. I thought he had like an allergy to it. The allergy is the fact that it's toxic. Oh, wow. I thought he was just allergic to it and bad luck for him. No. Oh, wow. Okay. No, it was the fact that they used the dust and it coated his lungs and he was hospitalized and he was out. He just couldn't do it. oh my gosh.
00:27:47
Speaker
Jack Haley stepped in to play the Tin Man at that point. They changed the makeup from an aluminum powder to an aluminum paste. Oh, good timing. Great. So, yeah. So they did that. He still got an eye infection and stuff, like it irritated his skin still. So it still wasn't great. But at least he wasn't breathing it into his lungs. Right, yeah. He was not hospitalized. Exactly, yeah. That's basically it with the Tin Man. Next, I want to talk about the amazing Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch of the West. Okay. She also ended up getting hospitalized during filming. Oh, I'm Yeah. In the scene when she first meets Dorothy, at the end, she disappears in a burst of flame and a plume of thick red smoke.
00:28:23
Speaker
There is a trap door that after the the smoke comes up, it opens and and she goes down like a little elevator thing. yeah And then after she's down past the line, the flame comes up. So they use real fire. my gosh. Right. So, I mean, practical effects are die, right? Like that's all they really had to work with then. So the first time it worked fine. Everything went as it should have. The second time, either the elevator didn't go down fast enough or the fire went off too early and she was burned. And it was made worse by the fact that her green makeup was copper based. Oh no. Yeah.
00:28:55
Speaker
So she was taken out of production for three months. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I imagine she probably had some permanent damage. Yeah. That's so sad. Yeah. Not great. But she came back. Wow. Right. So i don't know if I would have trusted anyone on set after that. I mean, I understand like being an actor, I guess, in that time period, but. Well, there's more. oh good. Okay.
00:29:15
Speaker
Fantastic. No safety crew, apparently. The scene where she's doing the sky riding. Yes. Okay. On her broom. Right. Yes. There's the shots that are straight on and she's like. Cackling. Cackling and doing things. And there's like. Sparks. Sparks and fire coming out. Yes. I realize nobody can see me doing this.
00:29:34
Speaker
I'm flipping behind me like there's sparks. It's just trying to take off. It's fine. Yes. That's the scene in question at the moment. As they're getting ready to film that direct on thing, Wardrobe comes over and brings her a flame retardant costume. And she's like, I'm sorry, what? She looked at the fact that there was going to be fire there and they wanted to put her in that scene again. And she's like, yeah, no. No. I'm good. was going to say, I would not trust them with fire again that. I'm good. Yeah. And then so her stunt double did it and there was a malfunction with the broom and then she had to be hospitalized for a severe room. Oh my gosh. I would be like afraid of fire for like the rest of my life. Yes.
00:30:12
Speaker
I'm sure she was. But yeah, at least she, ah i mean, not great for her stunt double. Yeah. But she saw it coming. Anyways, she's great as the Wicked Witch and I love her. Yes. Yes. These are the ones that feel heavy to me because they're not things, I mean, they were things that happened during filming, but they also had lifelong effects for the people involved. This is going to be where we talk about the late, great Judy Garland. Okay. Okay.
00:30:33
Speaker
The actors in this movie that was so very, very important to be done exactly correctly, just because they were stars, just because she was the star, does not mean that she had any control over anything. She was really young too, wasn't she? She was. To keep her thin, they gave her pills. To keep her awake and energetic, they gave her pills.
00:30:56
Speaker
To counteract that so she could sleep, they gave her pills. Oh, that's so sad. I don't believe that this is the first film set that did this to her. It most definitely was not the last. Oh, wow. I didn't know that. Yeah. Well, that's it. I mean, she, she died from a drug overdose. Oh, wow. Yeah. And it's as amazing as she is the fantastic entertainment she brought to so many people. There's a lot of video evidence interviews and stuff she's done over the years where she's clearly intoxicated and having a hard time. Oh, that's so sad. was so talented. She was so talented. just amazing.
00:31:29
Speaker
really awful but this is the the drug things wasn't the only problem that they had with this another messed up thing that happened there's a scene with the cowardly lion actor Burt Lahr who played the cowardly lion i kept making her laugh and everything thinking he was doing she just she just had a big fit of the giggles and just could not quit it but obviously every moment was very expensive for the studio so the director victor fleming took her behind a tree on the set and smacked the crap out of her oh my gosh yep he did immediately feel bad but i mean he did it yeah like that doesn't excuse no you no it does not let me just smack you oh i'm sorry right
00:32:08
Speaker
That's horrible. It is horrible. This whole thing, it was basically a factory to make this movie and they are all just the the factory workers and they're being put through it and they have to listen because... You're like ruining this movie for me though. Because like i said, it was my sick day movie. It was my comfort movie and now I'm to think of all these horrible things. There's a lot of other wonderful things that happen with this movie and it is amazing. Ruined. No.
00:32:32
Speaker
Watch it again and you'll be good. Because even, okay, even the really dark thing I'm about to tell you after this that I actually feel is There's more? Yes. my god.
00:32:42
Speaker
With Judy Garland, there's other instances. Okay, so I was ready to transition to the thing that is darker. But I want to preface this with the fact that the actors that played the Munchkins got to have extraordinary lives because of The Wizard of Oz. Really? But they also... i imagine they weren't treated well. They were not treated well in a lot of ways, and there was a lot of assumptions and stereotypes being made. Aww. And I'm going to kind of get into that a little bit more, but... Despite all of that, they had an extreme love for Judy Garland, that they had an extreme love for their time on the film, and, you know, in general love their involvement. There were a lot of bad things that came out of it, so let me get into that. So this is the mistreatment of the little people that played the munchkins. It plagued them well beyond the end of production. there were...
00:33:25
Speaker
Over 120 actors playing the Munchkins, and they all stayed in the same hotel in Culver City during production. Like all large groups of performers, there's bound to be that pocket of rowdy assholes. that are rambunctious, yeah. Yes. But unfortunately, whatever happened in that very small group of people, rumors made it seem like the whole group was very rowdy. There was rumors of... debaucherous, drunken orgies taking place all over the hotel. Yikes. Right. So yeah, there's bound to be a few that are rowdy, but yeah, a few bad eggs just ruined the whole bunch of it. It really did. it creates a reputation that's like impossible to break down.
00:33:59
Speaker
I know I keep saying this guys, but it's sad. It's, is it sad? It's just sad. So with the allegations of the loud drunken parties and or orgies and destructive behavior, there's no specific stories.
00:34:12
Speaker
There's like nothing specific. And people assume these stories are truth and then apply them to all the munch characters. Yeah. Unfortunately, one of those previously mentioned Judy Garland drunken interviews, I say drunken, I don't know if it's, I don't know, but she was not sober. she was on the the Jack Parr show and this was in the sixty s so you know two decades later she was she was telling stories about being on side of the Wizard of Oz and and she was just trying to be funny I mean you can cannot kind of tell when you look at the whole clip but she said that the munchkins were drunks and that they were just rowdy and and whatever But then she was also saying like when they were scooping them up with bug nets, like she was clearly trying to be funny, but when you're not sober, you're not thinking. And, yeah you know, even without the internet, especially when everybody has three channels, words go viral. So it became part of the Wizard of Oz zeitgeist. Those actors, all of those wonderful actors were asked about those rumors for the rest of their lives. Like that never went away. that sucks what made it worse though in 1981 there was a movie called under the rainbow that came out okay and it had some big names chubby chase was in it kerry fisher was in it and it looked like it was like a production for the time it looks it doesn't look like anything now so if you look it up and you haven't really seen a lot of 80s early 80s movies it's gonna look jarring but i love that description from the time. But okay, so the director was ah Steve Rash. And it's about a basically the movie is about a hotel that gets booked by some unlikely guests, like an assassin and a duchess. And I'm probably saying these things wrong, but it's like a lot of like weird, like clue types of people. Yeah. And then also...
00:35:48
Speaker
all of the munchkins from Wizard of Oz. Oh, gosh. Okay. Right. So it depicted the munchkins destroying the hotel, swinging from chandeliers, and just committing all sorts of shenanigans. The director, after having watched it for the first time in decades, was horrified at how racist, sexist, and elitist it was. He no longer thinks it's funny, and honestly, that's a hard thing to admit. Yeah. So I applaud him for that. He was on the Cursed Films documentary on Shudder. Like as one of the people talking, presenting, whatever. He seems like a cool dude. like he's He has genuine remorse about what what he did. And he said something like, some people find that funny. I no longer do. Anyways, so I thought that was...
00:36:26
Speaker
At least something, but the movie just perpetuated rumors and made it harder on little people in general. Further the stereotype that everything they did was funny. Like, everything that they do was funny. somebody yeah Yeah. None of... I think only one of the little people in that whole movie, the Under the Rainbow, was even a character. The rest of them were just...
00:36:43
Speaker
Extras, yeah. Yeah, just generic little person number 120. So that's the severely abridged version of the horrible that happened on the set of Wizard of That's really sad. It is really sad. Sorry, i need to find another descriptor, but it's really sad. It was, it was... I'll get you a thesaurus. Thank you, appreciate it.
00:37:03
Speaker
Seriously, that's there's a lot of information out there about the making of this truly iconic movie. I mean, there's there are good stories that are to be had. I wasn't here to talk about those today. That's why I feel bad, because like I don't want to completely ruin the movie for you. There is a lot of great stuff that came from this. Oh, but yeah, I was going to say there's a lot of information out there. Lots of university papers that are really well researched and thorough and cited. like They have ah like links and stuff where you can go to see where they research their information. And I'll put some of those links in the show notes too, because I kept going down rabbit holes. There's just so much, so much information to find about the Wizard of Oz, the making of. Yeah. All of that stuff. i I just pressed Google and that was a mistake. You pressed Google? I pressed the Googles.
00:37:46
Speaker
I did a Google. You told me I'm aging myself. Listen, i sound older than I actually am. I know. I'm just cold soul. You really are.
00:37:56
Speaker
i very frequently forget that you are. yeah it's really weird. yeah I don't know where i got half this information from because even like my sister who's older than me doesn't have all this information. It's a life force thing. When you were draining my life force, I accidentally left a little bit in there.
00:38:14
Speaker
Oh, God. i should end that, right? No! All right. Well, I mean, I will say... You made me really sad. i might have to watch it again. you really shouldn't. it's Like, I knew that there were problems with Judy Garland. Like, not like she was a problem. But you know what I mean? Like, that makes me sad, though. I didn't realize that all that stuff had happened to her. And I knew she was really young when she'd started the movie. But there were a lot of really, really great things about that movie that were just very comforting. And I did... I did remember doing, i think I do remember trying to read the book when I was younger and it just didn't work out for me. It just wasn't my cup of tea. I do remember having, to i think I had to do like a, not a research paper, but basically like
00:38:59
Speaker
an analysis on the movie for something and i don't remember what it was for. Yeah, we were going into what the symbolism was and in like the lion and the tin man and and the wicked witch and all of that. but I think I've always had kind of a thing for the girl going on an adventure thing. I love Alice in Wonderland. i love i did Labyrinth. Yeah. Others. My brain isn't thinking. I'm really surprised you haven't seen Once Upon a Time. It's a show. Oh, I saw the first season and I was really mad that they wrapped it up perfectly and then ruined it in the last eight seconds of the show. And so I refuse to watch anymore. But I think that... There's so much more that gets into it. I know. Every season you get a new dun-dun-dun. I know, but it was like, it could have been perfect. They could have they could have ended it there. I know, but like... But why? Yeah, I know. There was so much to explore and I get it.
00:39:50
Speaker
I get it. That's... That wraps up... The Wizard of Oz. That you've ruined. I know! oh I need you to still love it. Oh, we'll see what happens.
00:40:01
Speaker
ah Watch it and then text me everything. I am disappointed. In what? life. Oh, I know. Just because of the movie, though. So the more you know. like it's just, it was my comfort, and now I'm not feeling so comforted.
00:40:15
Speaker
You knew what this was. That's true. I did. I kind of set myself up for failure, I guess.
00:40:25
Speaker
You know what else you set yourself up for? What? but Excitement? Maybe. The thrill of my life. Okay, well you gave me a quiz last time. I did. you did. gave me a quiz. I'm not giving you a quiz. Have you ever played Would You Rather?
00:40:43
Speaker
Like, never have I ever. Not, never have ever. It's Would You Rather. Okay. This horrible thing or that horrible thing. and then you Oh wait, yeah, those are two separate things. You're right. yeah So never have I ever is, yeah like have you ever done this f***ed up thing yeah if you have or haven't? Sorry, the you drink I drank some big dumb juice. It's fine.
00:41:04
Speaker
We're good. we can We can do this now. So would you rather? Some of this is dark. What the sound? What was that sound?
00:41:16
Speaker
It sounded like you swallowed a vomit. What was that? Do I want to know? what what I'm going to start with that one so you can know what the most kind of reaction.
00:41:29
Speaker
Would you rather have every mirror you look into show your future or your death? Ooh, that's rude.
00:41:40
Speaker
you Definitely not death because Final Destination really destroyed me. Like I already can't live my life at all. And so like knowing what, like how I'm going die, even if it just showed water, I would be like, I've never ever, I don't know what, how do you survive that? I don't know. So definitely that the mirror, I hate mirrors already though. I'm always afraid that something spooky is going to happen.
00:42:04
Speaker
That was a really dumb thing to say, but you know what I mean. The mirror one. Definitely. i think I prefer the mirror that shows the future, even though that would suck.
00:42:19
Speaker
But yes. Okay. Moving on. We're going to three of these. Would you rather sleep in a coffin for one night or spend the night in a morgue? Ooh. where are they though? Like where's the coffin and where's the morgue? Like I told you I wanted to be a forensic cathologist so I'm not too afraid of being in a morgue. What am I doing in the morgue? You're gonna have a nap.
00:42:38
Speaker
A nap? Like anywhere? like as long as Like you're in the room is with the drawers. Okay. Do I get a blanket though? Because i get cold. I would imagine. Okay. You could even have a pillow. Like so we'll say there's a cot. Yeah like as long as it's not I'm like laying on body juice or anything. I mean... I'm just being realistic. You're in a morgue. You know what i mean? Like, as long as it's clean and I'm just chilling, I'm fine. Not chilling, though, because don't want to be cold. but And, like, the coffin thing. Actually, and I don't think I like the coffin thing because I have this thing where I don't like feeling...
00:43:08
Speaker
hot breath. You know what I mean? Like, I would sleep in a casket that has the top open. Yeah, the top open is fine. But you know, yeah, I'm claustrophobic as hell. Yeah, I'm not really wouldn't say claustrophobic. I'm just like, like, I like to sleep with the blanket over my ear. Because like, it just feels nice to be like all that cozy. But like my my nose has to be out because I need fresh cold air. Yes. You know? The morgue, definitely. That's kind of part of the claustrophobic thing, though. Is it? Because I feel like I can't get fresh, cold air if I'm... Oh.
00:43:39
Speaker
You just, like, instill the new fear in this. I haven't done this. Sorry. ruining my life every second you're in here. It's the Nightmare Cottage. It is the Nightmare Cottage, and you are making this very nightmarish.
00:43:52
Speaker
Well, would you rather walk through a forest where the trees have faces and whisper your name or swim in a lake where shadows swim beneath the surface? No, 100% the trees. yes That would be cool. Water with any anything. No, no. I can't be in water that I can't, like I have to be able to feel the ground.
00:44:12
Speaker
And even then i have been in water where I can feel the ground, but I can't see anything. And I can't deal with that. Like even if it's a swimming pool, like I don't, It's that that Jaws fear. I don't. In a pool?
00:44:25
Speaker
Yes. I understand that there can't realistically be a shark in a pool. Okay, you know what? I know exactly what it was. Because my mom used to tell me all the time, be careful when you're diving. Because I used to be on the diving team. She'd say, be careful when you're diving. Because I heard of a little girl who got her bathing suit stuck in the drain. And then she drowned and died. And so I'm like, I'm just afraid that I'm going to get stuck on something or suctioned into something and just drowned.
00:44:49
Speaker
Same thing with like lakes. She was like, don't ever swim in lakes or rivers because you're going a log's going to come and get you and it's going to drag you under and you're going to die. Yeah. My mom was like, I wonder why you have anxiety. That's true. I don't know. know. I mean, some of that is the same for me. and but In my family, I was never allowed to swim at at the lengths when we would go. We'd go fishing or camping or whatever, but we weren't allowed to get into the water. And my parents would say ah the words water moccasins, which is what kept me not wanting to do you that ever. But later, i went to go stay with a friend where there was a lake. They got into the freaking water all the time. So I did that there. And then at another point, I somehow ended up at one of
00:45:34
Speaker
the lovely Texas beaches. yeah And I'll just leave that as what I just said. And I got into that water because my step-siblings did. And that was okay, I guess, then too. But I now, right now, knowing what I know... yes I still remember with my dad, I always wait to go in with my dad because he would let me piggyback on him. And so he would be like doggy paddling. And I mean, obviously he could reach a lot further. So he'd be doing that weird bouncy thing. right on Right. But like I was because the second oh I hate that shift when it's like everything's warm, everything's warm. And it's suddenly cold. And you're like, I've hit deep water. I've hit deep water. There's horrible things here. i can't do it. So when I had that experience, I didn't have any fear because I had i didn't know any better. Yes. and look
00:46:28
Speaker
and so But i got to I got to experience it with that that childlike just wonder. Yeah, before you knew what horror was, what absolute terror was, what being dead was. Yeah. Besides your parents telling you. It got a little worse another time when I went to another beautiful Texas beach. And there were, like, when we would we would dive into the waves, but that we were diving into schools of fish. Oh, my gosh.
00:46:54
Speaker
And the first time that happened, and there was also jellyfish. I was just oh, man. It just kind of, that probably started it because I just don't want to go with jellyfish. Yeah, we went to one that had the stingrays at the bottom. And I remember they were telling, like, they had signs posted everywhere, like, careful stingrays. And they were telling us to shuffle our feet to make sure you don't step on them. Because if you just shuffle, they'll, like, go away. if you step on them, they'll, like, try to murder your face. Sure.
00:47:18
Speaker
But you got to go in there anyways. Oh, yeah. I'm not an outdoor kid. Moving on. I'm clearly not an outdoor kid. At least not even anymore.
00:47:32
Speaker
Aside from my garden, I'm safe in my garden. Same, yeah. but I'll go walking Symmetra. It's really funny, like, the amount of times, like, I would just go walking off in the woods with no, like, path and be fine and, you know.
00:47:47
Speaker
Well, cool. I would like to perhaps try a little thing called nightmare fuel. Oh, God, what's that? i would like to perhaps try a little thing called nightmare fuel oh god what's not So this is going to be so a place where we can recommend spooky that
Book Recommendations and Macabre Tales
00:48:07
Speaker
we like. ge Yeah. So as an example, today, I'm going to recommend a book I just read called i was a teenage slasher by Stephen Graham Jones.
00:48:18
Speaker
So I actually listened to it on Audible and it was a great narration. It's set in the 1980s in West Texas. And the the narrator did not butcher the accent because I think they it was the real accent.
00:48:32
Speaker
Anyways, it was it was super good. It was fun. it had a humor to it, which is kind of required for for me. And if you enjoy plays on tropes, not unlike Scream, you know, where you're playing on the fact that it's movie tropes, it it kind of dives into that a bit.
00:48:49
Speaker
And it's fun. So I recommend that. love it. I'll hopefully have something for you time. Yeah, and it can be whatever if you just find a cool link or if you find it's a movie, a book, a song, an artist, whatever, a thing you like, whatever the hell you want because it's our podcast. Or something I learned. What did you learn?
00:49:10
Speaker
So I learned that the author of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, that she, her husband, Percy, he drowned and apparently his body and those of a few other sailors, it was found like 10 days later, like after he had drowned. Right. So obviously he died. And then, so they were cremated and his heart didn't burn.
00:49:33
Speaker
They think it's because he had tuberculosis earlier in life. So Mary Shelley being the absolute nutter that she was decided to just keep his heart in a little silk bag and just carry it, she carried it around. She didn't even like, just, you know, put it on her mantle if she carried it around. Which, I mean, okay. I mean, I understand it kind of like was not cremated and didn't burn, but like, wouldn't it still rot?
00:49:57
Speaker
Am I crazy? Or was it just smoked? it was like smoked that. I'm not sure. Mary Shelley is the original macabre goth bitch. And i love the hell out of her. She was the mother of science fiction. I know it's not, it doesn't excuse that behavior if that's true.
00:50:16
Speaker
And cause I know they were like real yuckers. That's all I'm saying. but I agree, but it still makes a good story. It's it that's true. So that's my nightmare fuel is just imagine you invite your friend over to dinner and she just brings her husband's heart in a little soap bag everywhere. so but even more so, I encourage you to look up facts about Mary Shelley because she's a badass.
00:50:39
Speaker
Interesting. Double plug.
00:50:45
Speaker
All right. Well, thank you for joining us today. Hopefully we'll get better at this and stop laughing at horrible, horrible things that we shouldn't be laughing at. But I doubt it because we both have horrible anxiety. And we're sitting here tonight. Our crowd is just full of nightmare fuel that just keeps making us more anxious. But it's mostly in boxes. So we're going to unpack it as we go. Indeed.
00:51:05
Speaker
Indeed. See y'all next time. Bye. Bye. Bye.
00:51:14
Speaker
If you have topic requests, book or movie recommendations, or just want to say hi, email us at nightmarecottage at gmail.com or visit our website at nightmarecottage.com. Sweet dreams.
00:51:36
Speaker
Bye-bye.