![]() ![]() His partner, the lyricist Yip Harburg, was the mind behind the hit single " Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" in 1932. Harold Arlen was a composer who, by the early 1930s, was recognized as one of the most prolific and talented in the business. There was something even more important than Technicolor behind the brilliance of The Wizard of Oz: songwriters Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg, a composition dream team who thought up "Over the Rainbow"-and then had to fight for its inclusion in the film. Yip: It's More Than Just the Sound Toto Makes Today, most people know The Wizard of Oz more as a work of cinema than a work of the written word. Clearly, Oz had become a vehicle for the fun producers could have with their new technology (sort of like Avatar in more recent years). The film's also notable for its dramatic shift from black and white in the Kansas scenes to full color in the Oz scenes. ![]() Technicolor was the reason that the original book's silver shoes became ruby slippers-after all, why not go ruby and glittery if you can capture the effect beautifully on film? Supported by advances in Technicolor and film sound, the filmmakers at MGM were ready for a full color Oz masterpiece in 1939. It surely boosted the books' profile when The Wizard of Oz as we know it came into existence. Frank Baum insisted through his life that Oz was invented solely for the entertainment of children. Some have theorized that the original book is actually a complex and thorough allegory for the politics of populism in the 1890s, but L. The Oz series was extended even after Baum's death, with a total of 40 Oz books in circulation by 1940. An early silent film of the story of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was created in 1910, and in 1925, a full-length silent feature was created with the help of Baum's son (Baum died in 1919). It had a successful seven-year run, during which time Baum continued to write Oz books. The Wizard of Oz was put to music and went on Broadway in 1903. Frank Baum first published the children's book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, all the way to the present, when musicals, books, and movies continue to revisit the extended saga of Dorothy, Toto, the scarecrow, the tin man, the cowardly lion, the good and wicked witches, and the Wizard of Oz himself. The story of The Wizard of Oz and "Over the Rainbow" is a story with deep roots in American history, literature, and music. In fact, we still hear "Over the Rainbow" all the time, and new versions continue to land on international music charts. Well, we can't exactly answer those questions, but what we can do is try to trace the history of "Over the Rainbow" from the character Dorothy's humble origins in an old children's book series to Diana Ross and Michael Jackson's 1970s adaptation of The Wizard of Oz all the way to today. Why rainbows? Why wishing on stars? Why Dorothy? Of all actresses, singing all songs, in all films in American history, what makes Judy Garland's "Over the Rainbow" such an overwhelmingly enduring classic? ![]()
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