If you haven’t seen the new remastered video…its here: - YouTube
I’ve always wondered what the corn and other plants were made of in that age before widespread plastic use. Anyone know what material the prop plants were made of and how they were made?
I think the corn was made of corn, and the other plants were made of other plants.
I don’t know about the Wizard of Oz corn, but artificial plants long predate the use of plastics, going back to antiquity. There was a boom in fake plants during the Victorian era, for example. “Many of these plants and flowers were made with silk, but some were made with velvet, satin, gauze, muslin, cambric, and crepe.”
Plastic was already a common product in the 1930s.
I very much doubt it. That scene is clearly filmed on a soundstage, and there’s no way real corn would stand up to the heat/lights etc involved without wilting.
It also doesn’t look remotely real to my eyes. At least, nothing like what I saw in my grandmother’s garden. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were made of paper, perhaps wrapped around metal.
The cornstalks are clearly artificial (take a look at the tassels). They could easily be made with cardboard tubes and cloth/paper covering.
They didn’t have to stand up to any sort of scrutiny, plus audiences didn’t have a fetish for realism back them (look at the background, which is clearly painted).
Even if they had, The Wizard of Oz is hardly the place to look for it. The movie has the feel of a stage musical (and IMHO it only works if you think of it that way).
I would guess that the corn stalks were of some artificial material, which were used quite commonly in Hollywood by that time.
I saw a digitally restored version on a HUGE theater screen a number of years ago, and one of the first things I noticed was how shiny and artificial the plants were in Munchkinland. But who cares? It’s “The Wizard of Oz.” As imagined by M-G-M in 1939. There was no need for it to be literal or realistic.
Guessing, but I’d say paper-mache for things like tree trunks and fabric for things like corn stalks.
Couldn’t they just water the plants?
I do assume they were artificial, and quite common for stage props. If they needed to maintain the set for a long period of time that would have used high quality stage props. If the scenes were all shot in a day real corn might do except it was likely not as practical as props. The same props could have been used in many movies, any close ups of people being chased through a corn field might have been shot on a set with prop corn.
I mean, it’s possible they would dig up actual corn plants, truck in a load of dirt, and transplant full-grown corn stalks onto a sound stage for certain movies. But I don’t think they did that for Wizard of Oz.
A day? They couldn’t even keep Dorothy’s hair the same length through the scene.
It’s possible no scene in that movie was shot in a day. But I was speaking more generally of the use of live plants in movies, and as mentioned those still would not be as practical as props which can be used again. And as I mentioned, even scenes shot in a cornfield might move to the soundstage with prop corn for the closeups.
To me, the corn, specifically, looks like real (but not growing) corn that’s been coated with something like lacquer, while the flowers and stuff look like fabric also so coated.
It is specifically the tassels that look real to me - do a freeze-frame at 37s, for instance
The leaves may be just fabric or paper with the shiny coating, though.
The movie had phenomenal special effects. Those phenomenal effects were just aimed at something other than what we modern audiences call “realism” (which isn’t, itself, actual realism, either).
I was in the construction crew of “For Richer or Poorer”, released in '97. I was in the shop, so I never worked on location, and my recollection was that the production company contracted with local farmers to stagger the planting of a LOT of corn - probably a planting every two or three weeks. As the story progressed, the on-camera, or “hero”, corn was replaced with the progressively older, taller stuff.
Fun movie, both to work on, and watch.
Dan
It looks like vinyl to me, Those are definitely not natural. Real leaves do not reflect light like that. Especially watching it in 4K it looks completely artificial.
Vinyl was invented in 1948.
Gotta love some Drive-By Knowledge!