Points of Interest
About the Filming of Oz
How the Munchkins came to sing . . .
It has been brought to my attention recently that many people do not understand some of the mechanics that brought this wonderful film into being. New technology that had never been used before was developed in the production of Oz. Of course Technicolor had just recently come into use so the makeup and lighting and even costume colors had to be adapted to accommodate these changes. This was a startling change for many moviegoers. It was probably the most noticeable change since the advent of talking pictures. But, there were other changes that were not as noticeable because the eye could not detect them easily.
With the filming of Oz new technology was developed for the Munchkinland scenes and for the Winkies that belonged to the Wicked Witch. The problem was this:
General Background
MGM wanted to make the Munchkins as otherworldly as possible still keeping them cute and friendly. Most of the Munchkins were adults and a very few by comparison, (about 10-12) were children. There were no two Munchkins dressed alike. Sometimes the differences were only slight, but there were differences. This was a large group of people who came from all over the world. The variety of backgrounds created some unique problems both collectively and individually. Many came from Europe, and many others from a large diversity of states. For instance, Jerry Maren, who played the center Lollipop Kid was from Boston, Massachusetts; Mickey Carroll, the second fiddler was born in St. Louis, Missouri; Margaret Pelligrini, a sleepy head in the nest, was born in Alabama; I was born in Hollywood California and so the list goes on and on. My point is that they were hired for their demure stature. Being small was the one factor that allowed us to be Munchkins. The other pertinent piece in this puzzle is that the "little people," the midgets, DID NOT work for MGM. The studio had a contract with Leo Singer to supply as many of the little people as he could find. He was paid a specified amount of money to pay their transportation to and from California, put a roof over their head while in Culver City, and feed them. Leo Singer was the one who had contracts with all the "little people". Each person was paid the sum of $50.00 a week. Many of the final 124 people hired had already been working with Leo Singer in Vaudeville. What a diversity of people were involved here. The children were hired by MGM and did not fall into the same category. We were hired because the sound stage was so large that they needed extras to fill in.
How the Munchkins sang
Now as to the sound track-- Some of the little people could not sing on key. Others spoke English poorly and MGM wanted something unique for the sound track that matched the overall look and feel of the set/story, so--------------------------Herbert Stothart, the Music Director, called the vocal arranger Ken Darby in and told Ken that they had to come up with a created sound. Doug Shearer, the supervising sound recorder was also involved in this task. This next is a quote out of the 50th Anniversary Pictorial History of the Wizard of Oz by John Fricke, Jay Scarfone and William Stillman published by Warner Books. Ken Darby speaking says--
"So I got my arithmetic going and I figured it out. Film speed is ninety feet per minute. I got together with Douglas Shearer; we recorded a metronome click track at the speed Herbert Stothart and I agreed would be the right tempo for the Munchkin sequence, along with a tone on the piano giving the key in which we wanted the music to finally be recorded. The arithmetic went like his: There are twelve halftones in an octave. I divided twelve into ninety feet per minute and got a quotient of seven and a half feet for each semitone. Next, I multiplied this by four, which gave me thirty feet per minute, equal to a major third. Then, subtracting thirty from ninety, we found we needed a machine that would play back our click track and piano key at sixty feet per minute and slow the vocal performances of the singer proportionately. That sounds like a lot of malarkey-but that's the way it had to be done. . .
It was Shearer's responsibility to create the special machinery that would make the recording at the slower pace. Then according to Darby, "We slowed down 'D-i-n-g-d-o-n-g-t-h-e-w-i-t-c-h-i-s-d-e-a-d . . .' I had all these so-called Ken Darby singers there, (adult professional singers) and when we played them back at ninety feet per minute, it was what you hear in the picture. Herb Stothart could put his downbeat to it and conduct to the click track we had made originally; it was in the right key, and the orchestra did not have to change pitch." (Darby also recalls, "for the Winkies we did the reverse, and it gave them a sepulcher kind of sound.")
It is easy to see from this that it was not possible for the Munchkins to actually be singing on the set and sound the way the recordings were engineered. They all sound like they swallowed a helium balloon. It had just the effect that the studio wanted. Two other groups that were used to record the Munchkin's sounds were the King's Men Octet who did the Lollipop Guild voices and the Debutantes (a girls trio) who sang the Lullaby League song. It was not the Munchkins actual voices you are hearing but professional singers and some wonderfully talented folks in the music department at MGM. Ain't technology fun!
For more Munchkin information see the Web page titled Munchkins and to see which Munchkin are alive still, please see the end of the page called Acknowledgements.