The Wizard of Oz premiered on this day in 1939 at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Los Angeles, California.
The Scarecrow: I haven’t got a brain… only straw.
Dorothy: How can you talk if you haven’t got a brain?
The Scarecrow: I don’t know… But some people without brains do an awful lot of talking… don’t they?
Dorothy: Yes, I guess you’re right.
Oh, the places we could go with that quote.
But, we won’t.
1939 was an amazing year for movies. Nominated for best picture that year were:
- Dark Victory
- Gone with the Wind
- Goodbye, Mr. Chips
- Love Affair
- Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
- Ninotchka
- Of Mice and Men
- Stagecoach
- The Wizard of Oz
- Wuthering Heights
Gone with the Wind won Best Picture and Best Director. Vivien Leigh won Best Actress for here role as Scarlet.
Judt Garland received her only academy award, a Juvenile Award for her 1939 performances in The Wizard of Oz and Babes in Arms.
Hattie McDaniel received the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as Mammy, but because the hotel where the Oscars were presented was an all-white hotel, she couldn’t sit with her co-stars and instead was seated at a side table with escort, F.P. Yober, and her white agent, William Meiklejohn. Producer David O. Selnick had to call in a special favor for McDaniel to even be allowed in the building. The hotel would not be official integrated for another twenty years, when the Unruh Civil Rights Act outlawed racial discrimination in California.
Eighty years later…I’ll just leave that right here.
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