As one of the most revered classic movies of all time, The Wizard of Oz has enchanted audiences for generations. However, behind the scenes, the filming of this iconic movie was not always as magical as it may have appeared onscreen. In fact, several actors were injured during the making of The Wizard of Oz….
Category: Golden Hollywood
“On the Waterfront”: Leonard Bernstein’s Only Movie Score
The 1954 film, On the Waterfront, starring Marlon Brando as a longshoreman who becomes tangled in the violence and corruption at the New York City docks, was directed by Elia Kazan. The film, now a classic of the Golden Age of Hollywood, was notable for many reasons, including the fact that On the Waterfront was…
Shirley Temple and Hollywood’s First Interracial Dance Scene
Hollywood was much different in the 1930s. It is a sad fact that African American performers did not have the same opportunities as white actors, nor were they cast in spotlight roles. Slowly, groundbreaking men and women broke through the barriers and took brave steps toward racial equality. One such actor was a 57-year-old former…
The 1941 Film That Tells Hollywood to Get Serious
Throughout the 1930s, movie studios seemed focused on churning out entertaining, yet shallow ‘escapist’ movies, but there were people in the film industry who longed to see Hollywood use its creative talents to produce films with more substance to them. They advocated for more socially conscious and meaningful filmmaking. For a time, their comments fell…
Technicolor Dreams: Hollywood’s Quest for Color
Early in cinematic history, when filmmakers and audiences clamored for color movies, scientists and innovators behind the scenes were working on a way to make movies in living color. The answer came in the catchy, modern-sounding new filming process called Technicolor. Technicolor was the first color motion picture process that was extensively used in Hollywood….