The Wizard of OZ (1939) still remains one of the most popular films of all time. Even 85 years later, this movie still lives in the mind of audiences young and old, many of whom have not seen many films from the same time period. Part of why the film still remains etched in the minds of movie fans is the songs. Songs like Somewhere Over the Rainbow, We're Off to See the Wizard, If I Only Had a Brain and Follow the Yellow Brick Road are still beloved today. However, like most movie musicals not every song made it to the finished film. One song that was cut out was called The Jitterbug. This song was supposed to be the scene before the flying monkeys took Dorothy to the Witch's castle. The Witch was to send a bug that would force our heroes to dance until they were too exhausted to fight the monkeys. Despite this scene being cut, there is a line in the finished film that references this scene, where the witch says she sent "a little insect to take the fight out of them."
One of the most interesting places this song showed up was in the direct to video movie, Tom and Jerry: Back to OZ (2018). Here the evil Gnome King (a character from the OZ books) wants to capture Dorothy and her friends so he can have the magic of the Ruby Slippers. Like the witch was going to do in the 1939 film, he sends the Jitterbug to wear our heroes down. When I first saw that film, I smiled as soon as this song started, happy that this song has finely found its way into an OZ movie, even a direct to video one. Being in a Tom and Jerry movie made it all the more surprising. Here is the version from that film.
The song has also appeared in various stage productions of the Wizard of Oz. Below is just one example.
No comments:
Post a Comment