By StevenL, 7/28/10
“I don’t like this forest,” observes Dorothy to the Scarecrow. “It’s dark and creepy.”
The Scarecrow replies, “Of course I don’t know but I think it’ll get darker before it gets lighter.”
Prophetic words for America in the fall of 1939. No matter how many times the country clicked the heels of its ruby red slippers and declared, “There’s no place like home,” the USA was soon to discover the nightmare was real and isolationism wasn’t an option. There would be no waking up in reality with a convenient, “Oh, it was just a dream.”
MGM’s “The Wizard of Oz” premiered in Olympia at the Liberty Theater (present site of the Washington Center) at the end of September 1939. It was an eventful month. It began with Hitler invading Poland, sparking the start of WWII. By the time “Oz” had arrived in Oly at the month’s conclusion Hitler and his fellow genocidal maniac Stalin were dividing Poland’s spoils. 
[Aside #1: The Liberty was gone by my time. During my early Oly years it had already been renamed The Olympic Theater. It was known for showing more “mature” films, such as “The Godfather.” Immediately to the south of the movie house was a small parking garage.]
[Aside #2: Did you know Hitler had a serious flatulence problem? I mean baaaad. Hence a nickname (borrowed from my nephew Zach), “Stinky McFartomatic,” will be applied to him for the duration of this roam-about.]
A couple weeks before the Liberty gave Oly its first look at “Oz”, the Hotel Olympian across the street played host to a gang of “B” movie actors who were apparently on some sort of publicity tour. The roster of “stars” did include one who went on to bigger things: Ronald Reagan.
Yes, Reagan visited Oly on September 11, 1939. A local girl, Helen Engel, told the press “she found Reagan to be a clean-cut type of young man surprisingly well versed in almost any subject. The young star followed newspaper reporting and radio work before going into pictures.”
[Aside #3: I had an aunt who met Reagan about this same time. She found him to be an aloof snob who was only deferential to people with money.]
Anyway, it is interesting that a man who would be dealing with many of the long term consequences of WWII was in Oly the first month of the conflict. A man who, in spite of his renowned PR skills, would later be criticized for frequently having some difficulty distinguishing between reality and celluloid fantasy.
And speaking of celluloid fantasy, I always thought of “The Wizard of Oz” film as sort of a whistling in the dark approach to the imminent horror of the 20th Century’s worst patch (1939-1945). It’s a cusp motion picture, on the edge between two eras. It is a farewell to America the Isolated.
In the movie, Dorothy wakes up at the end and finds herself back home in rural Kansas – depicted as a simpler place and time which in many ways was just as mythical as the land of Oz. America was going to wake up too, but with a very different result. As Japan’s Admiral Yamamoto said after the attack on Pearl Harbor, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”
Shortly after “Oz” debuted in Oly, FDR was warned by Albert Einstein and other scientific big bugs that Stinky McFartomatic was working on developing atomic weapons. Thus began America’s permanent secret war, initially called “S-1”.
But, back to the motion picture.
“Oz” the movie has a couple local connections. The closest brush with fame has to do with the munchkins.
Next time you watch the film pay attention to the third trumpeter heralding the arrival of the Mayor of Munchkinland. His stage persona was “Major Mite” but his real name was Clarence Chesterfield Howerton.
Clarence, who lived from 1913 to 1975, was supposedly 28 inches tall. He toured with Ringling Bros. – Barnum and Bailey during the circus season. He also landed the gig in “Oz” and with an “Our Gang” comedy or two, but basically his whole act revolved around his unusual stature.
Howerton was a resident of McCleary for many years, at least when he was not on tour. It is said it was not unusual for him to walk around town still wearing his circus top hat and spats, in sharp contrast to all the millworkers and loggers.
[Aside #4: There was another guy in McCleary named Cecil “Primo” Boling (1920-2000), who was nearly 8 feet tall. In the 1930s McCleary received national attention on account of being the home of two such extremes in human physiology.]
“Oz” was a cultural touchstone for my parents’ generation, and their nostalgia was extended to us Boomers. The movie gained a new following via television. It was broadcast once a year as a national event. Families would set aside that evening as a special time. Obviously this was before the age of cable stations or videocassettes.
It was also before the age of color TV ownership being commonplace. At least that was the case in my Oly eastside neighborhood.
As you might recall, “The Wizard of Oz” employed a trick where the Kansas scenes are in drab black and white, but the Land of Oz is in color. When Dorothy opens the door and enters Munchkinland the screen is doused in bright hues. For many filmgoers in 1939 this was the first time they had seen color in a movie (as it was for my mother in a Centralia theater).
So in the scene where black and white changed to color, our old Motoroal just maintained the boring visual monotone. My Mom would always let us know when the color was supposed to kick in. I think it wasn’t until the early 80s that I first saw “Oz” in color.
Although adult readers of the original 1900 story by L. Frank Baum winked at the not-so-subtle allegories with President McKinley, farmers, industrial laborers, the gold standard, etc., the motion picture version captivated audiences on a much different level. It has become cinematic comfort food for at least two generations.
What’s that? I’m rambling again?
“Oh, I’d finish off this column, so serious and solemn, if I only had a brain…” ◙