Nicholas Schenck, head of MGMs parent company Loews Incorporated, was against the project as a whole due to the expense, and in spite of the success of Snow White, fantasy was an expensive and dicey prospect at the box office.Mayer that he wanted to produce a musical version of The Wizard of Oz starring Garland.
Meanwhile, Mayer was in negotiations with producer Mervyn LeRoy to bring him over from the Warner Bros. Irving Thalberg was The Boy Wonder of Hollywood and MGMs chief of production. Sadly, he had passed away in 1936, the victim of a lifelong heart condition. Mayer turned to Mervyn LeRoy as a possible replacement, and LeRoy told Mayer that he wanted to produce a film version of The Wizard of Oz. Wizard Of Oz Original Script Series As ALeRoy had been a fan of the book series as a child and a fan of the hugely popular stage version that had made stars of Fred Stone and David Montgomery in the early part of the 20th century. Both Freed and LeRoy thought The Wizard of Oz would make a fantastic film musical and they received a boost to their aspirations when Walt Disneys first animated feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs opened to critical acclaim on December 21, 1937 and proceeded to break box office records around the world. The unexpected mega-success of Snow White naturally prompted the other studios to look around for a musical fantasy property of their own and The Wizard of Oz was high on many studio wish lists. Over the years, many legends have been perpetuated about how The Wizard of Oz came to MGM and who could claim the credit. Some legends say that Mayer bought Oz solely for Freed while other legends state that it was purchased solely for LeRoy. In an interview decades later, LeRoy complained about being tired of hearing that the book was bought for Freed because as he said it was specifically purchased for him - with Freed acting as an associate producer. The sequence of events do support his claim: LeRoys contract with MGM is dated February 3, 1938 - the studio purchased The Wizard of Oz from producer Sam Goldwyn (who at one point in the early 1930s had thought about filming it as a vehicle for Eddie Cantor) on February 18, 1938 and just a few days later on February 24, 1938 Variety published a notice that LeRoy Will Produce Wizard of Oz. Its safe to say that it was more than likely purchased for LeRoy, with Freed as his uncredited assistant. Just a day prior, on February 23, 1938 Variety reported that Freed had been promoted to production assistant in the Mervyn LeRoy Unit at Metro. Regardless of who was actually responsible for MGM purchasing the book, theres no denying that Freed was the driving force behind most of the creative aspects of the film, especially the music. People to this day still think that she was the second choice for the role. This is not true. As early as February 24, 1938 Louella Parsons reported that Judy was to play Dorothy. But over the years, the brief involvement of Shirley Temple has become a huge, and false, legend. The legend was that it was Jean Harlows death in 1937 that killed the deal of loaning her and Gable to Fox to get Temple for OZ. In reality, Harlow died long before any negotiations or preliminary work on OZ began. An early January 1938 script idea of Dorothy as an orphan in Kansas who sings jazz was obviously written with Judy Garland in mind.
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