Script for The Wizard of Oz: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

Typescript draft for the 1939 motion picture The Wizard of Oz. This draft of the script by primary screenwriter Noel Langley is dated between May 4 and 6, 1938, and it contains original corrections and additions in pencil and ink pen. The challenge of adapting L. Frank Baum's book The Wizard of Oz to film began with the screenplay. From March 1938 to March 1939, more than a dozen people, most uncredited, worked on writing and revising the script. On one page of this script, Langley notes the change from black and white to color. In this famous scene, Dorothy steps out of her farmhouse into Oz and says to her dog Toto, "I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date made: 1938
• author: Langley, Noel
• maker: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corporation
• Object Name: book, script
• Physical Description: paper (overall material)
• Measurements: overall: 8 1/2 in x 11 in x 1 in; 21.59 cm x 27.94 cm x 2.54 cm
• place made: United States: California, Culver City
• general subject association: Motion Pictures
• referenced: Wizard of Oz
• ID Number: 1987.0395.01
• accession number: 1987.0395
• catalog number: 1987.0395.01
• Credit Line: Gift of Turner Entertainment Co.
• Data Source: National Museum of American History

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of American History through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed.