‘Wizard of Oz’ Had its World Premiere 80 Years Ago—In Kenosha?

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If you prefer your fables intact and without revision, or if you’re someone who is easily disillusioned, read no further. There’s too much disillusionment in the world as it is.

The Wizard of Oz did not, as many imagine it, have its world premiere at the Strand Theater in Oconomowoc, Wis. That distinction is held by Kenosha’s Geneva Theater, which launched the film on Aug. 11, 1939—one day before the Oconomowoc debut. The Wisconsin screenings were designed to give Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) an impression of how Oz might play to moviegoers in middle-America, who were perceived as conservative in their tastes and not apt to support a film that would be a difficult sell in other regions. In short, the studio was concerned that they had a bomb on their hands. While the film didn’t perform as well as hoped in its regular runs, it was far from a disaster, although it would be 25 years before The Wizard of Oz would become, thanks to annual television broadcasts, a classic of American cinema.

It’s impossible to discuss MGM’s casting of the little people in Oz without using the language that was current in the late 1930s. It sounds insensitive now to refer to someone as a “dwarf” or a “midget” (indeed, many people feel that the latter is derogatory), but those terms described a distinction that wasn’t lost on the MGM executives and casting directors who were seeking something specific in 1938: they wanted only people of correct proportions for their film, and they knew on whom to rely to assemble a cast of little people.

Leo Singer was a Vienna, Austria-born showman who had gathered a troupe of little people in Europe, eventually moving the entourage to the States, where they performed in vaudeville. In 1938, some of the Singer Midgets (as they were called) appeared in the low-budget western The Terror of Tiny Town. That same year, MGM contracted with Singer to supply 124 Munchkins for Oz—a daunting task, since it meant recruiting from across the country to bolster his core group of little people. In some cases, they were typical-sized children; a total of 12 appear in The Wizard of Oz. Notably, the cast was fleshed out with three dwarfs, whose costumes hid their lower bodies.

One of the key players in The Terror of Tiny Town was Fern Formica, billed at that time as Johnnie Fern. Born in Oklahoma in 1925, by the late ’30s, she was a seasoned performer who played nightclubs as “The Miniature Mae West.” Fern was hired by Singer as production on Oz geared up, and she joined her colleagues on the awe-inspiring Munchkinland set. Fern’s strongest memories of the time at MGM shooting Oz were of Judy Garland’s kindness toward her co-stars and of meeting Clark Gable, who set Fern on his lap and said, “My, you are tiny!” To which Fern replied, “It’s true! You do have big ears!”

Fern appeared in at least two 1940s films: Meet John Doe (paired with fellow Munchkin Billy Curtis) and Flesh and Fantasy (alongside her off-screen crush, Jerry Maren). Retiring from the screen in the mid-’40s, Fern married a military man (his surname was Formica), adopted a son and eventually moved to Hemet, Calif. She lived quietly until 1989, when she was invited to participate in celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the release of The Wizard of Oz.

Following the Munchkins After ‘Oz’

Fern was perhaps the most colorful and candid of the little people who portrayed Munchkins. She had an incredible, and sometimes incredibly raunchy, sense of humor, but underlying that was a somewhat melancholic attitude to life that she revealed only to those she knew well. While she enjoyed being a Munchkin and genuinely loved people, she did, at times, seem exasperated with Oz fans who went overboard in their emotional, fawning reactions to meeting her and the other Munchkin actors. In one instance, a woman, in all earnestness, asked Fern what she ate. Without missing a beat, Fern grinned mischievously and replied, “Hummingbirds’ tongues.” Fern passed away at the age of 70 in January 1995.

The Munchkin actors had varying degrees of success in the entertainment business after The Wizard of Oz. “Lollipop Kid” Jerry Maren was by far the most prolific, appearing in dozens of movies (both before and after Oz) and television shows as well. He was also an outspoken advocate for little people, founding (with Billy Barty) the group that became, in the late 1950s, Little People of America. Originally titled Midgets of America, Barty—who was a dwarf—urged that they change the name to be inclusive of all little people. Little People of America exists today as a non-profit working for the advancement of all people of short stature.

When Maren passed away in June 2018, it was widely reported that the last surviving Munchkin had died, but this wasn’t strictly correct. As Steve Cox, author of The Munchkins of Oz, explains, “Six of the 12 original child Munchkins—they were around 10 years old in 1939—are still alive.” Unfortunately, there are always those who find fame and adoration irresistible. “Believe it or not, there were a few impostors, too. One lady in particular appeared at some Oz festivals; the producers didn’t really vet her, didn’t know that she was a fraud, and when it was pointed out that her story was a bit shaky, they still invited her back!” Asked whether any other Oz actors survive, Cox answers in the affirmative: “One of the Emerald City ladies, I believe she is [producer] Mervyn LeRoy’s niece. Also, Judy Garland’s stand-in is still living.”

The Munchkins, magical inhabitants of MGM’s Land of Oz, were real people, with the same aspirations, flaws, joys and sorrows as the rest of us. Small in stature, they were not abridged versions of human beings; they were fully live individuals. That needs to be stated, lest we forget.

Addendum

The Kenosha theater that opened The Wizard of Oz on August 11, 1939 was the Gateway Theater (now the Rhode Center for the Arts), not the Geneva. Controversy over where the film first screened seems to be an issue of semantics.

While MGM or its Midwest representative may have dubbed the Oconomowoc Oz screening of Aug. 12 the "World Premiere," that isn't strictly accurate, as any theatrical exhibition in advance of all other engagements would normally be considered a world premiere, regardless of whether it occurs in small town Wisconsin, Los Angeles or New York. And that was exactly the case with the Gateway's August 11 screenings of The Wizard of Oz, which debuted simultaneously at the Cape Cinema on Cape Cod. These screenings happened one day before the Oconomowoc launch at the Strand (and at Racine's Venetian Theatre), and rightly should be considered concurrent world premieres. 

In the 1930s, the Hollywood studios regularly test-screened features and shorts at Inland Empire theaters in California, to get audience feedback in order to make edits before releasing their product to the public. This was especially valuable in the case of comedies: studio reps would observe audience reactions, making notes on when the audience laughed and, more significantly, when they failed to laugh. Movies test-screened in this way were truly works in progress, art in flux—with the final edit calculated to maximize a film's impact. The execs at MGM weren't looking for this kind of editorial guidance on The Wizard of Oz; the film was already in its final release version when it premiered on August 11. Rather, the Wisconsin screenings served as a barometer, a gauge of how middle-America might receive Oz. The Cape Cinema premiere, while redundant in terms of audience feedback, was allegedly approved because Margaret Hamilton (the Wicked Witch) was appearing at the Cape Playhouse, and it's said that she requested that the cinema be allowed an early launch.

We've established that the Wisconsin and Cape Cod screenings weren't for the purpose of recutting Oz. They were in fact full theatrical engagements of the finished film, for paying audiences. The Gateway's opening on Aug. 11 qualifies, with the Cape Cinema's, as the true world premiere of The Wizard of Oz.

In citing the dates of Wisconsin premiere screenings of The Wizard of Oz, I relied on the same published sources others have drawn from, witlessly parroting several inaccuracies originating in the American Film Institute’s Catalog of Feature Films. Drawn from film industry trade journals and Wisconsin newspapers published in August of 1939, the AFI's Oz “premiere” timeline provides an incomplete picture of the Wisconsin screenings, which deviated somewhat from the announced schedule.

There was one sure way to verify actual openings, and thus determine which theaters were first to play Oz: I revisited the subject directly, referencing movie display ads from August, 1939. This was easily accomplished, as a microfilm archive exists for each of the local newspapers that carried advertising for the theaters in question. Here then, is an accurate launch timeline for the six Wisconsin theaters that are known to have hosted screenings in advance of the Aug. 15 Los Angeles premiere – and in every case, these were multiple-day engagements.

• Green Bay: Orpheum Theater (Aug. 10)

• Kenosha: Gateway Theater (Aug. 11)

• Appleton: Rio Theater (Aug. 11)

• Oconomowoc: Strand Theater (Aug. 12)

• Sheboygan: Sheboygan Theater (Aug.13)

• Racine: Venetian Theater (Aug. 13)

(Oshkosh’s Strand Theater was originally slated to open Oz on Aug. 11, but their date was pushed back to Aug. 25, to coincide with the national release.)