Isn't Toto going to be destroyed at the end of "The Wizard of Oz"?

Oh, c'mon, OP.

Isn't it obvious that because Dorothy almost died because of Ms. Gulch's actions that she might've backed off?

No.

Or maybe Dorothy now has the confidence and inner strength to clock that old bag.

I always thought this too. It might be the next day, but nothing has changed!

I always assumed Miss Gulch has died in the tornado, or that Dorothy will slit the bitches throat...I mean, she's already killed TWICE by then!

When I was a kid, our family dog was a Cairn terrier, the same breed and colour as Toto.

I remember having more than one nightmare about my dog being destroyed by an evil old bitch neighbour.

Miss Gulch definitely died in the tornado.

I think the local community would have pulled together after the tornado, and the sheriff would have talked Miss Gultch out of pursuing it if she tried again.

Plus, Henry and Em have a new devotion to Dorothy, and would have pulled out their shotguns if the old harpie came flapping back with her damn basket.

There was a scene in an early draft of the screenplay in which Auntie Em pulls out a shotgun and swears she'll get Toto back if she has "to slaughter the entire Gulch family to do it!" Not joking.

No way! I’m having trouble believing that, R8

[quote]r8 There was a scene in an early draft of the screenplay in which Auntie Em pulls out a shotgun and swears she'll get Toto back if she has "to slaughter the entire Gulch family to do it!"

It was pulled from the script, for a possible sequel.

[italic]THE WONDERFUL WRECKAGE OF OZ

The sequel MUST be made! Let’s start casting:

Grace Zabriskie as the vengeful Aunt Em.

And beloved character actress Margo Martinsale as Dorothy.

[R9] It was in one of the many books about the making of the film. "The Official 50th Anniversary Pictorial History", "The Wizard of Oz: The Screenplay ", "The Making of The Wizard of Oz", or "The Wizardry of Oz". I can't remember which one, it's been so long. That was another life.

Queer Eye star Jonathan Van Ness as the Cowardly Lion

I always expected a twist that Toto wasn't in any real danger, because Mrs. Gulch just threw a temper tantrum, because her secret lover, Aunt Em, refused to leave her family to be with her. And she just took Toto as a sad, final attempt to blackmail Aunt Em to choose her over her Christian Family values family.

[quote]r11 The sequel MUST be made!

The novel WAS by Geoff Ryman (which also had a regional theater adaptation) was unrelievedly depressing....but had some very interesting plots in it. It went into the story of the real life Dorothy Gale, a miserable, abused farm girl who was (in this novel) in L. Frank Baum's classroom when he was a traveling substitute teacher. It also has some chapters on Judy Garland filming the movie...plus a bunch of other stuff that isn't as compelling.

But the Dorothy/Garland stuff reaches a really poignant conclusion.

[quote]"A moving lament for lost childhoods and an eloquent tribute to the enduring power of art."—The New York Times

[quote]A haunting novel exploring the lives of characters intertwined with The Wizard of Oz: the "real" Dorothy Gale; Judy Garland's unhappy fame; and Jonathan, a dying actor, and his therapist, whose work at an asylum unwittingly intersects with the Yellow Brick Road.

I prefer a happy ending and never thought about the after for Dorothy and Toto. In the gritty social realist ending I suppose Toto is put down, Dorothy soon fucks the Scarecrow and has a baby in her young teens. She marries and divorces the Scarecrow, then Tinman, then Lion, who are all gay and finally takes off with the old snake oil salesman to escape that awful farm and town.

I agree with r14's Secret Lesbian theory.

R15, I'm confused: is that book fiction or not?

It's redone fiction based on real aspects of the story. WAS is amazing.

They should have explained what was going to happen with Toto--it is left maddeningly unexplained, and I know it bothers a lot of people.

Toto was too feisty and resourceful to submit to Miss Gulch. He'd have ripped her throat out.

Before the tornado hits, there is a line of dialog between Aunt Em and Miss Gulch to the effect of "What if we keep the dog tied up?" ...."Well, that's for the sheriff to decide".... The order to take the dog was only that - an order to take the dog.

So, if there were no tornado, the dog's fate would have been decided by the sheriff. And he, a friend of Dorothy, would advise her to keep the dog on a leash and in the yard.

"She bit her dog?"

R5, I grew up with a Cairn terrier also and she still appears in my dreams from time to time.

Of course the dog lives. Don’t be a retard.

One of the best lines in cinematographic history: “Almira Gulch, just because you own half the county doesn't mean you have the power to run the rest of us. For twenty-three years, I've been dying to tell you what I thought of you. And now, well, being a Christian woman, I can't say it!“

^^ That line always makes it sound like Auntie Em has recently converted to Christianity.

What was she before??

I'd love to beat the shit out of Miss Gulch for what she did to Toto.

Here's a topic I'd never given one ounce of thought to for my 64 years on this Earth. Now, all day I'll be worrying about Toto's fate. Thanks, DL.

[quote]r28 I'd love to beat the shit out of Miss Gulch for what she did to Toto.

She's literally WORSE THAN HITLER.

What the hell kind of a name is "Toto" for a dog, anyway?

Have you ever heard the song "Toto (Don't It Feel Like Paradise)" by Lynda Carter? Listen to it and weep.

[quote]r31 What the hell kind of a name is "Toto" for a dog, anyway?

I think it's an Italian diminutive.

In the novel WAS, Auntie Em's sister ran off to St. Louis (?) to be an actress, and married a European opera singer...I think. He named Dorothy's puppy. Then both parents died in a yellow fever epedemic, or something, and Dorothy got shipped off to the farm with her dog.

Don’t worry OP, it’s fiction.

You don't know that. WHERE YOU THERE ? !

Let's face facts... Dorothy was a product of an abusive household and treated like complete shit. Toto got treated like shit too.

R12, the line is:

"Ohhh, she bit her dog, eh?"

Wasn't this actually the premise of a sketch on either In Living Color or another sketch comedy show?

I bless the rains down in Africa

I always thought Miss Gulch used the Sheriff's warrant as an excuse to bring Toto to her home for an evening and put some peanut butter on her nipples and see what happens...

I saw this film in theatres when it first came out in 1939 with my partner. He took me for my 27th birthday. I thought the same thing, OP. I kept thinking about that poor dog after the film. My partner and I just watched it again, actually.

It would have been funny if they had told Dorothy that the cyclone had lifted miss gulch up in the air and she landed on a house.

R41, are you 106 years old?? And still with the same partner??

Mazel tov!

Why didn't the sheriff confiscate the dog himself? Why would he authorize the complainant to do it?

That’s not what bothered me about the ending. Even as a kid I was like “What’s up with this I’ll-never-look-beyond-my-own-back-yard bullshit?”

It was a warning to the Communists! They couldn't take hold if god-fearing Americans were keeping an eye on things in their home communities.

It's ok OP, they would ALL be dead by now.

The director's cut had Miss Gulch slitting Toto's throat and stringing him up from a lamp pole.

Thank you, R37. I love super-obsessed WoO (Wizard of Oz) fans.

"I saw this film in theatres when it first came out in 1939 with my partner. He took me for my 27th birthday. I thought the same thing, OP. I kept thinking about that poor dog after the film. My partner and I just watched it again, actually."

Wuuuuuuu? This can't be true!

Miss Gulch didn't die in the tornado, there's nothing to indicate as such.

The ending makes no sense, in that Gilda claims Dorothy wouldn't have believed her, but it could be that the film is badly edited. It was much longer and a lot was edited out. For instance when Dorothy tells the Scarecrow she'll miss him most of all, comes from the fact, the Scarecrow's counterpart and Dorothy were supposed to have been in a romance but that was cut and edited out, but not the last part.

Miss Gulch died at the same moment that, in Dorothy's dream, the witch melted into a puddle of steaming goo. She died as a result of her bicycle being blown into her face as she looked out the window at the tornado. Then her house caved in on her. They never found her body.

My GOD Maggie was hot!

I just watched The Wizard of Oz and I have more questions than answers...

r49, why bothering using an acronym if you're going to spell it out for us anyway?

I love the scene in WAS where Judy's makeup artist catches Judy mimicking her while she thinks she's not watching. How the makeup girl is freaked at what a ...freak this child actor was. But it was an affectionate portrait of JG, overall.

I'm introducing it into the lexicon of this thread. Three dense queens would have asked for an explanation.

OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) much, R55?

You’re a fuckhead, OP.

Miss Gulch promised to back off if Auntie Em would provide regular oral service for her, and Auntie Em eagerly agreed.

Thanks, R29, for the laugh from this...

[quote] Here's a topic I'd never given one ounce of thought to for my 64 years on this Earth. Now, all day I'll be worrying about Toto's fate. Thanks, DL.

Toto was a dog drag king:

[quote]r56 I love the scene in WAS where Judy's makeup artist catches Judy mimicking her while she thinks she's not watching. How the makeup girl is freaked at what a ...freak this child actor was. But it was an affectionate portrait of JG, overall.

That whole chapter is amazing. And how the director gets her attention in the last shot , focusing her emotion on the theme of 'home' by whispering "Frances..."

Miss Gulch was the parallel character for the Wicked Witch. (After getting hit in the head, Dorothy has a vision of Miss Gulch on her bicycle who then morphs into the Wicked Witch on her broom.) Miss Gulch died in the tornado - either from a house dropping on her, or possibly by drowning after the storm lifts her up and drops her down a well. Either way, she's dead and Toto lives.

Which last shot, R62? The one in the OP?

Because Judy looks fucking transplendent...she’s just transplendent!

For your viewing pleasure:

[quote]r64 Which last shot? The one in the OP? Because Judy looks fucking transplendent...she’s just transplendent!

Yes.

[bold]SPOILER[/bold]

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the end of that section of the book, Judy Garland is presented as a somewhat disturbed, or at least confused, teen while filming OZ....which she probably was. They are doing the last shot, and she's fooling around through several takes, and the director needs her to connect in a super solid way with the scene's theme of contentment with home, so she can really sell the last line.

So as she's pretending to be asleep on the bed for another shot, he whispers Frances (her real name) and when she twitches slightly and he knows he has her attention, so he talks softly in her ear about imagining being back in Grand Rapids, before she was famous and her father was still alive, and how she's to picture her mother at the piano with her sisters Suzy and Jimmie waiting for their father Frank to come through the door...and now he is....he's whistling...ROLL 'EM!

And then Garland comes alive in the scene "and her smile breaks through the wall". It's a really powerful piece of writing, and you feel real sadness for the past this girl left behind, that she wants back so badly but will never get : (

It's quite clear from the expressions on their faces that Zeke, Hunk and Hickory recovered the body of Toto and stuffed it in a basket beneath Dorothy's bed, where it shares pride of place with the remains of Christmas Mouse.

[quote]So, if there were no tornado, the dog's fate would have been decided by the sheriff. And he, [bold]a friend of Dorothy,[/bold] would advise her to keep the dog on a leash and in the yard.

To be clear, was he Dorothy's friend, or a FOD?