Sunday, October 22, 2023

Doll-A-Day 2023 #285: The Wicked Witch of the West

   Yesterday we saw Glinda, the Good Witch. She got a bit wet during the fire. Well Glinda wasn't alone on that shelf. With her was her arch nemesis, The Wicked Witch of the West. Karma must have been at work, because The Bad Witch fared worse than The Good Witch.

Sorry. I forgot to photograph her with her box lid on.

  We thought for a while that the stuff on that shelf didn't even get wet at all. So it was left while we dealt with other things. When I discovered that it had been doused with water, the witches had already started to mold. Fortunately, their boxes were the worst parts. They are moldy inside and out and between the layers of cardboard they're made of. They're going to have to be thrown away. I don't think Glinda herself even got moldy. But the Wicked Witch, on the other hand...


  The bottom of her dress got a bit moldy. (Once again, she's been sitting here without her box lid, airing out, so sorry for the dust and cat hair.)

  It's a shame too. While she doesn't look anything like Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch...

She's too pretty.

And why is her hair so curly?


... her costume is fairly screen accurate. She has the leg o' mutton sleeves...


...and the lace up bodice.



She even has the little pouch the witch carried.


And of course she ahs her witch hat. Her hat has the long, sheer tail, (or whatever you call it).


One difference from the screen costume though, is that this witch isn't wearing any stockings. As we know from the scene where the Wicked Witch runs down the stairs sneering, "Ring around the rosie, a pocketful of spears...", she was wearing black stockings. 


One really cool item included with the witch is her broom. It's a straw broom, like the real one. You'll have to excuse the look of it. Emma and AJ's cat Arthur, (Our Jimmy, Joey, and Arc's nephew.), stole it out of her box and took it to the living room to play with.


  It's a little skinnier around the part that holds the bristles in, but they got the design right.
        

Even the handle.


  One line of dialogue in the movie that always gets me is where Dorothy asks the Winkie guard if they can have the witch's broomstick, and the Winkie says, "Yes. And take it with you." What? You give it to them, but they have to leave it there? Of course they're going to take it with them. Another thing we always think of when we watch it is my fault. I made a joke when the kids were little and to this day they still repeat it. The heroes are escaping and the witch screams to her guards to chase them: "Half of you go that way, and half of you go this way!' I said, "And the rest of you follow me." (Three 'halves', get it?) 

  Poor Maragret Hamilton. Her agent called her to tell her she had a part in The Wizard of Oz. Hamilton, a former kindergarten teacher who was then 37 years old, and the mother of a little boy, excitedly asked which role. Her agent replied, "The Wicked Witch of course." That's rough, guy. She's your client. Be nice! And when she and her son saw the movie, he was scared of the Wicked Witch!

The particular line this doll is from contained dolls of most of the movie's characters.




  That's the doll for today. Unfortunately I don't have the other characters. But we'll see some other doll tomorrow. See you then.

2 comments:

  1. Well, I guess it's appropriate that she got wet because in the movie she got wet too (didn't she? I can't remember now).

    I didn't know the story about Margaret Hamilton. I guess her son got over being scared but he forever had to remember that his mother played the most famous witch ever, well until Samantha came along.

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    1. Yes. That's how Dorothy destroyed her. She threw water to put out the fire on Scarecrow's arm, (The witch set him on fire.), and some splashed on the witch. Apparently she was allergic to water, and she melted. I guess she brought it on herself by setting fire to the scarecrow! Ironically, Margaret Hamilton also caught fire during the movie. In the scene where she first vanishes from the Munchkin city, you'll notice there's a huge fireball as she disappears via the trap door in the floor that you aren't supposed to notice. That wasn't supposed to happen. When it did, Margaret Hamilton was trapped in the chute with the flames, and the make up on her face and hands caught fire. She suffered bad burns on her face that scarred her.

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