The Atlantic / by Benjamin Mazer / Jun 17, 2025 at 7:31 AM
Remember
ivermectin
? The animal-deworming medication was used so avidly as an off-label COVID treatment during the pandemic that some feed stores ended up going out of stock. (MUST SHOW A PIC OF YOU AND YOUR HORSE, a sign at one demanded of would-be customers in 2021.) If you haven’t heard about it since, then you’ve existed blissfully outside the gyre of misinformation and conspiracies that have come to define the MAGA world’s outlook on medicine. In the past few years, ivermectin’s popularity has only grown, and the drug has become a go-to treatment for almost any ailment whatsoever. Once a suspect COVID cure, now a right-wing aspirin.
In fact, ivermectin never really worked for treating SARS-CoV-2 infections. Many of the initial studies that hinted at a benefit turned out to be flawed and unreliable. By 2023, a series of clinicaltrials had already proved beyond a doubt that ivermectin won’t reduce COVID symptoms or mortality. But these findings mattered little to its fans, who saw the drug as having earned the status of dissident antiviral—a treatment that they believed had been suppressed by the medical establishment. And if ivermectin was good enough to be rejected by mainstream doctors as a cure for COVID, health-care skeptics seemed to reason, then surely it must have a host of other uses too.
As a physician who diagnoses cancer, I have come across this line of thinking in my patients, and found that some were using ivermectin to treat their life-threatening tumors. Nicholas Hornstein, a medical oncologist in New York City, told me that he’s had the same experience: About one in 20 of his patients ask about the drug, he said. He remembers one woman who came into his office with a tumor that was visibly protruding from her abdomen, having swapped her chemotherapy for some ivermectin that she’d picked up at a veterinary-supply store. “It’s going to work any day now,” he says she told him when he tried to intervene.
The idea that ivermectin could be a cancer-fighting agent does have some modest basis in reality: Preliminary studies have suggested that antiparasitic medications might inhibit tumor growth, and at least one ongoing clinical trial is evaluating ivermectin’s role as an adjunct to cancer treatment. That study has enrolled only nine patients, however, and the results so far show that just one patient’s tumor actually shrank, according to a recent scientific abstract. But these meager grounds for hope now support a towering pile of expectations.
Cancer is just one of many illnesses that ivermectin is supposed to heal. According to All Family Pharmacy, a Florida-based company that promotes the compound to fans of Donald Trump Jr., Dan Bongino, Matt Gaetz, and Laura Ingraham on their podcasts and shows, the drug has “anti-inflammatory properties that could help keep the immune system balanced in fighting infection.” (The company did not respond to a request for comment.) In sprawling Facebook groups devoted to ivermectin’s healing powers, the claims are more extreme: The drug can combat a long list of conditions, members say, including Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, diabetes, autism, carpal tunnel syndrome, crow’s feet, brain fog, and bee stings.
As a medication that supposedly was censored by elites—if not canceled outright by woke medicine and Big Pharma—ivermectin has become a symbol of medical freedom. It’s also a MAGA shibboleth: Republican-leaning parts of the country helped drive an astounding 964 percent increase in prescriptions for the drug early in the pandemic, and GOP members of Congress have used their official posts to advocate for its benefits. Ivermectin can now be purchased without a prescription in Arkansas and Idaho, and other states are considering similar measures.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been a particularly strong proponent. In his 2021 book about the pandemic, Kennedy referred to the “massive and overwhelming evidence” in ivermectin’s favor, and invoked its “staggering, life-saving efficacy.” He also argued at great length that the pharmaceutical industry—with the support of Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates—had engaged in a historic crime by attempting to discourage its use. Jay Bhattacharya, the director of the National Institutes of Health, has similarly backed the conspiracy theory that the use of ivermectin was dismissed by “the powers that be” in an apparent ploy to ease the approval of COVID vaccines. (Not everyone in the current administration is a fan: Before he became the FDA’s vaccine czar, the oncologist Vinay Prasad publicly disputed Kennedy’s views on ivermectin, and earlier this year he called its use for cancer “the right’s version of masking on the airplane and praying to Lord Fauci.”) In response to questions about Kennedy’s and Bhattacharya’s current views on ivermectin, the HHS press secretary Emily Hilliard told me that they “continue to follow the latest scientific research regarding therapeutic options for COVID-19 and other illnesses.” She did not respond to questions about Prasad.
The idea of using antiparasitic drugs as cancer treatments was already taking hold by the late 2010s, Skyler Johnson, a Utah radiation oncologist who studies medical misinformation, told me. In January 2017, a man with lung cancer named Joe Tippens started on a dewormer called fenbendazole, which had been suggested to him by a veterinarian. Daniel Lemoi, who had Lyme disease, had started taking ivermectin in 2012 after reading a paper on the genetic similarities between humans and horses. Tippens would go on to achieve global fame among desperate cancer patients, and Lemoi became an ivermectin influencer during the pandemic.
Since then, a gaggle of dubious doctors has worked to bolster the credibility of deworming drugs within alternative medicine and anti-vaccine circles. Their underlying pitch has become familiar in the past few years: Health experts can’t be trusted; the pharmaceutical industry is suppressing cheap cures; and patients deserve the liberty to choose their own medical interventions. For the rest of the medical establishment, the worldview this entails is straining doctor-patient relationships. Johnson told me that many of his patients are now skeptical of his advice, if not openly combative. One cancer patient accused Johnson of bias when he failed to recommend ivermectin. The drug is so cheap and effective, this patient had concluded, that Johnson would be out of a job if everyone knew about it. (Johnson told me that he offers patients “the best possible treatment, no matter the financial incentive.”) Ivermectin has become a big business in its own right. Online pharmacies and wellness shops are cashing in on the deworming craze, with one offering parasite cleanses for $200 a month. Meanwhile, fringe doctors can charge patients who have cancer and other diseases thousands of dollars to prescribe such treatments.
Johnson’s own experience suggests that the cult of ivermectin is growing larger. He told me that he’s seen his patients’ interest in the drug explode since January, when the actor Mel Gibson went on Joe Rogan’s podcast and claimed that three of his friends had beat back their advanced tumors with ivermectin and fenbendazole, among various other potions. “This stuff works, man,” Gibson said. Meanwhile, in the ivermectin Facebook groups—including one with close to 300,000 members—the public can read posts from a woman with breast cancer considering using ivermectin in lieu of hormone treatments; a leukemia patient who has given up on chemotherapy to “see what happens” with antiparasitic drugs; or a concerned aunt wondering if the drugs might help her little niece with Stage 4 cancer.
But ivermectin advocacy is most disturbing in its totalizing form, wherein parasites—which is to say, the pathogens against which the drug truly is effective—are reimagined as the secret cause of many other unrelated problems. In the Facebook groups, members will share images of what they say are worms that have been expelled from their bodies by treatment. (This phenomenon brings to mind a different disease entirely: delusional parasitosis.) One recent post from the daughter of a Stage 4 lung-cancer patient showed a bloody glob that had “dropped down into her mouth.” Commenters debated whether this might be a worm or something else. “Blood clot from Covid vax?” one suggested. A few days later, the daughter gave an update: Her mom had gone to see the doctor, who informed her that she’d likely coughed up a piece of her own lung.
The whole exchange provides a sad illustration of this delirious and desperate time. Before it turned into a conservative cure-all, ivermectin was legitimately a wonder drug for the poorest people on Earth. Since its discovery in 1973, it has become a leading weapon in the fight against horrific infections such as river blindness and elephantiasis. Yet now that substantial success seems to have given birth to a self-destructive fantasy.
A decade ago, the co-discoverers of ivermectin—William Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura—were awarded a Nobel Prize in recognition of their contribution to reducing human suffering. In his formal lecture to the Academy, Campbell offered some reflections on the simple science that gave rise to the treatment, and to its wide array of applications. But his speech contained a warning, too, that any medicine that works so broadly and so well runs the risk of being handed out too often. The more benefits that such a drug provides, he told the audience in Stockholm, “the more we must guard against the hazards of indiscriminate use.”
Behind the Curtain: A Look at The Wizard of Oz’s Difficult Production 85 Years Later
Judy Garland poses with a copy of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in a 1939 promotional still found in The Wizard of Oz: The Official 50th Anniversary Pictorial History (1989). Buddy Ebsen papers, Coll. No. 12733, American Heritage Center.
As a lifelong Oz fan, 1939’s The Wizard of Oz has been a throughline of positive memories for me. My parents called me “munchky” growing up, a nickname that would be apt when I made my stage debut as a Lullaby League munchkin in my school play at eight years old. My fondest memories of my late mother involve her reading L Frank Baum’s novel to me before bed. So, when I got to the AHC, I knew I had to sift through the historical material related to both Baum’s fantastical series and the 1939 classic film. And what better time to explore this story than the eve of the film’s 85th anniversary?
For kids like me who grew up with The Wizard of Oz as an American institution, it is hard to imagine that the film was anything but an overnight success, an immediate classic. But the truth is, there was no point during the film’s difficult production and unsuccessful release that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) thought their technicolor fantasy would become such a classic. Fortunately, much of Oz’s production has been documented in the AHC archives for us to explore now. Behind the film’s colorful beauty and joyful musical numbers are over a dozen screenwriters, four directors, multiple recasts, and several life-threatening on-set incidents. We’re off to learn the truth about the ruby slippers, green witches and wait…Gone with the Wind?
The Studio
I have often seen people discuss how horrific the production of The Wizard of Oz seemed. While most of the conspiracy theories about this film are simply not true, I will not downplay the horror that actually did play out on set. However, it is worth discussing the studio system at the time to provide some context for why production was the way it was. Which is to say, The Wizard of Oz was, unfortunately, not unique in having reckless production that did not care for its stars.
In the 1930s, movie studios operated with something called the “studio system.” This system contracted actors not to films, but rather to studios who assigned their actors to roles with very little input from the stars themselves. This meant that when MGM purchased the rights to The Wizard of Oz, they had to turn to their own 120 “featured contract players” for the casting. Contract players were paid well whether they were working on a picture or not, but at the expense of their freedom to accept or decline roles. Most of Oz’s actors had very little bargaining power with their bosses, be it for better pay, better safety measures or better treatment on set.
Hollywood was a very bleak place in 1938 when they were working on Oz. Filmmaking was, and still is, an extremely new artistic medium. This was less than ten years after the first ever Academy Awards, and studios were intent on trying to ensure that their films would be honored at the new ceremony. In the mid- to late 1930s most films were musicals so as to utilize the invention of “talkies,” or films with synchronized sound. Between the brewing tension of World War II and the Great Depression a decade earlier, films either directly reflected the anxieties of the time or tried to distract from them, but no studios were producing fantasy films.
That was until Walt Disney came on the scene with his first-ever feature length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937. Samuel Goldwyn almost immediately purchased rights to L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to try to compete with Disney’s growing popularity. He enlisted Mervyn LeRoy to produce, Herman J. Mankiewicz to write, and Richard Thorpe to direct the picture. Yip Harburg, Harold Arlen and Herbert Stothart were working on music during this time as well.
The Wizard of Oz script written by Herman J. Mankiewicz. This script would not be used in the film; however, it is thrilling to see Oz through the eyes of one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. The Wizard of Oz scripts, 1938, Coll. No. 12780, American Heritage Center.
The Script
AHC writer Kathryn Billington did a deep dive into the multiple script treatments The Wizard of Oz received before the film was shot, so I will not go into it much here. The American Heritage Center is fortunate enough to own multiple copies of Oz scripts as written by Herman J. Mankiewicz and others such as Noel Langley. Mankiewicz was a contract writer for MGM, and he rarely received credit for his work at the studio. He was the first writer to be given The Wizard of Oz project.
Mankiewicz’s primary contribution would come in the form of the “Kansas sequence.” Baum’s original book spends just over seven hundred words in Kansas, but the Mankiewicz script spends a great deal of time there. MGM had also hired Noel Langley and Ogden Nash to work on their own versions of the script. In total, there would be ten screenwriters on The Wizard of Oz, with only three – Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf – receiving credit for their work on the film. I would not feel too bad for Herman J. Mankiewicz for getting the chop though because later that year he would meet Orson Welles, with whom he would co-write Citizen Kane (1941), a film that is now universally praised as the greatest film ever made.
Creating the Yellow Brick Road
MGM finally had a full roster to bring Oz to life. In its principal cast, they had Judy Garland as Dorothy, and Buddy Ebsen, Ray Bolger, and Bert Lahr as the Tin Man, the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion, respectively. Billie Burke and Margaret Hamilton joined on as the witches of Oz. Casting was not easy as many of their original picks had turned the film down, like Shirley Temple who rejected the role of Dorothy and Gale Sondergaard who rejected the role of the Wicked Witch of the West. Sondergaard got all the way to the costuming stage, believing that the role would be a sexy, sly witch to emulate Snow White’s evil queen, but once they dressed her as the ugly witch we all remember, she backed out.
In fact, they had originally cast Ray Bolger to play the Tin Man and Buddy Ebsen to play the Scarecrow. Bolger, however, was unhappy with this casting, saying: “It wasn’t my cup of tea. I’m just not a tin performer. I’m fluid.” As a boy, he had seen Fred Stone’s portrayal of the original Scarecrow from the 1902 musical. Bolger says that seeing Stone perform live was life changing for him, inspiring him to become a stage performer. After several demands from Bolger, he and Ebsen switched parts. Ebsen did not protest; he did not care who he played, he just wanted to be in the picture. It is through Ebsen’s involvement that the AHC houses numerous Oz materials. His papers feature hundreds of pages of Oz items and several books he helped to advise about the film.
Richard Thorpe – 12 Days
Richard Thorpe broke ground on The Wizard of Oz on October 12, 1938. Thorpe was not known for his whimsy and fantastical directing. He was hired mostly because he reliably turned out quality work for MGM, but Oz was certainly a new frontier for him. Thorpe began with the third act of the film, with most of his footage being at the Witch’s castle. There is no remaining footage of Thorpe’s Oz, but there are some photographs. These images will look unfamiliar to most Oz fans. In Thorpe’s version, Judy Garland was put in a full face of heavy makeup and a long blonde wig.
Judy Garland in her first Dorothy Gale costume. She is wearing a long, blonde wig and red lipstick, a far cry from the Dorothy we all know today. From The Wizard of Oz: The Official 50th Anniversary Pictorial History.
Ten days into filming, Buddy Ebsen became extremely ill. To create the Tin Man’s shiny skin, they painted Ebsen’s face white and powdered over it with aluminum dust. Every time he got his makeup applied or touched up, he was inhaling fine grains of aluminum. This coated the inside of his lungs, stopping oxygen from getting to his blood.
Bert Lahr as the Lion (left), Buddy Ebsen as the Tin Man (center), and Ray Bolger as the Scarecrow (right) in a production still from the Witch’s Castle sequence. This is one of the few remaining images of Ebsen’s Tin Man. From The Wizard of Oz: The Official 50th Anniversary Pictorial History.
Little remains of Ebsen’s Tin Man. If you listen to the “We’re Off to See the Wizard” musical sequences in the film, you will hear his voice as the Tin Man, as they did not re-record it to cut costs. Ebsen would later star as Jed Clampett in The Beverly Hillbillies, a role that would make him a millionaire and solidify him as a household name.
Ebsen’s medical emergency brought production to a screeching halt. During this break, Mervyn LeRoy and other MGM executives watched the footage of the film so far and were enraged with what they saw. Now they had a Tin Man and a director to replace.
George Cukor – 4 Days
George Cukor was the director of The Wizard of Oz for just four days. They needed a director in the interim, and Cukor was great at character work. Specifically, he was great at working with actresses. Despite being on the film for just four days, he would have a major impact on the final film.
First, he took Judy Garland out of the blonde wig, instead using her natural reddish-brown hair for Dorothy. He then toned down her makeup, giving her instead simple eyebrows, blush and mascara. He would direct her to “stop acting so fancy shmancy” and to just act like a normal girl.
Judy Garland’s new Dorothy costume. In the four days Cukor was on set, he would redesign several costumes, but Garland’s is the most memorable. From The Wizard of Oz: The Official 50th Anniversary Pictorial History.
He also was able to get vaudeville comedian Jack Haley on loan from Fox to replace Ebsen’s Tin Man. Haley was told that Ebsen was ill, but not how or why. Haley was unaware of the makeup’s contents. But under Cukor’s direction, they mixed the aluminum with the white paint into a paste, so Haley would not inhale any of it.
Cukor left the set better than he had found it. He was off to work on another MGM picture based on a famous novel, Gone with the Wind.
Victor Fleming on set of The Wizard of Oz giving direction for the apple tree sequence. Fleming was a tough director but was at the helm for the bulk of its production. From The Wizard of Oz: The Official 50th Anniversary Pictorial History.
Victor Fleming – 4 months
Prior to The Wizard of Oz, Victor Fleming was known for films that were notably adult. The women were sexy, the men were masculine swashbucklers, and he had a very adventurous style of filmmaking. Fleming was also described as a womanizing, brute playboy according to Aljean Harmetz. Nothing would indicate that Fleming was the right director for The Wizard of Oz.
But that did not matter because the picture was already in production. Fleming did not have to tinker with costumes, the set, the script, or the casting in any significant way. (Although, strangely, Fleming insisted on the inclusion of a crane from the Los Angeles Zoo in several shots.) He made some insignificant changes to the script, and allowed Bolger, Haley and Lahr to improvise their lines.
He was, for the most part, a pretty forgiving director for most of the actors. Despite being sarcastic and ungentle, all of the principal cast had a positive relationship with Fleming until his death in 1949. This is probably because he did not direct their performances. Margaret Hamilton told Aljean Harmetz: “I think Mr. Fleming had a very good firm hand on things. Although I don’t have any consciousness of his changing anything really for any of us…If he did make changes, he did it so gracefully and so diplomatically that you didn’t even know it was being done.”
Even if the actors did not remember him as unkind, there are several instances of Fleming’s demanding behavior on set. Perhaps the most notable and upsetting is the treatment of Betty Danko, Margaret Hamilton’s stunt double. The Wicked Witch’s epic first entrance into the film resulted in injuries for both Hamilton and Danko. For Danko, a crew member fell into the trap door she was supposed to enter through, injuring her shoulder. Since she was injured, Hamilton had to finish the stunt herself. After delivering the iconic line, “I’ll get you my pretty! And your little dog too!” Hamilton was supposed to exit with flames and red smoke, just as she had entered. But because of the copper-based makeup she was wearing, her skin immediately lit on fire. She sustained second and third degree burns. Hamilton refused to film any further stunts.
Once Danko recovered, she shot the skywriting scene. Fleming insisted that the witch’s cape fly in the wind while writing “Surrender, Dorothy!” in the air, so the crew placed a pipe underneath the broom. While rehearsing, the pipe exploded from under Danko. She sustained deep burns to her inner thighs, and severely damaged her reproductive organs. Danko would need a full hysterectomy. In another instance, Victor Fleming slapped Judy Garland, who was just sixteen, across the face for laughing during a shoot.
After all of the Oz scenes were filmed, Fleming left the set to direct Gone with the Wind… Wait, wasn’t George Cukor working on Gone with the Wind? As it turns out, Gone with the Wind was also having a troubled production on the other end of the MGM lot. After three weeks of shooting, Clark Gable threatened to quit if Cukor was not replaced with his friend Victor Fleming. The most common reason cited was that Cukor, largely considered to be a “woman’s director,” was not giving Gable enough direction. Whatever the reason, Fleming jumped ship to complete Gone with the Wind.
King Vidor did not shoot much of the film, but what he did film was significant. Here Aunt Em (Clara Blandick, left), Miss Almira Gulch (Margaret Hamilton, center right) and Uncle Henry (Charley Grapewin, right) scold Dorothy for letting Toto bite Miss Gulch. From The Wizard of Oz: The Official 50th Anniversary Pictorial History.
King Vidor – 10 days
King Vidor knew he had to pick up direction on a picture already in production. Except he thought he was going to be taking over – surprise! – Gone with the Wind. He was relieved to learn that he would just be filming the Kansas sequences of The Wizard of Oz. Vidor was an incredibly talented filmmaker, but that does not exactly come through in the Kansas sequence as he had a pretty easy task to complete there. Aside from the tornado, which Vidor expertly shot using miniature mock-ups of the set and a windsock, he did not have to mess around with technicolor technology or the bulk of the actors’ performances. This simplicity was an asset though in the “Over the Rainbow”sequence. Vidor’s camera simply follows Garland around the farm while she sings the iconic tune. This scene was so simple that Fleming wanted to cut it during post-production because he thought it made the first act too long, but the studio insisted that Garland have a solo song.
Ultimately, Victor Fleming was the only director to get credit on the film.
The Wizard of Oz promotional poster from 1939. This poster hung above my bed in every bedroom I lived in before moving to Laramie, so finding it in the collection was quite the thrill. From The Wizard of Oz: The Official 50th Anniversary Pictorial History.
Release
The Wizard of Oz premiered at the Orpheum Theatre in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on August 10, 1939. The film opened nationwide a few weeks later to… mild reception. The film only earned $3 million dollars (about $70,000,000 today) upon its original release, just barely recouping $1.8 million in production costs. Fortunately, Gone with the Wind was a smash hit making approximately $3 billion in today’s dollars, making it the highest grossing film ever at the time. So, MGM was certainly not strapped for cash.
Fellow MGM child star Mickey Rooney (right) hands Judy Garland her Academy Juvenile Award. She won it for both The Wizard of Oz and Babes in Arms. Despite being nominated twice more in her career, this was Garland’s only Oscar. From The Wizard of Oz: The Official 50th Anniversary Pictorial History.
MGM believed that, while Oz was not a massive hit, they would surely get praise at the Academy Awards for the advances in makeup, technology and children’s entertainment. The 12th Academy Awards would be a historic night for MGM, but not quite for their work on Oz. The film was nominated for six awards, but only won three – Best Original Song for “Over the Rainbow,” Best Score and an honorary Juvenile Oscar for Judy Garland. Victor Fleming, who historically directed two films that year, did win Best Director after all, for (you guessed it!) Gone with the Wind, which was nominated for a record-setting thirteen awards, winning 10, including Best Picture. Notably, Hattie McDaniel became the first-ever Black Oscar winner for the role of Mammy in the film.
In the end, The Wizard of Oz was considered a critical and commercial failure.
Legacy
The Wizard of Oz would get a second chance at life when MGM sold its television rights to CBS in 1955, after the film was re-released. From 1956 to 1999, CBS would show the film once a year to homes across America. This became a tradition for many families, who would look forward to this screening every year. These annual showings were often paired with cast reunions, usually Bert Lahr, Margaret Hamilton and Ray Bolger, that would air alongside the telecast. These yearly viewings turned Oz from a modest failure to an overwhelming success. Oz is now featured on nearly every film reviewer’s “Greatest Movies of All Time” list, garnering praise for the music, performances and the technicolor technology.
Paper advertisement for CBS’s Ford Star Jubilee, the first televised broadcast of the film. From The Wizard of Oz: The Official 50th Anniversary Pictorial History.
The film successfully catapulted Judy Garland into superstar status. “Over the Rainbow” became sacred for her fans; a battle cry for the difficult life she lived. It was one of the last songs she performed before her untimely death at age 47 in 1969. Garland lived an extremely difficult life and, unfortunately, I do not have time to get into that in this post. What I can tell you is: Despite her many hardships, Judy Garland was also a loving mother, an activist and, in my opinion, the greatest performer who ever lived. Liza Minnelli, Garland’s daughter, has said many times that her mother did not want to be seen as a tragic figure, so I will honor that and refrain from making her one.
Ray Bolger and Judy Garland singing “If I Only Had a Brain” in 1963 when Bolger appeared on the short-lived The Judy Garland Show. The cast remained great friends, especially Bolger and Garland, who knew each other before the film and stayed close friends for 30 years after. From The Wizard of Oz: The Official 50th Anniversary Pictorial History.
The Wizard of Oz would gain fame elsewhere: in the gay community. Judy Garland was one of the few stars who not only accepted her gay audience but relished it. The Stonewall Riots happened the night of Garland’s funeral; many of the rioters were mourners. The phrase “friend of Dorothy” was a safe way for gay people to identify each other. The pride flag is, famously, a Rainbow. To learn more, Queer Oz by Tison Pugh explores the story’s significance to the gay community.
Further adaptations have been based not on Baum’s novel, but on this film. The Broadway musical by Stephen Schwarz and Winnie Holzman, and the novel by Gregory MacGuire, Wicked, tell the story of the witches of Oz before the events of the film. The first part of the film adaptation starring Ariana Grande as Glinda and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba comes out in November of 2024. The opening credits of The Wizard of Oz, “…this story has given faithful service to the Young in Heart; and Time has been powerless to put its kindly philosophy out of fashion. To those of you who have been faithful to it in return … and to the Young in Heart … we dedicate this picture.” At 85 years old, The Wizard of Oz still electrifies audiences. No matter how you feel about this film, I hope this blog, and the American Heritage Center’s collections, can give you a greater appreciation for the film and its production as it celebrates this milestone anniversary.
Special thanks to Aljean Harmentz, for The Making of The Wizard of Oz, Oz historian Victoria Calamito (@theozvlog on social media) for her “Oz Myths Series,” which helped me source some material, and YouTuber Be Kind Rewind for providing me a clear guide for this research. I also used several Judy Garland biographies to inform this research: Get Happy by Gerald Clarke, Judy: Portrait of an American Legend by Thomas Watson and Bill Chapman, and Me and My Shadows by Judy’s daughter, Lorna Luft.
A posthumous thank you to the incomparable Buddy Ebsen, the first Tin Man, who, despite not appearing in the final film, provided ample material about the film and his life to the American Heritage Center.
And to my mother, for taking me to Oz for the very first time.
Post contributed by AHC Archives Aide Rhiannon Skye McLean.
Discover More About Buddy Ebsen’s Legacy
Want to learn more about Buddy Ebsen beyond his brief but significant role as the original Tin Man? Explore our online exhibit “The Entertaining Life of Buddy Ebsen” on Virmuze, which showcases the remarkable 70-year career of this versatile entertainer.
The Atlantic / by Eliot A. Cohen / Jun 12, 2025 at 8:39 AM
Benito Mussolini took a keen interest in Roman archaeology; that did not make Roman archaeology a bad thing. President Donald Trump has ordered a parade in honor of the 250th birthday of the United States Army, which does not make the parade a bad thing. But how the parade is being handled, together with the administration’s use of the Army in improper ways, is disturbing.
The United States Army deserves a celebration, as do the other armed services during their upcoming birthdays. Tens of millions of Americans have passed through the Army’s ranks, and something close to a million have died in the line of duty, while many more were wounded or taken prisoner, or suffered extraordinary hardships. We owe them a lot.
The administration, however, is orchestrating a parade not to honor service, but to celebrate power. Tanks and infantry fighting vehicles will tear up the capital’s streets as helicopters thrash overhead. Tough-guy stuff, in other words, designed to show the world that we are, in the much-overused word of the secretary of defense, lethal.
There are ironies here. The ironmongery on display is old technology, albeit continually updated and improved. The Abrams tank was designed in the 1970s and first entered service in 1980, and the Bradley fighting vehicle came online a year later. The wheeled Stryker fighting vehicle is a relative youngster, having entered service in 2001. The first Black Hawk transport helicopter entered service in 1979, and the Apache attack helicopter in 1986. Some really modern military hardware might include a flock of hundreds of drones, but that doesn’t provide the same kind of visual for a civilian population that has seen the aerial displays at Disney World. Inadvertently, what is being put on display is the Army’s repeated modernization failures as much as its successes.
Nor is this hardware relevant to the strategic choices the Trump administration has avowed, leaving Europe and the Middle East and focusing on the Indo-Pacific. Tanks will not persuade China to keep the People’s Liberation Army Navy behind the first island chain. This is about preening for the American public and indulging a kind of juvenile fascination with big, noisy armored vehicles.
Trump and his appointees do not understand this country’s real strengths. If they did, they would not attempt to destroy the great research universities that have done so much to create the scientific base that has been indispensable to America’s military power. They do not know, because they are exceptionally ill-informed, that it was the mobilization of scientific personnel from America’s universities by Vannevar Bush (of MIT) and James B. Conant (president of Harvard) that helped give the United States its technological edge during World War II.
If the draft-evading president and disgruntled former National Guard major running the Department of Defense better understood the American military, they would know that by sending National Guardsmen (and now Marines) to deal with riots when neither the governor of the state nor the mayor of the city concerned want them, they are courting danger. They would not promise, as Trump has, the use of “heavy force” against protesters. They would not, in other words, anticipate, almost with glee, the prospect of Americans in uniform shooting their fellow citizens. For that matter, they would know that deploying thousands of military personnel to the southern border disrupts training for war, which they supposedly value highly.
The Army reportedly wanted this parade. It is, of all the services, the one that is keenest to be identified with the American people, the most wounded when it feels rejected by or distanced from them. The other services have always preferred volunteers in wartime and usually get them; the Army is, ultimately, the most representative service. One can understand the desire to observe this milestone, particularly after the debilitating defeat the United States suffered in Afghanistan and its equivocal success in Iraq. In some ways, the Army is making a bid for reassurance here.
No matter: A parade on this anniversary should remind the American people of how the Army won our independence, preserved our Union, crushed a rebellion fought in the name of slavery, and liberated large parts of Europe and Asia. A worthy parade would include storied units whose heritage goes back to the founding of the country. Soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Regiment, the “Old Guard,” established in 1784, should march by, as might other, even older, units such as the 101st Field Artillery Regiment of the Massachusetts Army National Guard, the “Boston Light Artillery,” founded in 1636.
Famous and familiar units—the 1st Division (the “Big Red One”) and the 101st Division (the “Screaming Eagles”)—will no doubt be represented. But so, too, should units that capture, yes, the diversity of the American military. Soldiers representing the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, which was composed of free Black Americans, and some of the units of U.S. Colored Troops, who made up about a fifth of the Union Army by the end of the Civil War, should be there. Abraham Lincoln’s words, written in 1863, might be recalled: “And then, there will be some black men who can remember that, with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation; while, I fear, there will be some white ones, unable to forget that, with malignant heart, and deceitful speech, they have strove to hinder it.” (President Trump might reflect on those words before renaming American bases for secessionist officers who betrayed their allegiance to the Constitution.)
The Oneida and Stockbridge Indians who served alongside fellow Americans fighting for independence from Britain should be represented, among the many Native Americans from tribes across the country who proudly fought for the United States. And the extraordinary 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which was composed of second-generation Japanese Americans, many of whose parents were then interned in camps in the Southwest, and yet which became one of the most highly decorated units in the Army during the Second World War.
The Army, throughout its history, has been the great equalizer. As the sociologist Charles Moskos once pointed out, in the 1950s and ’60s it was one of the few institutions in which Black men were routinely giving orders to white ones. The experience of common military service was humbling for some, elevating for others, and helped forge a common identity. We should honor that, as we honor the work of liberation that has so often been part of the Army’s mission.
The Army has much to celebrate—its history, its values, its accomplishments. Fetishizing its killing instruments, shutting down the capital’s streets for tanks, and threatening protesters with violence is as wrong as it is deeply ignorant. Worse, it will undermine the tribute a grateful American public should properly pay to those who have, over the centuries, defended our freedom with blood and sweat and brought that same inestimable gift to many others around the world.
Saturday, June 7, 2025
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Dept. Q – Season 1 Episode 1 Recap & Review
29 May 2025 by Greg Wheeler
The Stray Bullet
Episode 1 of Dept Q begins with a crime scene being examined by officers. However, things soon take a turn for the worst when a masked man arrives and shoots all of them. DCI Carl Morck is among them and as the killer looks over him, Carl loses consciousness.
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However, he’s still alive and survives this near-fatal incident. His fellow officer, Hardy, is also still alive but he’s paralyzed and in hospital for the foreseeable future.
Carl is not happy about the mandatory therapy he has to attend and flippantly brushes over the after-effects of this with his therapist, Rachel. Carl is not sleeping, he has anxiety and he also seems to have a superiority complex too.
Elsewhere, we meet a prosecutor called Merritt Lingard. She’s right in the midst of handling the case involving a husband on trial for killing his wife. The evidence is quite substantial against him, Merritt is overly emotional and hot-headed. Merritt walks right into the trap of allowing Finch to empathize with the jury, convincing them that he’s innocent.
Along with failing the case, Merritt continues to be haunted by the ghosts of her past, stemming from emails and texts she’s receiving from someone threatening her. Merritt also has a brother, William, who’s disabled and is looked after by a carer called Claire while she’s not there.
Spooked by one of her more recent messages, Merritt decides to pack up her stuff and head off with William on a trip together. Unfortunately, she receives a text while on the boat together, telling her she can’t hide.
Back at the station, Carl turns heads when he rocks up ready to return to work. He trades banter with a fiery redhead called Rose, before ripping into the officers on his case, given they have no evidence and no witnesses (despite having one that’s changed their statement at the last second).
Carl looks at all the evidence they’ve got so far and scrutinizes their ineptitude. He immediately points out a McDonalds cup under one of the car’s wheels, demanding they check the CCTV footage from the nearby McDonalds to see if they catch a break with the killer.
While this is going on, the Cabinet Secretary is proposing setting up a new department to look into more cases. Superintendent Moira Jacobson is the one running things here and she’s quick to shoot the proposal down. They’re stretched thin as it is, with barely enough manpower to cover the cases they do have.
However, when she finds out that the department will have its own budget and full control over which cases to be chosen, it certainly piques her interest. And the man she’s thinking of bringing into this? Yep, it’s Carl. He’s going to be investigating Cold Cases from all over the country but he’s not particularly happy about it.
The office is in the basement, and the place is a complete mess. It’s clear now that Moira is using the allocated funds for this new department to beef up the main office, all whilst finding a place to relegate Carl away from the others. He’s not stupid and understands what’s happening here, but he also needs a secretary to help sift through all the files. He wants Rose to help but instead, she brings Akram down, a man who works part-time in IT but wants to move into their department.
Funnily enough, Akram has a fair amount in common with Carl. He’s confident, intelligent and he’s read through many of these Cold Cases. He used to be a police officer back in Syria so he’s well-equipped to handle tough cases and he could be just what Carl needs to make a dent here.
Carl brings him onboard, where Akram sifts through and finds a case they can use. This case happens to be Merritt Lingard’s disappearance. It’s here we learn that she went missing four years back. The last place she was found was on that boat we saw earlier on, and we cleverly learn now that these are two different timelines.
In reality, Merritt is still alive but she’s being kept captive in a steel pressurized tank somewhere secluded.
The Episode Review
After the success of The Queen’s Gambit, Director Scott Frank is back with Dept Q, bringing a great tone and atmosphere already across this extended chapter. The first episode gets off to an excellent start, with two intertwined timelines, and an intriguing introduction to our characters.
The drama involving Carl is a nice way of establishing the stakes and the personal demons affecting our titular character. Meanwhile, Merritt is emotional and clearly this incident with her stalker has become serious, and whoever has her, is clearly not messing about.
The cinematography is great across the board, and the acting is excellent so far too. This one is definitely shaping up to be a great watch but we’ll have to wait and see where this one goes next.
Next Episode
You can read our full season review for Dept Q here!
Episode Rating
(4.5)
4.5
CategoriesDrama, thriller, TV Shows
1 thought on “Dept. Q – Season 1 Episode 1 Recap & Review”
Cris
31 May 2025 at 6:20 AM
Good recap and I agree all around, and will stick with it.I kept thinking how less goodlooking Matthew Goode is with a beard.And that part of the reason is that it hides his mouth, which, after his eyes, is his best feature.Just my random thoughts.I guess we’ll find out how Merritt got captured and imprisoned.
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