I went out with my camera the other day after some rain trying to catch a rainbow. No luck. I know it’s crazy for southern Nevadans who enjoy blindingly intense sunny days about 363 days a year to freak out about a six-hour stretch of rain but one more day of wet weather like that and we may have started growing gills.
Speaking of rainbows, did you know that the American Film Institute voted “Over the Rainbow” the greatest movie song of all time? And the Recording Industry Association of America deemed it the number one song in its “100 Best Songs of the Century” list. And to think MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer tried to cut the song from “The Wizard of Oz” because he thought it made that sequence in the film drag and he had an issue with an MGM star singing in a barnyard.
A reprise of the song later in the film, when Dorothy is locked in the witch’s castle, was shot and then deleted. Dorothy is sobbing her way through the reprise and finally ends with the line that is still in the film, “I’m frightened, Auntie Em, I’m frightened!” at which point the image of Auntie Em in the witch’s crystal ball turns into the cackling witch at her most terrifying. According to an NPR interview that’s the image that even Margaret Hamilton, the actress who played the witch, said was just too much.
Kudos to Toto for his stupendous performance, and keep those rainbows coming, Dorothy, maybe next time I'll catch one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhzbzwPNgXA
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