Grey. Everything was just so incredibly grey.
If you grew up watching the 1939 film on a loop every Thanksgiving, you probably remember that jarring transition from the sepia-toned Kansas prairie to the neon explosion of Munchkinland. But the Wizard of Oz beginning is a lot more than just a clever cinematography trick. It’s a masterclass in establishing stakes, even if L. Frank Baum’s original 1900 book and the MGM movie handle it in ways that are, honestly, polar opposites.
In the movie, Dorothy Gale is a frantic teenager trying to save her dog, Toto, from the clutches of the neighborhood’s resident "witch," Miss Gulch. In the book? She’s a much younger child, and the threat isn't a bicycle-riding socialite. It’s the crushing, soul-deadening poverty of the Great Plains.
The Kansas that killed the color
L. Frank Baum wrote the opening of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz with a specific kind of bleakness in mind. He describes Aunt Em and Uncle Henry as having been "burned" by the sun and wind until they were the same shade of grey as the house and the soil. It's grim.
The movie captures this vibe perfectly through sepia tinting. It wasn't actually black and white; it was a process called "sepia-tone" where the film was treated to give it that warm, dusty, antique look. This creates a psychological wall. You're meant to feel as bored and trapped as Dorothy is. When people talk about the Wizard of Oz beginning, they usually mean the storm, but the true brilliance is the twenty minutes of buildup that makes a literal natural disaster feel like an escape.
Uncle Henry doesn't say much in those early scenes. He’s a man broken by the climate.
Why the cyclone actually matters
Let’s talk about the cyclone. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, tornadoes weren't just weather events; they were acts of God that wiped out entire towns without a second of warning. There were no sirens. No weather apps. Just a green sky and a cellar.
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The way Victor Fleming (and the other three directors who touched this movie) shot the Wizard of Oz beginning cyclone sequence remains terrifying even with modern CGI. They used a thirty-five-foot long muslin sock. That’s it. It was a giant tapered cloth tube attached to a gantry and moved across a miniature set of the Kansas farm. They blew compressed air and dust through it to give it that chaotic, swirling texture. It’s tangible. You can feel the grit.
Dorothy gets knocked out by a window frame in the film, which is a major departure from the source material. In the book, she just sits on the bed and waits. She actually falls asleep while the house is flying. It’s a weirdly calm, surreal moment that highlights how different the "original" Dorothy was compared to Judy Garland’s version. Garland’s Dorothy is terrified. Baum’s Dorothy is almost resigned to the absurdity of it all.
The Miss Gulch of it all
Most people forget that the whole reason Dorothy is outside during the storm is because she's distraught over Miss Gulch. This character doesn't exist in the book. Adding her was a stroke of genius by the screenwriters because it provides a "rhyme" for the rest of the story.
If the Wizard of Oz beginning didn't have Miss Gulch, the Wicked Witch of the West would just be a random villain. Instead, she’s a manifestation of a real-world threat. It turns a fairy tale into a psychological journey. You’ve got the farmhands—Hunk, Hickory, and Zeke—who obviously mirror the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion. It’s a bit on the nose, sure, but it gives the opening a layer of emotional depth that a straight adaptation would have lacked.
Did you know that Margaret Hamilton, who played Miss Gulch and the Witch, was actually a sweet former kindergarten teacher? She was so good at being terrifying in those opening minutes that she actually worried she’d scare children for life. She wasn't wrong.
Sepia to Technicolor: The technical "magic"
The moment the house lands is the most famous part of the Wizard of Oz beginning, but how they did it is cooler than the result.
When Dorothy opens the door to look out at Oz, the camera is behind her. But the room she is standing in is still sepia. How? They didn't use a filter. They painted the entire interior of the house, the furniture, and even Dorothy’s double (Bobbie Koshay) in shades of brown and grey.
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Judy Garland was hiding behind the door in her bright blue gingham dress. When the door opened, the "sepia" double stepped out of the frame, and Judy stepped into the shot. It’s a low-tech solution for a high-tech problem. It works because it’s a physical transition. There’s no digital blending. It's just a girl walking from a dead world into a living one.
The things the movie leaves out
If you only know the film, you’re missing some of the darker bits of the Wizard of Oz beginning found in the 1900 novel. For example:
- The house doesn't just land on the Witch. It’s a days-long journey in the air.
- The Munchkins are actually quite old. In the book, they are described as being about the size of Dorothy but with the faces of elderly people.
- Dorothy doesn't have a choice. She can't just wake up. The book treats Oz as a real place, not a dream.
That last point is a huge sticking point for literary purists. The "it was all a dream" ending of the movie makes the Wizard of Oz beginning feel like a fever dream or a concussion-induced hallucination. Baum hated that idea. He wrote thirteen sequels. You can’t exactly have thirteen books worth of adventures if the whole thing was just a bump on the head from a flying window.
Why the "Grey Kansas" trope persists
We see this everywhere now. Think about The Matrix with its green-tinted "real" world versus the bleakness of the machine city. Think about Pleasantville. The Wizard of Oz beginning invented the visual language for "this world is boring, but that world is dangerous."
It also set the standard for the "unreliable narrator." Because Dorothy is a child (or a young teen in the film), we see Kansas through her eyes. To a kid, a farm is a prison. To Aunt Em and Uncle Henry, it’s a livelihood they are desperately trying to protect from the bank and the elements. The film touches on this briefly when Aunt Em tells Miss Gulch what she really thinks of her, but for the most part, the opening is designed to make us want to leave as badly as Dorothy does.
Practical ways to revisit the story
If you’re looking to dive deeper into how this iconic opening came together, there are a few things you can actually do besides just rewatching the movie for the hundredth time.
- Read the first three chapters of the original 1900 book. It takes about 15 minutes. Notice how Baum describes the "greyness" of Aunt Em’s eyes. It’s haunting and puts the movie’s visuals into a whole new perspective.
- Watch the "deleted" opening. There are various scripts and early concepts where the Kansas sequence was much longer and included more singing. Understanding what they cut (like a longer version of "Over the Rainbow") shows how they tightened the pacing to get to the storm faster.
- Compare the 1925 silent film version. It’s bizarre. The Wizard of Oz beginning in that version involves a lot of slapstick comedy and a completely different backstory for Dorothy. It makes you appreciate the 1939 version’s focus on emotional stakes.
- Look at the 1939 shooting script. You can find copies online. Look at the stage directions for the cyclone. It wasn't written as a fantasy; it was written as a horror sequence.
The Wizard of Oz beginning works because it taps into a universal feeling: the desire to be somewhere else, followed by the immediate, terrifying realization that "somewhere else" is a lot more than you bargained for. It turns out that the grey, boring farm wasn't a cage—it was a shield. Once the wind picks up and that shield is gone, the real story starts.
Basically, the next time you see a storm cloud or feel a bit bored with your surroundings, just remember: at least you don't have a Miss Gulch trying to put your dog in a basket.