Wizards of song: Arlen, Harburg, and the cumulative creation of the songs for The wizard of Oz (1939)

The extant sources for the songs in MGM’s The Wizard of Oz -- draft lyrics, studio piano-vocal manuscripts, early screenplays, and other artifacts -- afford fascinating insight into their creation. These heretofore largely untapped materials provide support for my thesis: each song cue within Oz’s final cut -- understood as an individual, fixed "work" -- was created via cumulative authorship along a figurative assembly line. To demonstrate this phenomenon, I trace the evolution of the songs through their sequential developmental stages over the course of the film’s three production phases: Pre-Production, Production, Post-Production. Part I -- "Introduction" -- contains two chapters: Chapter 1 examines the factory-like Hollywood culture in which Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg wrote the Oz songs. The above thesis is presented early on, after which a theoretical discussion explores the argument’s thorny terminology and related concepts: "work," "text," "authorship," and artistic control. This opening chapter also encompasses a review of scholarship, a rationale for the project’s adopted archival approach, and an overview of the surviving sources. Chapter 2 offers a summary of Arlen and Harburg’s pre-Oz careers and outlines the circumstances leading to their assignment for the classic MGM film. Attention then moves to the main body of the dissertation -- Part II, "The Cumulative Creation of the Oz Songs" -- which employs a three-chapter structure that mirrors the film’s tripartite production and its internal stages of the songs’ multi-handed, piecemeal assembly: •Chapter 3 -- PRE-PRODUCTION: Genesis of the Songs (by Arlen and Harburg), Arrangement (by MGM staff), Orchestration (by yet different studio personnel); •Chapter 4 -- PRODUCTION: Prerecording (with orchestra or piano), Shoot to Playback (songs filmed); •Chapter 5 -- POST-PRODUCTION: Creation of Underscoring (by MGM Music Director Herbert Stothart and staff), Continued Development of the Songs (also by Stothart and staff), Previews (including musical editing), Final Cut Released. Part III -- "Conclusion" -- comprises Chapter 6, covering Arlen and Harburg’s post-Oz achievements and the impact of the film’s release print on the songs’ authorship.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical reference