There's something afoot in this prequel to The Wizard of Oz! We're off to find the answers.
Here’s Why the Famed Ruby-Red Slippers Are Silver in the Wicked Movie
Published on Nov. 19, 2024
There’s a reason why a pair of ruby slippers that Judy Garland wore in The Wizard of Oz was recently valued at a whopping $3.5 million. Sure, the kitten-heeled accessories were just painted red and encrusted with matching sequins. And yeah, they’re not quite one of a kind, as the young star wore multiple pairs during production. (Four are in circulation today, one of which was once stolen from the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, and is now up for auction.) But given that the 1939 film is a timeless classic both over and under the rainbow, the pair of shoes is arguably the most iconic piece of movie memorabilia in history.
The magical slippers do appear in the hotly anticipated big-screen adaptation of Wicked, which tells the tale of Elphaba, the green-skinned Wicked Witch of the West (Cynthia Erivo), and Glinda (aka Galinda), the Good Witch of the North (Ariana Grande), during their years at Shiz University in Oz. We’ve seen the dazzling prequel already, and no doubt The Wizard of Oz fans will delight at all the nods to the classic film. But here’s the colorful foot note: The shoes are a sparkling shade of silver.
What gives? No need to click your heels three times and wish for a private Wicked screening. Just read on for our spoiler-free explanation.
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Why are the ruby-red slippers silver in the Wicked movie?
Because the silver shoes had the power all along! In L. Frank Baum’s children’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz , Dorothy and her house land in Oz, literally crushing the Wicked Witch of the East and metaphorically crushing her sister, the Wicked Witch of the West. The key line from the 1900 novel: “Dorothy looked and gave a little cry of fright. There, indeed, just under the corner of the great beam the house rested on, two feet were sticking out, shod in silver shoes with pointed toes.”
The silver shoes appeared in the earliest versions of The Wizard of Oz script. But in a May 1938 draft, they changed to ruby, purportedly to create a greater contrast with the yellow brick road and to take advantage of the eye-catching properties of Technicolor technology. In other words, those ruby-red slippers served to transport audiences into the magical world of Oz.
“There was something particular about the red and the sparkles,” Turner Classic Movies host Alicia Malone told Entertainment Weekly in 2019. “That particular process made the red stand out even more. The fact that it sparkled, those sequins when she moved her feet and the wand pointing toward her slippers—it’s just such a beautiful image [that] definitely stands out much more than silver slippers would have.”
Still, author Gregory Maguire reverted to the silver shoes for his 1995 prequel novel, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. They’re also silver in the Wicked musical, the adaptation of his work that opened in 2003 on Broadway and is still going strong. However, according to Chris Jamros, a former stage manager of the original Broadway production, there’s a more practical reason for the consistency in color. As he explained in 2015, “because MGM decided to change the shoes to be red in the film, the rights to that scarlet version belong to them.”
Do the ruby-red slippers make an appearance in the Wicked movie?
The cryptic answer: kind of. As in the musical, Elphaba’s paraplegic younger sister, Nessarose “Nessa” Thropp (newcomer Marissa Bode), is in possession of the silver shoes. If you’ve seen the live show, you know that—spoiler alert—the shoes are eventually enchanted to give Nessa the ability to walk.
But there’s one important big-screen distinction: Bode is the first wheelchair user to play the role. While we don’t know how Wicked Part 2 will handle this subplot, we do know that director Jon M. Chu has discussed creating “a fantastical world with a wheelchair user in mind” on his set. And Bode told Variety that the plot point was handled with care.
As for seeing red? Keep those eyes peeled during one of the movie’s many showstopping song-and-dance numbers. The visual is more of a wink-wink cameo than crucial plot development, but fans of the classic movie will still be tickled pink … er, red.
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Sources:
- Smithsonian: “Two Decades After They Were Stolen, Dorothy’s Ruby Slippers Returned to the Scene of the Crime. Will They Stay There?”
- Project Gutenberg: “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”
- EW: “How the ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz became the ultimate Hollywood symbol”
- National Museum of American History: “The Technicolor world of Oz”
- KSDK: “13 little-known facts about the musical ‘Wicked'”
- Deadline: “‘Wicked’ Director Jon M. Chu Talks Creating “Accessibility In Oz” For Disabled Character”
- Variety: “Marissa Bode Teases Nessarose’s Expanded Arc in ‘Wicked’ Films: ‘She’s Not Just the Bratty Little Spoiled Sister'”
- EW: “Wicked director Jon M. Chu previews key scenes: ‘Dancing Through Life,’ Wizard’s lair, and more”
