Action As The Song Occurs
As the song progresses, the whole group seems to hear it—they skip toward the Emerald City in time to the music.
After the verse, the underscore switches to the witch's theme, as the film cuts to the witch's castle, where she jumps on her broomstick and takes off for the Emerald City herself.
Cutting back to the entrance to the Emerald City, the group of four approaches the city gate. The verse of the song is reprised, and then is closed by a single line instrumental from "We're Off to See the Wizard" just as Dorothy (Judy Garland) rings the bell.
This song is one of several in the film presumably intended to speak to its American audience, which by then was ten years into the Great Depression.
According to the CD liner notes, the choir was a studio group consisting of the MGM orchestra and two individual groups called The Debutantes and The Rhythmettes.
The final line in the film version, "March up to the gate and bid it open", is rendered in an outtake as "March up to that gate..."
Read more about this topic: Optimistic Voices
Famous quotes containing the words action, song and/or occurs:
“Let those who go home tell the same story of you:
Of action with a common purpose, action
None the less fruitful if neither you nor we
Know, until the moment after death
What is the fruit of action.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“Lest all the song notes
pause and break
across a blood-stained throat
gone songless,
turn back.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“My old Father used to have a saying that “If you make a bad bargain, hug it the tighter”; and it occurs to me, that if the bargain you have just closed [marriage] can possibly be called a bad one, it is certainly the most pleasant one for applying that maxim to, which my fancy can, by any effort, picture.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)