Latest / Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities / Wizard’s Coat

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Wizard’s Coat · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
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  Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
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  Speaker 1: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. We know it by heart.
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  Speaker 1: The iconic lines and songs live inside of us and
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  Speaker 1: connect us back to a time when our wildest dreams
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  Speaker 1: live just over the rainbow. We scowl at the wicked
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  Speaker 1: Witch as she threatens Dorothy and her little dog too.
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  Speaker 1: We chuckle as the munchkins push each other out of
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  Speaker 1: the way to introduce themselves to their young savior, and
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  Speaker 1: we smile as the scarecrow dances his way off his
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  Speaker 1: perch and onto the yellow brick road. While it's become
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  Speaker 1: a beloved part of cinematic history, read today, the film
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  Speaker 1: carries behind it a legacy of conflict, injuries and ballooning
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  Speaker 1: budgets that only pulled in three million dollars during its
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  Speaker 1: box office run in nine well behind a little film
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  Speaker 1: you might have heard of called Gone with the Wind,
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  Speaker 1: which was reported to have grossed almost two hundred million
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  Speaker 1: dollars by the time it left theaters. But after the
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  Speaker 1: success of Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
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  Speaker 1: Hollywood saw Fantasy as the next big thing. MGM pulled
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  Speaker 1: out all the stops for its adaptation of L. Frank
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  Speaker 1: Baum's novel and put Judy Garland, one of the brightest stars,
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  Speaker 1: front and center, surrounded by a who's who of talent,
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  Speaker 1: Margaret Hamilton's as the Wicked Witch of the West, Roger
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  Speaker 1: Boulger as the Scarecrow, and character actor Frank Morgan as
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  Speaker 1: the Wizard himself. Actually he was more than that. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: he played the Wizard, but Morgan also portrayed the carriage driver,
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  Speaker 1: one of the Emerald city guards, and the gatekeeper, you know,
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  Speaker 1: the guy who talks to Dorothy and her companions about
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  Speaker 1: horses of a different color. But there was one role
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  Speaker 1: in the film of special import to Frank Morgan, Professor Marvel,
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  Speaker 1: the fortune teller at the beginning of the story. The
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  Speaker 1: role is small, only on screen for a few minutes,
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  Speaker 1: but there's something special about it that makes it one
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  Speaker 1: of the most magical moments ever captured on film. You
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  Speaker 1: may remember Professor Marvel's costume from the movie, but in
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  Speaker 1: case you can't allow me to jog your memory, he
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  Speaker 1: wore checkered pants, a white ruffled shirt with a high
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  Speaker 1: collar and a wide dark tie. Over his shirt, he
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  Speaker 1: wore a patterned vest and on top of it all,
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  Speaker 1: a long coat. The vest looked like repurposed upholstery from
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  Speaker 1: an old church, the pants and shirt mismatch of eclectic
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  Speaker 1: styles that appeared old even when they were new, and
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  Speaker 1: the coat, well, the coat was a serendipitous find. According
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  Speaker 1: to Mary Meyer, the publicist of the movie at the time,
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  Speaker 1: the coat really brought the whole ensemble together and gave
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  Speaker 1: Professor Marvel a look of lost grandeur. He was a
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  Speaker 1: man with little to his name, and unlike the Scarecrow
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  Speaker 1: or the tin Man, who required custom costumes due to
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  Speaker 1: their technical nature's, Professor Marvel's was a hodgepodge of second
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  Speaker 1: hand scraps. But the coat, the coat needed to be
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  Speaker 1: something just a little bit different from the rest of
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  Speaker 1: the costume. The director wanted the character to wear something
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  Speaker 1: that had once been nice but was now tattered. Rather
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  Speaker 1: than make something new and then weather it, the wardrobe
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  Speaker 1: department just searched thrift shops all over Hollywood for the
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  Speaker 1: perfect coat, and soon enough they found it. It was
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  Speaker 1: a green Prince Albert jacket with wide lapels and long tails.
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  Speaker 1: It was the jacket of a man of stature, at
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  Speaker 1: least it would have been at the turn of the century.
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  Speaker 1: Now it was a hand me down for a fraud
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  Speaker 1: stir in a Hollywood fantasy, and it was perfect. Frank
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  Speaker 1: Morgan arrived at the studio for test shots a few
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  Speaker 1: months before his scheduled filming date. A costume and makeup
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  Speaker 1: people needed reference photos to use when it came time
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  Speaker 1: for him to shoot his scenes. They styled his hair
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  Speaker 1: and dressed him in the various pieces they had acquired
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  Speaker 1: to round out Professor Marvel's unique look, finishing it all
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  Speaker 1: off with that coat. It was on one hot afternoon
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  Speaker 1: when Morgan decided to empty his pockets to lighten his load,
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  Speaker 1: and he came across something. It was a name sewn
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  Speaker 1: into the inside of the jacket pocket. No one could
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  Speaker 1: believe it. The costumer contacted the coats tailor back in
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  Speaker 1: Chicago to verify the discovery, and, as it turned out,
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  Speaker 1: a piece of clothing they owned did in fact belong
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  Speaker 1: to someone intimately tied to the film they were working on.
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  Speaker 1: The ratty coat hanging on Frank Morgan's shoulders had belonged
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  Speaker 1: to a man from New York who had passed away
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  Speaker 1: some years before. He had once advocated for the women's
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  Speaker 1: suffrage movement, and he had given the world fourteen fantastic
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  Speaker 1: tales of people and places living somewhere over the rainbow.
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  Speaker 1: Frank Morgan's coat had been made for the man who had,
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  Speaker 1: in a way given him the most important role of
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  Speaker 1: his career, a man named L. Frank Baum. We've seen
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  Speaker 1: them on TV, mediums who claim they can speak to
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  Speaker 1: the ghosts of deceased loved ones. Perhaps it's a letter
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  Speaker 1: of the alphabet that triggers them, or a smell or
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  Speaker 1: someone's name, whatever it is. The person on the other
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  Speaker 1: side is always astounded by how much the medium claims
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  Speaker 1: to know. You'd think they were really talking to the dead.
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  Speaker 1: We know better now, and we're able to see through
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  Speaker 1: a lot of the techniques. Mediums used to dupe their
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  Speaker 1: audiences how they speak in generalities and convinced the other
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  Speaker 1: person to give up more information without even realizing it.
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  Speaker 1: But at the turn of the century, Hans had fooled
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  Speaker 1: them all. He wasn't a medium, but he had convinced
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  Speaker 1: everyone that he had all the answers. Complicated equations, difficult
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  Speaker 1: words to spell musical riddles. Hans knew it all. He
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  Speaker 1: traveled all over Germany with his translator, Wilhelm von Austin,
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  Speaker 1: right there beside him. Hans was known to gather crowds
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  Speaker 1: of men, women, and children who tried to push him
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  Speaker 1: to the limits of his expertise, and every time he
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  Speaker 1: came out on top, no one could stump him. One man, however,
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  Speaker 1: thought that he could catch him. Dr Oscar Funks was
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  Speaker 1: a psychologist who wasn't convinced of Hans his talents. He
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  Speaker 1: saw something else going on while everyone was distracted by
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  Speaker 1: his big brain. Doctor Funks discovered Hans didn't know anything
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  Speaker 1: at all. I mean, he knew some things, but not
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  Speaker 1: as much as everyone. But Hans, like today's TV mediums,
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  Speaker 1: had mastered the art of cold reading. When he was
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  Speaker 1: close to an answer, he'd watched the person's body language change.
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  Speaker 1: If they tensed up, if their lip twitched, or their
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  Speaker 1: hands shook, he knew he had them right where he
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  Speaker 1: wanted them. He'd give his answer based on that shift,
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  Speaker 1: and over of the time he was right. Doctor funkst
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  Speaker 1: published his findings to better educate the crowds coming to
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  Speaker 1: see Hans perform but Hans didn't care, neither did the
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  Speaker 1: throngs of people coming to see him. He continued to
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  Speaker 1: travel around Germany for several years until his translator died
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen o nine. But some good did arise out
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  Speaker 1: of doctor funkst work. He came to the conclusion that
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  Speaker 1: every person gave off the same body language Hans had noticed.
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  Speaker 1: No matter how hard they trying to suppress it, there
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  Speaker 1: was no way to hide it, and so his work
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  Speaker 1: is still used by comparative psychologists today. When they conduct studies,
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  Speaker 1: they keep their subjects in complete isolation, so they can't
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  Speaker 1: read each other's mannerisms and ticks. In some studies, computers
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  Speaker 1: are used to administer questions and record the answers. Since
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  Speaker 1: they're incapable of emotion. It's called the clever Hants effect. Today,
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  Speaker 1: a commonplace to find it an action is in drug
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  Speaker 1: sniffing dogs used by police. They're often given subconscious cues
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  Speaker 1: by their handlers to find drugs where they don't exist.
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  Speaker 1: But that still leaves a big question unanswered about Hans
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  Speaker 1: and his special skills. If he was so good at
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  Speaker 1: it and made so much money from it, why did
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  Speaker 1: he stop. Why didn't he just hire another translator. The answer,
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  Speaker 1: it turns out, is simple, because Hans couldn't hire anyone.
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  Speaker 1: He couldn't talk, at least not with his mouth. He
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  Speaker 1: gave all of his responses by using his foot, stomping
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  Speaker 1: out the answers to math questions and musical riddles, among others.
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  Speaker 1: He'd been taught to do simple algebra, tell time, read spell,
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  Speaker 1: and calculate for actions. All of this sounds pretty basic,
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  Speaker 1: I know, like something any adult or even a child
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  Speaker 1: could do. So what made Hans so special? It's really simple.
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  Speaker 1: Hans wasn't an adult. He wasn't even a child. Hans,
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  Speaker 1: you see, was a horse, and his translator, Wilhelm von Austin,
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  Speaker 1: was also his trainer. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided
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  Speaker 1: tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on
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  Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting
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  Speaker 1: Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me
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  Speaker 1: Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make
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  Speaker 1: another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
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  Speaker 1: book series, and television show, and you can learn all
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  Speaker 1: about it over at the World of Lore dot com.
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  Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious,