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I obviously started with the infamous Munchkin suicide from The Wizard of Oz and was amazed by how many people taped themselves examining the events a la Sherlock Holmes. Fortunately the whole thing is just a myth; it was proved that it's a bird and not a person. But this led me to feel sorry for the poor bird who was kept as an ornament inside a studio while they shot the movie (if studio bosses were mean to Judy Garland, I shudder thinking how they treated stock actors, extras and animals).
My search didn't lead me too far away from Emerald City because it was in 1939 when the American Humane Association began monitoring how animals were treated after a controversial
sequence in Jesse James where a horse was killed after falling off a cliff.
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Fortunately things have changed since (except in Lars von Trier land but that's another story...) and now all movies featuring animals have an AHA representative to make sure they stick to the rules. I guess 1939 was more significant in film history than just for the quality of the movies, but for the changes being made inside the industry.
Oh and no animals were harmed in the making of this blog post.