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So what is it for you?
The winged monkeys? Elmira Gulch and that bicycle? The Wicked Witch setting the Scarecrow on fire?
Or was it the Lollipop Guild? Dorothy singing "Over the Rainbow?" Toto escaping from the basket?
Whatever that moment was you loved the most from "The Wizard of Oz," just imagine it happening in high definition on a movie house screen.
On Wednesday at 7 p.m., in honor of the film's 70th anniversary, Penn Cinema will join 448 other theaters throughout the country in a special screening of the movie.
This new version is a digitally re-mastered Blu-ray DVD, which will bring a new intensity to the screen.
While the DVD will be available to the public on Sept. 29, this will mark the only time the high-def presentation will happen in theaters.
It's being sponsored by NCM Fathom, Warner Home Video and Turner Classic Movies.
Film historian Robert Osborne, a host on Turner Classic Movies, will introduce the film and a documentary, "To Oz! The Making of a Classic" will be shown.
The film includes interviews with original Munchkin actors, an audio outtake of "If I Only Had a Brain" with Ray Bolger and Judy Garland, home movie footage and a behind-the-scenes look at how artist and craftsmen at MGM created the music, special effects and costumes.
When "The Wizard of Oz" was released in 1939, it got good reviews and did OK at the box office, but wasn't considered a huge hit.
It was nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture, but 1939 was an incredible year in film and it was up against a slew of great movies, including "Dark Victory," "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," "Wuthering Heights" and the winner, "Gone with the Wind," which, amazingly enough, was directed by the same man who directed "The Wizard of Oz," Victor Fleming.
What turned "The Wizard of Oz" into an iconic movie was television.
It was first televised in 1956. Then, beginning in 1959 and continuing through 1991, "The Wizard of Oz" became an annual television event. (Since 1991, it's been telecast more than just once a year).
Kids eagerly awaited the telecast, following the story of Dorothy Gale and her journey to the wonderful world of Oz, where witches, both good and bad, ruled.
Dorothy, in her quest to get home to Kansas, meets up with a Scarecrow, a Tin Man and a Cowardly Lion and must follow the Yellow Brick Road through the strange land, where apple trees talk and monkeys have wings.
The Library of Congress named "The Wizard of Oz" the most-watched film in history and the American Film Institute voted "Over the Rainbow" the greatest movie song of all time.
So many moments and scenes in the movie have become iconic, from the Wicked Witch spelling out "Surrender Dorothy" in the sky, to her being drenched with water and yelling "I'm melting," to the Cowardly Lion getting a beauty makeover and to Dorothy coming to realize, as she wakes from her dream, that there's no place like home.
It's a movie we love and know by heart and are always ready to see again so we can love it all over again.
"The Wizard of Oz"
Wed. 7 p.m. $10
Penn Cinema, 541 Airport Road
Lititz, 626-7720
www.penncinema.com
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