“THE WIZARD OF OZ” Mesmerizes Young and Old all these years later

©Jay Blakesberg/Retna LTD.

The Trylon and Heights Theater’s 1939: Hollywood’s Zenith series continues with perhaps the most iconic American musical ever made: The Wizard of Oz.

Review by Trylon regular Ben Schmidt.

Oz.

The great and powerful film most of us have fond memories of watching…on television. But even on the tube, The Wizard of Oz bursts with magic and charm.

Case in point: summers ago I was staying with an uncle, moving dirt from his backyard to his front yard (a simple tasked I managed to not be very good at). He and I were at the video store one night, looking for something to bring home and watch with the family. While going back and forth about this option or that, I learned that his daughters (ages five and seven at the time) had never seen Oz. That night, they finally did.

Oh, and how pissed they were when it began. All through dinner I’d amped them up–an incredible world, wonderful songs, trees that whip apples at your head. But the opening credit sequence, in black and white of all things, had them feeling duped.

“Just wait,” I said.

And to their credit, they did. Grumpy and bored, they settled in. But I noticed as the tornado began to bear down on Dorothy’s farm, they sat up a bit. And having landed, as Dorothy stepped out from her home into the Technicolor glory of Oz, they were… absolutely… still. From that moment, they were completely taken with it.

The Wizard of Oz is special, able to completely transcend the small screen we all watched it on that evening.

Better to have seen it on TV than never at all. But now here is a chance to see the Wizard in at the beautiful Heights Theatre this Thursday.

The great and powerful deserves nothing less.

The Wizard of Oz screens at the Heights Theater Thursday night at 7:30. Purchase tickets here.

Bookmark the permalink.

Comments are closed.