On October 3rd, Netflix will offer free instant streaming of The Wizard of Oz.
[PHOTO: Courtesy of Netflix]

For many of us, watching The Wizard of Oz was a childhood rite of passage (and for me, the beginning of months of nightmares starring flying monkeys). As this year marks the 70th anniversary of the release of L. Frank Baum’s rainbow-jumping children’s tale, which debuted at the Grauman’s Chinese Theater in August 1939, there are several of promotional events that should be of interest to fans of this classic film.

For example, tonight the digitally re-mastered Wizard of Oz is being shown in about 400 theaters across the country, and on Sept. 26th the movie will be shown in New York City at the Alice Tully Hall as part of the New York Film Festival.

On Sept. 29th, Warner Bros. kicks things off with the release of new, special digitally re-mastered DVD and Blu-ray “collector’s editions” of the movie. Later that night, New York metro-area residents are invited to a Netflix-hosted live event in New York City’s Central Park to see a concert featuring Jennifer Hudson, that starts at 7:30, followed by a showing of the movie, which will be projected onto a giant inflatable screen.

On October 3, Netflix is offering free instant streaming of the movie for a 24-hour period starting at 9:00 a.m. EST. However, while anyone can watch the movie on their computers by visiting the Netflix website, Netflix subscribers on any unlimited plan (starting at $8.99 per month) can stream the movie in HD on any Netflix enabled device, including some LG TVs, select Blu-ray players from LG and Samsung, Microsoft Xbox 360 videogame consoles, and Roku and TiVo video players/recorder.

For home-video fans, Warner Bros. is releasing re-mastered versions of the movie on DVD and Blu-ray, plus digital downloads and on-demand offerings. There will be special limited and numbered "The Wizard of Oz 70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition" box sets for both DVD ($70) and Blu-ray ($85) that contain 16 hours of bonus features (including some previously unreleased materials) and other goodies. The Blu-ray version was completely re-mastered from the original Technicolor film negatives at a very high resolution—six times that of a standard DVD—accompanied by a Dolby TrueHD soundtrack.

I, for one, will be checking out both the Netflix streaming and Blu-ray versions of the movie in my home theater's 110-inch screen, and reporting on the experiences. I'd love to hear what others think about the newer versions, especially since there have been several previous reissues. But I'm also considering seeing it at a movie theater. If, like me, you've only seen the film on TV, viewing it on a giant screen in a real theater could be an eye-opener. —James K. Willcox