Thoughts on 'The Wizard of Oz' at 70

It's impossible to watch "The Wizard of Oz" today without feeling, within minutes, some kind of mystical connection to people you will never know. When Judy Garland sings "Over the Rainbow," there's the sense of participating, just by watching, in some beautiful shared human experience. Yet, when it was released in 1939, the film's ultimate status as a timeless piece of Americana was hardly assured. The reviews were mixed-to-friendly, but not rapturous, and the box office was disappointing.

In any case, I watched the new "The Wizard of Oz" DVD, and it looks crisper than the previous "Wizard" DVD and lusher than the "Wizard" DVD before that. It also looks better coming out of my video projector than it did in theaters when it was re-released in 1998. So the movie is definitely looking good, better than ever. What follows are seven random impressions of "The Wizard of Oz," at 70: Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/29/MORR1ABE1D.DTL&type=entertainment#ixzz0VNfSdWIv

The eye-popping production design, including the Emerald City, looks better than ever in the 70th anniversary editions. It certainly looks better than it did on a black-and-white TV in the 1950s. Photo: © 2009 Turner Entertainment Co.