"The Wizard of Oz" turns 70

It was 70 years ago today that the wind began to switch, the house to pitch, and landed on the Wicked Witch in the middle of the ditch.

On Aug. 25, 1939, the film adaptation of Frank L. Baum’s book The Wizard of Oz blazed brightly on theater marquees across the country for the first time. Since then, the story’s been worked and reworked more often than a Beverly Hills socialite’s face. There was a sequel: Return to Oz, a Michael Jackson/Diana Ross remix: The Wiz, a re-imagined prequel and subsequent musical: Wicked, and, word is, Dakota Fanning’s been tapped to star in a twisted, contemporary version of the film where she’ll play the granddaughter of Dorothy Gale, due out sometime next year.

The original musical, which many of us grew up watching annually, has obviously got some serious legs. But, for us gays, The Wizard of Oz always had a deeper draw which is why our own Flying Monkey is not only named for the movies airborne simians, but was recently cited by the Monkey as being one of the ten most important gay-related movies ever made

First off, let’s just put it out there: Ms. Judy Garland. That she could so flawlessly belt out “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” all the while silently starving because the MGM mucky-mucks wanted her to keep that girlish figure (I’ve seen Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows, I know what’s up) is perhaps the truest testament to her being such a divine diva. Hey, we weren’t always the prettiest or thinnest girls, either!

Judy Garland as "Dorothy"

And then there’s the promise of the Land of Oz, a Technicolor dreamland where you can feel free to be who you are. What gay doesn’t know what it’s like to have grown up in a seemingly black-and-white world where he’s felt stifled? The promise of some place “over the rainbow,” to be free to be gay has driven many a small-town queen from his burg to more accepting urban areas.

Dorothy and the gang try to gain entrance to Emerald City

As a former small-town gay myself — I’m from a one-horse town in Indiana — I was lucky enough to have my “house” — a one-bedroom apartment in Culver City, Calif. — “land” a few blocks away from the studios where Oz was filmed. So I guess it is possible to go over the rainbow after all!

It could be Oz’s empowering message (“You’ve always had the power to go back to Kansas”) that, to be successful, we only need to look inside ourselves that has made the movie so popular with the GLBT community.

Maybe it’s that fabulously bitchy Wicked Witch of the West. Or maybe, like the old witch herself, we’re just lured to those sassy ruby slippers!

Whatever the reason, young people – gay and straight alike – are still seeing the film for the first time some 70 years after its opening weekend. And, in Hollywood time, that’s like 490 years.

Oz fans will get a chance to celebrate the film’s anniversary with a completely re-mastered version scheduled to hit 440 theaters nationwide one night only, Sept. 23 at 7 p.m. So click your heels together three times and then click your mouse to fandango.com or moviefone.com to find a participating theater near you.