NEW ROCHELLE, NY — The Wizard of Oz will be shown in the New Rochelle Public Library’s summer series of family films, on Monday, July 24 at 6:00 pm. The 1939 musical stars Judy Garland as Dorothy, a young girl from Kansas who is swept away by a tornado with her dog Toto. Following the Yellow Brick Road to the Land of Oz, she befriends Scarecrow (Ray Bolger), Tin Man (Jack Haley) and the Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr), who join her in finding the Emerald City. The movie was based on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, written by L. Frank Baum and originally published on May 17, 1900.
The MGM film, now an icon of American culture, was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, but lost to Gone with the Wind. It won Oscars in two other categories, including Best Original Song for “Over the Rainbow” and Best Original Score by Herbert Stothart. The film is in both black and white and Technicolor, and runs 102 minutes. It will be shown on the big screen of the air-conditioned Ossie Davis Theater.
The library’s family film series will continue on Monday, July 31st with the showing of Hugo. The 2011 Oscar-winning film was based on the Caldecott Medal-winning historical fiction picture book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, by Brian Selznick. It is about a boy who lives alone in the Gare Montparnasse railway station in Paris in the 1930s.