Beloved Movie to Kick Off Wizard of Oz Convention

Press Release (ePRNews.com) - PORTLAND, Ore. - May 31, 2017 - For one night only the 1939 MGM Wizard of Oz starring Judy Garland comes to the big screen in Portland, Oregon. Cinema21 presents the classic motion picture on at 6:30 pm on Thursday, June 29. This screening of The Wizard of Oz opens the festivities of OzCon International, the longest-running annual Wizard of Oz event.

Emmy Award-winning producer John Fricke will introduce the movie and host a question-and-answer period afterward, along with trivia and prizes.

John Fricke is regarded as the preeminent Judy Garland and MGM Wizard of Oz historian. He has written seven books on these topics. He has lectured widely, from the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles to The Deauville Film Festival in France. Seven of Judy Garland’s DVD motion picture releases, including The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St. Louis, and Easter Parade, feature his commentary tracks.

This screening of The Wizard of Oz opens the festivities of OzCon International, the longest-running annual Wizard of Oz event. OzCon returns to Portland on June 30-July 2 at the Sherton Portland Airport Hotel. Special guests at OzCon include John Fricke; Doug Aberle, animator of the 1985 Disney film Return to Oz; and Inanna McGraw, author of several Oz books.

Adapted from the best-selling children’s book by L. Frank Baum, The Wizard of Oz tells the story of Dorothy Gale (Garland), a Kansas girl, who is swept by a tornado to the magical Land of Oz. On the advice of a Good Witch (Billie Burke), Dorothy journeys to see the great Wizard of Oz (Frank Morgan), who can send Dorothy back home. Along the way she meets a Scarecrow (Ray Bolger), a Tin Man (Jack Haley), and a Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr), and is menaced by the Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton).  The Oscar-winning movie has delighted audiences of all ages for decades and is considered one of the greatest movies ever made.

Advance tickets to the screening of The Wizard of Oz are available at www.cinema21.com

For more information and to register for OzCon see the website at http://www.ozconinternational.com

OzCon International was founded in 1964 as The West Coast Oz Convention by four southern Californians: Blake Maxam, Judy Pike, C. Warren Hollister, and Peter Hanff, as a west coast gathering of members of the International Wizard of Oz Club. That first convention was held at the home of nineteen-year-old Peter Hanff. It was a one-day affair, but proved popular, with more than eighty registrants showing up from not just the west coast, but from across the USA. Eventually the West Coast Oz Convention would expand beyond the USA and the Oz Club to become a truly international convention. Today OzCon International welcomes Oz enthusiasts of all stripes and interests from around the world. It is the longest-running annual Oz event, and regularly features authors, actors, scholars, researchers, and Oz experts of all sorts, who share their knowledge and love of Oz with attendees.