This is the first of a five-part series, adapted from an essay in LIFE‘s The Wizard of Oz: 75 Years Along the Yellow Brick Road, published by Time Home Entertainment and available on newsstands this week. If you or your grandfather were turning 75 next year, you probably wouldn’t start celebrating now. But the curators of classic popular culture love to jump the gun on anniversaries—especially when the artifact in question is the most beloved movie of all time. Seventy-five years ago from now, carpenters were building the sets and actors perusing the script of MGM’s The Wizard of Oz. The 16-year-old Judy Garland might have been honing her rendition of “Over the Rainbow,” which she recorded on Oct. 7, 1938. Shooting began on Oct. 13 and continued into the following March. The Wizard had its premiere on Aug. 12, 1939, at the Strand Theatre in the unlikely city of Oconomowoc, Wis., three days before its Hollywood opening at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. So the movie is really only 74 and, say, five weeks. Nevertheless, the tub-thumping for the picture’s diamond jubilee will become a cheerful corporate din this week. In a 3-D Imax restoration, The Wizard of Oz will invade 318 theaters in 289 cities for a seven-day run, with the big premiere held at the refurbished Chinese Theatre. On Oct. 1, Warner Home Video will release a 3-D/Blu-ray/UltraViolet box set. And did we mention the Time Home Entertainment book? (MORE: Tim Newcomb on the Newly Imaxed Chinese Theatre) It was a book that started it all. L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was a publishing sensation in 1900, generating dozens of sequels. In 1902, Baum wrote the lyrics and libretto for a lavish stage musical that ran on Broadway for 464 performances. The author also turned the books into a traveling show that he narrated, as the Wizard, with the help of actors, film strips and magic-lantern slides. In 1910 came the first movie version, featuring the young Bebe Daniels in the role of Dorothy. In 1925 another … Continue reading Oz Revisited: Why We Still Follow the Yellow Brick Road