"Gone With the Wind" - yea or nea?

drednm · Post by **drednm** » Sat May 21, 2011 8:55 am

You're right, Bob. The era of BIG NOVEL BECOMES BIG FILM is pretty much gone. Getting the right Scarlett was not the only hurdle in bringing this sprawling novel to the screen. GWTW was a phenomenon even if parts of the novel were left off the screen.

Today we have CULT COMIC BOOK BECOMES BIG FILM..... not quite the same.

Richard P. May · Post by **Richard P. May** » Sat May 21, 2011 9:16 am

On top of the statements made above, put it in context of when it was made and released.
After all the hundreds of wonderful movies made in the first ten years of the sound era, all of a sudden we come along with a 3 3/4 hour Technicolor movie, based on a tremendous best selling book of three years earlier.
It would have been like watching an ordinary film, and all of a sudden here is an unprecidented quality of production.
Not like the story or characters: blame that on Margaret Mitchell and the book. Selznick & Co. captured the essence of all of them. To do the entire book, with several back-stories, would have made a 12 hour movie.Yes, the second half, running two hours, drags in comparison with the opening 100 minutes, but again we are talking about a film made 72 years ago, and sensibilties were different then.
I have to say, considering the above notes, it was the top-notch film around for many years.
Adjusted for inflation, it remains the top grossing film ever, by a pretty big margin.

gjohnson · Post by **gjohnson** » Sat May 21, 2011 9:19 am

Say Louie, don't ever bother watching THE SOPRANOS. The lead character, Tony, is a real monster throughout the series - no sympathy for when he gets whacked in the final fade out....

I never knew such a high-minded criterion was the basis for everything we watched. Literature is filled with flawed human beings.....better start sweeping out the libraries.

Post by **Mike Gebert** » Sat May 21, 2011 9:23 am

"Re the novel, we're kind of evaluating the film out of context in the sense that 1939 audiences all had read the novel (or so it seems) and Selznick's challenge was to bring the essence, mood, etc of the novel to the screen."

Yes, I am, since I don't live then.

Certainly, it's more watchable and enjoyable than many big novels adapted to screen, though I'm not convinced that Ben-Hur, Forever Amber, King's Row, Magnificent Obsession, the collected works of Edna Ferber, etc. represent the highest bar.

It's not as good as the movies made from many small novels such as The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, Frankenstein, Pylon, or Topper....

LouieD · Post by **LouieD** » Sat May 21, 2011 9:26 am

gjohnson wrote:Say Louie, don't ever bother watching THE SOPRANOS. The lead character, Tony, is a real monster throughout the series - no sympathy for when he gets whacked in the final fade out....

I've watched the Sops and Tony doesn't get whacked at the fade out, you are projecting.

I never knew such a high-minded criterion was the basis for everything we watched. Literature is filled with flawed human beings.....better start sweeping out the libraries.

I agree, but first let's destroy every Alice Faye film.

Frederica · Post by **Frederica** » Sat May 21, 2011 11:01 am

Mike Gebert wrote: It's not as good as the movies made from many small novels such as The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, Frankenstein, Pylon, or Topper....

And yet, I'll watch GWTW in a heartbeat over any of the films you've listed. And read GWTW the novel before the other source novels (although The Big Sleep runs a close second). Maybe that's because it's a silly women's film based on a silly women's book.

Post by **Mike Gebert** » Sat May 21, 2011 11:22 am

I don't believe women's pictures are by definition silly; on the contrary, I would rank such women's pictures as Barbed Wire, The Stranger's Return, Man's Castle, All That Heaven Allows, The Philadelphia Story,* A Woman's Face, Notorious, Letter From an Unknown Woman, etc. etc. as among the greatest of all films.

GWTW Is a great production, and at times a very fine film (and at other times lumpy pulp), but it's just not one that I have affection for. The book I can't speak to.

* Pushing the definition, but compared to the movie it's most like-- Holiday-- it's much more of the woman's picture than that is, anyway.

Michael O'Regan · Post by **Michael O'Regan** » Sat May 21, 2011 11:30 am

Well, did you guys know that Val Lewton dissuaded Victor Fleming from shooting a dining table sequence with two grapefruits in line with Leigh's breasts??

drednm · Post by **drednm** » Sat May 21, 2011 11:38 am

I wasn't saying women's pictures were silly... I was paraphrasing Gable and Howard, neither of whom wanted to make the film.

gjohnson · Post by **gjohnson** » Sat May 21, 2011 11:41 am

LouieD wrote: I've watched the Sops and Tony doesn't get whacked at the fade out, you are projecting.

It you get out your blu-ray edition and watch it on your HD IMAX screen and slow the speed down to the last two frames before the final fade you can clearly see a bullet zip across the cafe and tear into Tony's skull for a happy, moralistic ending to an 8 year blood-soaked rampage.

By the way, stay away from THE LITTLE FOXES as Bette Davis is an unrepentant bitch to the very end. You wouldn't like it....no sympathy there. Although I hear there are those who absurdly place it among the greatest dramas of all times. Some people have no taste...

LouieD · Post by **LouieD** » Sat May 21, 2011 11:54 am

gjohnson wrote:By the way, stay away from THE LITTLE FOXES as Bette Davis is an unrepentant bitch to the very end. You wouldn't like it....no sympathy there. Although I hear there are those who absurdly place it among the greatest dramas of all times. Some people have no taste...

The Little Foxes is a wonderful film. Gone With the Wind and Vivian Leigh's performance in it, suck.

silentkermy · Post by **silentkermy** » Sat May 21, 2011 4:18 pm

i think it had great acting but i didnt care so much for the charecters wich is why i dont watch it

Ray Faiola · Post by **Ray Faiola** » Sat May 21, 2011 5:46 pm

The 1939 music Oscars were a mess. WIZARD OF OZ was nominated for Best Original Score (Stothart) when it should have been in the Scoring category. OF MICE AND MEN was nominated for best Scoring when it should have been in the Original Score category. Same for STAGECOACH, which won the Best Original Score award though it was a committee job of adaptation and interpolation. Max Steiner was nominated for two Best Original Score awards - GONE WITH THE WIND and DARK VICTORY. Perhaps if he'd only been nominated for WIND he would have won.

In any event, Maxie had his revenge in 1944 when he was the only Oscar winner for Selznick's outstanding SINCE YOU WENT AWAY.

Oh, and IMHO GONE WITH THE WIND is a masterpiece.

Post by **Christopher Jacobs** » Sat May 21, 2011 7:37 pm

I first saw GONE WITH THE WIND when my 8th grade class went as a group at a special rate in the newly-opened "luxury theatre of the 70s" (this was 1968, mind you). Of course it was in "70mm new screen splendor and stereophonic sound," although I didn't really notice the image cropping at the time but could notice some audio ambience changes here and there. At age 14, it instantly became my favorite film, and could not imagine any film being better, even being annoyed that BEN-HUR had won 11 Oscars while GWTW had won only 10 (I hadn't seen BEN-HUR since I was about 5 or 6). Then I saw a BEN-HUR reissue a few years later in high school and decided it was worth at least a tie with GWTW (and even by that time recognized that the projectionist had forgotten to put the anamorphic lens on for one reel!). Over the years I made it a point to see GONE WITH THE WIND theatrically each time it came back to town, which seemed to be every couple of years until video came along, and it's still the film I've probably seen more times in 35mm than any other (at least 10). The best theatrical print I think I saw was the 1989 anniversary reissue when it played at our dollar theatre, also the most memorable showing, as it was while I was a theatre manager and had a private midnight screening for myself and a few employees, which was also one of the last times the old theatre's curtain motor still functioned--all automatically for beginning, intermission, and end.

It's no longer my all-time favorite film, but like CASABLANCA, MALTESE FALCON, and the rest of the classic canon, it's like an old friend that is great fun to revisit. I always found Scarlett O'Hara a strong-willed character who gradually changed from being spoiled to being able and willing to manage on her own -- quite against the common stereotype for Hollywood female leads for quite a long time. The film's spectacle and production values remain impressive to this day if some of its other attitudes now seem somewhat dated at times. And lest this thread devolve into another on Hollywood racism, in 1939 and even in 1968, GONE WITH THE WIND had remarkably progressive treatment of its black characters (with the possible exception of Butterfly McQueen, although she was primarily the comic relief in any case and even she has some poignant moments). Lesley Howard was adequate but his Ashley is always a background character to Rhett and Gable was excellent.

In other words, yup, I still like it.

--Christopher Jacobs
http://hpr1.com/film
http://www.und.edu/instruct/cjacobs
http://www.und.edu/instruct/cjacobs/Old ... BluRay.htm

Changsham · Post by **Changsham** » Sat May 21, 2011 7:56 pm

I have owned the VHS, the DVD and BluRay versions of GWTW and seen it on TV, TCM and in the cinema a long time ago. My only annoyance with it now is that my wife wants to watch it again and again all the time. The BluRay version is stunning though and is a must own.

syd · Post by **syd** » Sat May 21, 2011 9:00 pm

"Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn".

LouieD · Post by **LouieD** » Sat May 21, 2011 9:01 pm

syd wrote:"Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn".

I hear ya. Nice to know 3 people liked eggs though.

CliffordWeimer · Post by **CliffordWeimer** » Sat May 21, 2011 10:17 pm

I voted for "great" although the correct answer is "very good". There's no sense trying to refute the guy who dismisses the film and Miss Leigh's performance (and character) so easily and with such a lack of vocabulary, though. He can go watch whatever it is he finds to be better films than this one.

It's a fine film, yes a product of the studio system, and a far different film than one that would've been made five years earlier or later. Yes, Scarlett is unsympathetic (she's worse in the book, by the way). But she gets her comeuppance in the final reel, doesn't she, finally finding her true love when it's too late. What is more heartbreaking than that.

Changsham · Post by **Changsham** » Sat May 21, 2011 10:23 pm

CliffordWeimer wrote:
It's a fine film, yes a product of the studio system, and a far different film than one that would've been made five years earlier or later. Yes, Scarlett is unsympathetic (she's worse in the book, by the way). But she gets her comeuppance in the final reel, doesn't she, finally finding her true love when it's too late. What is more heartbreaking than that.

Most women I know that are aware of this film love Scarlett. She's like some kind of anti-heroine to them.

LouieD · Post by **LouieD** » Sun May 22, 2011 4:21 am

CliffordWeimer wrote:There's no sense trying to refute the guy who dismisses the film and Miss Leigh's performance (and character) so easily and with such a lack of vocabulary, though.

I didn't know there was a written exam to see who could be in the hierarchy of movie lover? Thanks for being such a pompous ass. It would appear to most, or those with a sense of humor which it apparently you lack in abundance, that my inclusion of the I LIKE EGGS option, would show this poll was NOT a scientific one.

Harlett O'Dowd · Post by **Harlett O'Dowd** » Sun May 22, 2011 9:03 am

bobfells wrote:Re the novel, we're kind of evaluating the film out of context in the sense that 1939 audiences all had read the novel (or so it seems) and Selznick's challenge was to bring the essence, mood, etc of the novel to the screen. Today most of us have not read the novel - me included although years ago I read the first 50 pages and liked it - and we're judging the film on a different basis. Nothing wrong with that but it helps to remember Selznick's priorities at the time. The story may make us wonder what all the excitement was about but it was a huge bestseller.

Both the film and the novel are great. I agree with others in that the film *really* needs to be seen on a big screen to be effective (ditto Oklahoma!, The Lord of the Rings, etc.)

Both are miracles of a hodgepodge that somehow all works well together. Mitchell's novel was a reminder to Depression-era folks that the country in general and Atlanta/the South in particular had lived through worse and survived.

The novel, moreso than the film, shows Scarlett to be less a b*tch than a metaphor for - again - the country in general and the South/Atlanta in particular. She is the same age as Atlanta and exhibits many of our nation's traits - she's enterprising, hard-working, smart, spoiled, determined, less cultured than she thinks, pig-headed, unconquerable, inconsistantly racist...

Mitchell, having been a newspaper reporter, also does an amazing job for the time at describing the seige of Atlanta and what it was like on the Confederate homefront during and after the war. Few historical novels prior to GWTW are so rich in detail and have that wonderful blending of well-done research and great storytelling.

And yes, she also wrote a convoluted, melodramatic soapy romance as a frame on which to hang the historical/metaphorical material she was really interested in exploring. Yet it works so much better as a whole unit than, say, Cameron's romance for Titanic.

Both the novel and, more importantly, the film is also a cautionary post WWI, pre-WWII anti-war screed - as in - do we *really* want to poke our noses into Europe's affairs again?

The film, as a whole, does an amazing job of simplifying the plot down to the essentials (we lose Scarlett's children from her first two marriages, her friendship with cracker veteran Will Benteen, Careen's entry into the convent, etc.) Like OZ, it's also one of those troubled productions where, even though on repeat viewings you notice the holes and corner-cutting (no masking on any of the windows - blinds are simply pulled) - and yet it doesn't matter.

For me, it's the best Hollywood product of all time. Better films have come out of Hollywood, but for a moviegoing experience where you lose yourself and go for the risd, there is nothing better than GWTW.

And is Scarlett a b*tch? Well, yes. But so are we all. How strangely wonderful that at the height of Breen's tenure we should have a movie heroine - penned by a woman - who is perhaps the most accurate reflection of who we are and not the cardboard hero/villains of standard Hollywood fare of the time.

drednm · Post by **drednm** » Sun May 22, 2011 9:24 am

A major element probably wisely omitted in the film is the scene where the guys go to clear out the squatters (carpetbaggers?) who hassled Scarlett. The KKK as heroes is sort of vaguely dealt with. I can't remember is they even label the group of men.

It's also the only scene in the film in which Gable, Howard, Leigh, and De Havilland all appear together.

WaverBoy · Post by **WaverBoy** » Mon May 23, 2011 12:55 am

LouieD wrote:
gjohnson wrote:By the way, stay away from THE LITTLE FOXES as Bette Davis is an unrepentant bitch to the very end. You wouldn't like it....no sympathy there. Although I hear there are those who absurdly place it among the greatest dramas of all times. Some people have no taste...
Gone With the Wind and Vivian Leigh's performance in it, suck.

If you think Vivian Leigh's performance sucks in GWTW, I'm afraid there's absolutely no hope for you. The men in white coats will be knocking on your door any minute.

LouieD · Post by **LouieD** » Mon May 23, 2011 6:03 am

WaverBoy wrote:If you think Vivian Leigh's performance sucks in GWTW, I'm afraid there's absolutely no hope for you. The men in white coats will be knocking on your door any minute.

HA! Sure..................................

Post by **Mike Gebert** » Mon May 23, 2011 6:46 am

Both the novel and, more importantly, the film is also a cautionary post WWI, pre-WWII anti-war screed - as in - do we *really* want to poke our noses into Europe's affairs again?

I'm usually pretty good at this kind of stuff but I'll be damned if I can see how Gone With the Wind is advising me not to get involved in Czechoslovakia.

Michael O'Regan · Post by **Michael O'Regan** » Mon May 23, 2011 7:41 am

Yeah....well....I'll bet none of you knew that about Val Lewton...

Harlett O'Dowd · Post by **Harlett O'Dowd** » Mon May 23, 2011 8:42 am

Mike Gebert wrote:
Both the novel and, more importantly, the film is also a cautionary post WWI, pre-WWII anti-war screed - as in - do we *really* want to poke our noses into Europe's affairs again?
I'm usually pretty good at this kind of stuff but I'll be damned if I can see how Gone With the Wind is advising me not to get involved in Czechoslovakia.

Next thing you'll say is that the whole "no place like home" tag to OZ is not an isolationist mantra.

Michael O'Regan · Post by **Michael O'Regan** » Mon May 23, 2011 11:47 am

Harlett O'Dowd wrote:
Mike Gebert wrote:
Both the novel and, more importantly, the film is also a cautionary post WWI, pre-WWII anti-war screed - as in - do we *really* want to poke our noses into Europe's affairs again?
I'm usually pretty good at this kind of stuff but I'll be damned if I can see how Gone With the Wind is advising me not to get involved in Czechoslovakia.
Next thing you'll say is that the whole "no place like home" tag to OZ is not an isolationist mantra.

"Gone With the Wind" - yea or nea?

Your opinion of "Gone With The Wind"