Gone With the Wind

Just look at that poster. No studio in Hollywood would make a poster like that today, unless it was a spoof movie or parody. David O. Selznick didn't care though. He knew he was making the biggest movie ever. He knew he had Clark Gable, "The King", and an all star supporting cast featuring Olivia de Havilland, Leslie Howard, and Thomas Mitchell, and thanks to the publicity bonanza surrounding the casting of Scarlett O'Hara (not just an innovation of the latter 20th century), Vivien Leigh was a star by virtue of just being cast. He knew he had a blank MGM check to adapt the best selling novel ever, an epic in every sense of the word, Margaret Mitchell's "Gone With the Wind", a movie which virtually invented an entire sub-genre: the epic romance. Everything from "Doctor Zhivago" to "The English Patient" owes this movie a huge debt of gratitude. There simply had never been anything as big as "Gone With the Wind".

So, is it actually good or is it just big? That debate still rages to this very day, and I have found myself having to defend it more and more to either ignorant or indifferent so-called "film lovers". Now I don't want to be labeled as a "film snob", but if you love movies, I don't see how you can not at least appreciate a movie like "Gone With the Wind", which is grandly entertaining on virtually every level. The film is as much a part of pop culture history as it is cinematic history, thanks to its eminently quotable screenplay, the soap opera casting process which fascinated an entire nation, and its inclusion on virtually every film critics/organizations "best of" lists. There simply has never been anything else like it. Clark Gable's Rhett Butler carries the film, playing the charlatan/playboy of the South, who is dashing, cunning, and handsome, all a little too much if you ask Scarlett O'Hara. Played by Vivien Leigh, Scarlett is a difficult role, because the part is a hard one to like. Scarlett is conceited, conniving, obnoxious and a brat. You hate her, yet she's on the screen for nearly all of the film's 239 minute running time, so when she launches her famous monologue "As God is my witness.....!" and reinvents herself as the heroine of Tara (her beloved family home) you start to feed more into her strength and cold charm, as she refuses to let the South's losing the war affect her or her family's well being any longer. Of course by doing so she alienates herself from virtually everyone else in Atlanta (by marrying for convienance and employing convicts to help run one of her mills) but by this point the audience likes her, because she's not the spoiled little girl anymore.

It is during this, the latter third of the movie, where, after much flirting and scandalizing, Rhett and Scarlett marry. Their happiness lasts for all of about 20 minutes in the film, before Rhett realizes Scarlett still loves Ashley Wilkes, a defeated and pitiful man, and this enrages him to no end. The shocking "marriage rape" scene, where Rhett forcefully takes Scarlett to his bed results in the birth of their child, Bonnie Blue. However, happiness was just not meant to be for the Butler family, and Bonnie Blue dies in a horse riding accident. Rhett is absolutely devastated, and focuses the majority of his depression on Scarlett, who never really loved the child. Rhett rallies himself though and makes the classic decision to abandon his loveless wife and marriage, leaving her with the "greatest quote ever", "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn." Scarlett again decides to return to Tara and the epic concludes. Until 50 years later when some garbage called "Scarlett", based on an oppurtunistic "sequel" was turned into a mini-series, where Rhett comes back and he and Scarlett live happily ever after, thus negating one of the greatest endings in movie history. Think about, when else does a man leave a woman, and you cheer him on!? Never. Stupid revisionist history. David O. Selznick was one of the true moguls of the time, daring to operate outside of the studio system, snatching up hot properties then forcing studios to give him what he wanted for a piece of the pie. "Gone With the Wind" was his greatest success, grossing an unprecedented (then and now) sum of $75 million in 1939 dollars, which translates to over a billion dollars today, or more than twice the gross of "Titanic". "Gone With the Wind" is also famous for, among other things, Hattie McDaniel becoming the first African American Oscar winner, taking the Supporting Actress prize for her work as the indomitable Mammy. There was also quite a stir when the owners of the movie house the film was to have its gala premiere in in Atlanta forbid McDaniel from attending, due to the Jim Crowe laws which were still in place. At great personal expense Selznick threatened to move the premiere if the owners did not relent, but McDaniel told her Selznick there was no need, his point had been made, and she withdrew from the proceedings. An unfortunate circumstance, but one which just adds to the legend that today is "Gone With the Wind".