GONE WITH THE WIND: Blu-ray (Selznick International, 1939) Warner Home Video
BEST PICTURE -
1939
Many years ago,
a critic at the New York Times astutely proclaimed, “There are really only two movies in the history of American cinema – Gone With The Wind (1939), and
everything else!” What does – or
rather, can one write that has not already been expounded upon ad nauseam about
this ‘movie of movies’? It is an ancient
flower of two civilizations gone with the wind: the gallant old south and the
Hollywood of yore that reproduced this fictionalized account of it for the love
and lore of a good soap opera. We get all the robust flavor and flourish of a
master showman on his own manic quest to discover the glories authoress,
Margaret Mitchell had wrought. Once seen, David O. Selznick’s magnum opus is
unlikely ever to fade from memory; its supreme characterizations, beginning
with Vivien Leigh’s fiery southern belle, Scarlett O’Hara and Clark Gable’s,
wily scallywag, Rhett Butler, capped off by Hattie McDaniel’s peerlessly
empathetic, Mammie; the only black actress to win the coveted Best Supporting
Actress Oscar for many decades to follow.
In between these bookends we get the South…or rather, an implausibly
romanticized facsimile of it; sumptuously bathed in the eye-popping hues of
3-strip Technicolor and as full-bodied as the last of Aunt Pittypat’s fine
Madeira. Unlike that alcoholic elixir, Gone
With The Wind has proven an enduring vintage, perennially revived on the
big screen and TV, each new generation rediscovering its land of cavaliers and
cotton fields in their own way.
It has oft been
said, time does strange things to movies…or perhaps, only our collective memories
and interpretations of them. Over the years, critics have tried to distill and
analyze Gone With The Wind’s
greatness, but to no avail; the totality of this ‘Wind’ generating more
than a respectable breeze in the annals of film-making. Co-star, Ann Rutherford
once declared, “I almost feel as if I
hadn’t seen a movie before it, and that I haven’t seen one since” - a
fairly illuminating statement. For, Gone
With The Wind has not aged one iota in the 79 years since its outrageously
monumental premiere in Atlanta, arguably, for reasons that have absolutely
nothing at all to do with its aforementioned ‘qualities’. Perhaps the film’s
only genuine strength remains the culmination of its film-making poise; its
ability to immerse the audience so completely in this alternate universe of
moonlight and magnolia; southern comforts aplenty – tinged with strife,
heartache and romantic pathos too. We
simply cannot help but fall under its spell. Indeed, in my own meager 48 years
on this planet, I have been exposed to cinema art of every genre and style;
kept an open mind and equally as vacant heart, ready to embrace the rest with
the same beloved intensity. But in as
much time, Gone With The Wind has
never left that hallowed place of admiration, to paraphrase darling Rhett, “…dare I say it? Can it be love?”
Yes, I confess
it, willingly and without apologizing for it. I adore this movie. Even so, I
frequently hesitate to pop it into my Blu-ray player. For I know instinctively
I cannot simply watch just one scene. So, I elect to start at the beginning,
convincing myself I will be able to pause or stop the show after just a few
short moments; just enough to get my fix. And then, alas, I realize I have come
to the ‘intermission’ already and, glancing at the clock on the wall, decide ‘oh, what the hell?…might as well see the
rest!’ And so it goes – having seen Gone With the Wind more than 100 plus
times from beginning to end in one lifetime, I sheepishly concede to being
perpetually hoodwinked by its’ glamour; its’ lusty performances, its’ regal Max
Steiner score, and Ernest Haller and Ray Renehan’s cinematography; marveling at
the peerless, Victor Fleming, reminded too, he is responsible for that other
cinema titan from 1939 – The Wizard of
Oz. Fair enough, neither film was shot in its entirety by Fleming. In the
days of Hollywood old, it was common practice for in-house directors to share
the responsibilities. And, true confessions; another of my personal fav’s –
George Cukor – had his turn in GWTW’s
director’s chair first.
But when all is
said and done, it is Fleming’s volatile energy, working behind the scenes with
a non-compliant and frequently miserable Vivien Leigh (who adored and preferred
Cukor to Fleming without a doubt) that we get up there on the screen; the tempo
and mood of the piece far more in keeping with a typical Gable picture from the
period than the conventional ‘woman’s weepie’. Even so, Gable was not happy;
believing Walter Plunkett’s costuming made him look like the doorman at the
Beverly Wilshire Hotel; upset too, the movie could never quite shape up to be
‘his kind’ of picture. Indeed, Gone With
The Wind remains the only movie Gable ever made where he didn’t land the
gal of his choice by the end. Nevertheless, Gable’s Rhett had his way with
Vivien Leigh’s Scarlett, calling her out as the big cheat of men’s hearts she
ultimately was and would always remain; unable to purge her influence from his
blood – perhaps - but turning his back on her nonetheless with the perennially
cheered “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a
damn.” Selznick was expressly banned
by Joseph Breen’s governing board of censorship from including ‘damn’ in the final cut; Selznick,
fighting hammer and tong to have it remain in, not as an oath or curse, but an
affirmation of the tenor in this tempestuous relationship. The censors relented
– to a point – fining Selznick $5000 for keeping ‘that word’ in.
It is difficult
to assert whether the greatest movies of all time are born from chaos or
harmony, although GWTW’s backstage
milieu of gripes, groans and chronic indigestion seem to have kept the entire
company on their toes, the momentum steady, if advancing at a snail’s pace;
with a cantankerous Selznick (chronically bent of Benzedrine, no less)
dictating endless memos to all concerned. Selznick, the brute – an opinion held
for many decades afterward – the despicable potentate in search of some
intangible perfection only he could clearly see after the dust, tears and
conflict had settled on the back lot. GWTW
is undeniably this producer’s movie; even the curmudgeonly Fleming – borrowed
from MGM – mildly browbeaten into seeing things David’s way. And Fleming seems
to have come around to Selznick’s thinking; whatever frustrations he endured
taken out on Vivien Leigh, demanding her Scarlett O’Hara be the bitch so
described by Margaret Mitchell, through fault and grievous deeds aplenty.
Lest we forget,
Scarlett O’Hara is not a sympathetic character. Neither does Vivien Leigh play
her as though she might have any such delusional afterthoughts to repent for
her wicked ways. Even in the movie’s penultimate adieu, with Scarlett
prostrated on the steps of her Atlanta mansion, rising to declare she will go
home and figure out some way to reenter Rhett’s good graces “…because, after all – tomorrow is another day”,
we sense the devious mind of that spoiled southern vixen at work again. She
hasn’t changed and, arguably, never will – or perhaps, can. Yet, Vivien Leigh
gives us something in her performance that is counterintuitive to the bitch; a
lingering sense of sadness renewed, intermingled with flashes of hope and, of
course, resolve; already making a promise to herself we absolutely know she
damn well intends to break. Ah, me – this is Scarlett as written and then
some…and yet, something more too. That ‘more’
unintentionally comes from Leigh’s impossible beauty; as flawless as a
porcelain doll, stunningly framed in Walter Plunkett’s luscious costumes and
vividly set in relief from Lyle R. Wheeler’s exemplary production design. Leigh
gives us a terrible tease; heartless and utterly impure in her motives, and
yet, tragic in all her misguided ambitions to excel by doing all the wrong things,
though magnificently well.
In hindsight,
there really was only one man for whom Scarlett could never be considered ‘too much’ woman and his name is Clark
Gable. Although Selznick briefly toyed with the likes of Errol Flynn and a few
others, the public’s vote was unanimous for Gable, forcing Selznick to
begrudgingly approach his father-in-law, Louis B. Mayer for Gable’s loan out
from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was hardly a fair trade; Selznick getting Gable
and a quarter of the monies needed to shore up a production badly hemorrhaging
funds; Mayer, gaining distribution rights and the option for an outright
purchase of the picture later on – after he had a cash-strapped Selznick over a
barrel. The backroom politics by which such great art is conceived, and
ultimately achieved, could not have been more intriguing. Co-star, Olivia de
Havilland fought like hell with her boss, Jack L. Warner to play the part of
the true heart, Melanie Hamilton-Wilkes; Warner still licking his wounds after
Selznick had turned down his offer of a double loan out (Bette Davis and Errol
Flynn, his two biggest stars) plus a money deal much sweeter than Metro’s. But
only after de Havilland appealed to Warner’s wife, was Jack’s permission
granted – and then, with even more hell to pay on the road back from Tara; de
Havilland, eventually suing Warner to get out of her indentured studio
contract. 
If Gable, Leigh
and de Havilland seemed to be having a rough go of things, it was pittance
compared to the reluctance Selznick faced from his black actors, nervous about
returning to the roots of slavery. In particular, Butterfly McQueen, cast in
the part of the dim-witted housemaid, Prissy, refused to play a scene with
Vivien Leigh where Scarlett beats Prissy for having disobeyed a direct order.
Then director, George Cukor had asked Leigh to make the moment as real as
possible; Leigh, taking it to heart by violently striking her costar on the
noggin with a clenched fist. It was more than McQueen could bear, walking off
the set and standing her ground until the decision was made for Leigh to only
pretend to raise her hands close to McQueen’s face and head. Selznick was, after
all, deeply in tune with the mounting concerns being raised by the black press
about the specter of Uncle Tom-ism rearing its ugly head. Already empathetic to
the plight of Jews in Hitler’s Germany, Selznick could definitely relate to the
racial prejudices depicted in the novel. To this end, all references to the Ku
Klux Klan were omitted and the word ‘nigger’
changed to ‘simple-minded darkie’.
It could have
all gone the other way for Selznick, the arduous journey from page to screen
going through countless rewrites from a litany of famed authors, before
Selznick settled on screen dramatist par excellence, Sidney Howard as the right
man to write the screenplay. Howard worked long, but slowly; absolutely
refusing to split his time between his beloved farm in Connecticut and Culver
City, California. In the meantime, Selznick turned his attentions to
construction of the various sets; historian, Wilbur Kurtz and production
designer, William Cameron Menzies’ offering their input in tandem; staging an
elaborate fire on Selznick International’s back lot to burn down existing
outdoor facades and make room for the new plans. The torching would be
photographed as the burning of Atlanta in the movie. However, as neither Rhett
nor Scarlett had been cast, Selznick used a pair of stunt doubles for long
shots of a carriage racing perilously in and out of these fire-ridden
sets. In the midst of all this hellish
confusion, Selznick received the greatest gift of surprise he could possibly
ask for; his brother Myron introducing him to Vivien Leigh.
Selznick had, in
fact, become embroiled in a nation-wide search for Scarlett; sending his
assistant, Kay Brown on a train to interview any giddy young lass, already
envisioning herself as a famous ingénue plucked from obscurity, and who would
sit still long enough to be photographed. Part marketing PR and part legitimate
search, the expensive tour had yielded no viable prospects; and neither had
Selznick’s decision to screen test virtually every actress of stature in
Hollywood; including Tallulah Bankhead (a sometimes ‘friend’ of Selznick’s
partner, financier, Jock Whitney), and Paulette Goddard (Charlie Chaplin’s
live-in) who almost had the part; except that something about Goddard kept
bothering Selznick. Indeed, Vivien had been one of the hopefuls applying for
the job – even recommended by a sole, observant young man from Wales in an
opinion poll conducted by Variety; the showbiz Bible. Selznick had been coerced
by Kay Brown into viewing a print of Leigh’s best effort on film to date, Fire Over England (1937), but couldn’t
see the smoldering sensation of his disobedient belle beneath the Elizabethan
collar and cuffs.
So, the search
went on – and on – until that fateful eve when Myron and Leigh appeared and
Scarlett – fully formed and full of the fiery disposition Margaret Mitchell had
typified in her novel – suddenly appeared to assume the mantle of quality in
the biggest southern spectacle to hit the screen since D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation (1915). From the
great advantage of viewing the completed movie, we can almost sincerely buy
into Paulette Goddard as a viable – though hardly as good – alternative to
Vivien Leigh. But others, whom Selznick willingly tested for the part, seem
grotesquely inadequate. What could Selznick have been thinking; interviewing
the likes of comedian, Zazu Pitts, glamor girl, Lucille Ball, MGM ingénue Lana
Turner and, newly christened box office poison, Katharine Hepburn? It could not have been Hollywood nepotism.
For Selznick had zero compunction about telling any star off as propriety
demanded. Such was the altercation between Selznick and Bette Davis, who had
already won an Oscar for playing a southern spitfire in William Wyler’s Jezebel (1936). Reportedly, Davis
coaxed Selznick into a luncheon to convince him she could do the part; the
conversation quickly shifting from customary pleasantries to ultimatums when
Davis began to sense her persuasiveness was not winning any browning points
with the producer. Finally, beside herself, Davis demanded to know why she
could not play Scarlett, Selznick frustratingly turning to her and exclaiming, “…because I cannot imagine any man chasing
after a woman for so long and ultimately winding up with you!”
Apocryphal
story, ‘legitimate’ folklore or
simply legend passed on into fact: who can say?
The legacy of Gone With the Wind
has obscured the details of its lengthy gestation; has made the fanciful seem
more richly divine than even history itself; the darker side to this wind
coming too soon for dramatist, Sidney Howard; killed in a shocking tractor
accident on his farm just as principle photography was about to get underway.
And the GWTW family would endure yet
another heartache not long after the movie’s triumphant Atlanta premiere when
costar, Leslie Howard (Britain’s most popular matinee idol and the film’s
Ashley Wilkes) was killed while on a secret service mission for his country
during the war. But before these losses came the success, far more overwhelming
than even Selznick could have anticipated. Although, at the onset he had
neither the time nor budget to produce the sort of epic his heart desired,
Selznick mortgaged his company to the hilt, tapping Jock Whitney for even more
money than the tycoon was willing to spare. But Selznick bitterly resented the
‘hand out’ from L.B. Mayer, for it came with too many strings attached. But by
then, Selznick was too heavily invested to care, and too bent over in his
chronic addiction to prescription pills that kept him pumped full of vigor
until the wee hours of the morning. Story editor, Val Lewton (who would later
become RKO’s sultan of shudders, elevating B-grade horror to A-list art) had
forewarned Selznick of his folly, calling GWTW
“ponderous trash”; a snap assessment,
hardly enlightened by Fleming’s participation on the project when he rather
unceremoniously informed Selznick he didn’t have “any fucking script” either.
Typical of Selznick, he trudged on; too wrapped up in the particulars to see
the proverbial forest for the trees, or perhaps merely confident enough he was
precisely the sort of lumberjack required to do all the necessary
clear-cutting. “Selznick’s folly!”
the pundits declared; gambling two to three million dollars on a single picture
seemingly only leading to one conclusion, particularly in an era when even the
more lavish A-pictures cost one third to produce.
And Selznick,
apart from taking a quantum leap of faith, was also gambling on ‘the road show’; a queer anomaly in the
history of movies then, with limited ‘first run’ bookings in only the major theaters,
and, at advanced prices. Somewhere along the road to Tara it must have dawned
on Selznick he was making not one, but two massive movies melded together. Gone With The Wind would therefore
include an intermission, and, something else to captivate; the added luxury of
shooting the whole ‘damn thing’ in
newly inaugurated 3-strip Technicolor. Strange as it may seem today, there was
a natural aversion to photographing in color back then; not the least because
the cost nearly doubled. Apart from having to tolerate Technicolor’s reigning
maven, Natalie Kalmus – a minor nightmare – Technicolor also amplified the
inhospitable conditions on set, by adding several thousand kilowatts from huge
arcs, generating massive amounts of light and heat (and this in an era before
air-conditioning) to get those fully saturated hues to register just right. No,
Gone With The Wind would either be
an event or a catastrophe. There was no middle ground on which Selznick could
maintain his footing. But those who had underestimated him and were already
quick to judge the as yet unseen movie were in for a shocker when the Pasadena
sneak preview garnered overwhelming praise from the audience. In the history of
sneak peeks there has never been a production as unanimously embraced as GWTW; audience reaction ranging from
modest approval to giddy excitement; and this before Selznick had even had the
opportunity to marry Max Steiner’s immortal ‘Tara’s
theme’ and underscore to the final edit. The official Atlanta premiere
demanded no less consideration, and under Selznick’s carefully orchestrated PR,
opening night became the sort of wild-eyed celebration old timer’s still talk
about and today’s audiences can only guess at.
Nearly 2 million
people gathered in Atlanta to see cast and crew arrive in planes, chaperoned by
the mayor in open-top convertibles down the overcrowded streets to the Loewe’s
Grand, redressed to resemble the outer façade of the movie’s Twelve Oaks; the
city’s newspaper devoting its entire edition to coverage of the weekend long
round of cotillions and parties; Selznick insisting on the attendance of the
usually modest and reclusive, Margaret Mitchell (right) who ultimately summarized her
praise for the movie thus: “There’s not a
dry eye in the house…and I want to congratulate Mr. Selznick for standing his
ground and having the courage to wait until he had the right cast…and I think
you’ll agree with me, he absolutely had the right cast!” It all seems to
fit so neatly together now, so perfectly realized with not a scene or nuance to
spare, that in hindsight it’s quite easy to forget Gone With The Wind came out of an atmosphere of blind chaos and
great good luck. For its time, it was a movie unlike any other, and since that
time, it has transcended mere celluloid to become a much beloved snapshot of
two ancient flowers; the Old South, and the more sadly missed studio system
once capable of giving us such lavish entertainments of sheer quality. As such,
viewing Gone With The Wind today is
like sharing reminiscences with an old friend; historically flawed and overly
sentimental – perhaps – but ultimately nourishing to the soul.
Plot wise:
Spoiled southern belle, Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) is enamored with Ashley
Wilkes (Leslie Howard) – the son of a wealthier neighboring plantation owner.
Scarlett’s father, Gerald (Thomas Mitchell) is unimpressed by his daughter’s
choice in men. Moreover, he has been assured Ashley will marry his cousin, Melanie
Hamilton (Olivia De Havilland) by the end of summer, thus thwarting Scarlett’s
infatuation once and for all. At a party given at the Wilkes’ estate, Twelve
Oaks, Scarlett meets Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), a playful scallywag who isn’t
received by any descent family in Charleston – not even his own. After the
ladies have retired to their boudoir, the men engage in a discussion about the
possibility of a Civil War. Rhett
encourages prudence and restraint; sentiments flying in the face of more
garrulous gallantry, but firmly echoed by Ashley. War is declared and Ashley
goes off to fight after marrying Melanie. To spite them both, Scarlett marries
Melanie’s brother, Charles (Rand Brooks) who dies of fever shortly after the
first battle.
Despite frequent
admonishments from her housemaid, Mammie (Hattie McDaniel), Scarlett continues
to defy the conventions of a widow. To quell her daughter’s morbidly selfish
distress – and because she knows absolutely nothing about her passion for
Ashley – Scarlett’s mother, Ellen (Barbara O’Neill) sends Scarlett and a
servant, Prissy (Butterfly McQueen) for an extended visit to the home of
Melanie’s Aunt Pittypat (Laura Hope Crews) in Atlanta where Melanie is also
staying, awaiting Ashley’s return. At the Atlanta Bazar, Scarlet once again
meets Rhett. His wily sexual interests have hardly cooled. After shocking the confederacy by asking a
war widow to dance, Scarlett and Rhett develop a fair-weather friendship,
mostly predicated on Rhett lavishing her with gifts. Scarlett, however, is
still madly pining for Ashley and this creates monumental friction between her
and Rhett. In the meantime, Scarlett is appalled to learn Rhett is a frequent
guest of Belle Watling (Ona Munson); an Atlanta madam who has come to admire
Rhett as something more than just another paying customer.
On leave, Ashley
breaks his silence and tells Scarlett he loves her fiery passion. Alas, duty
and honor will never allow him to be unfaithful to Melanie. To ease her sexual
frustrations – and quite simply pass the time while Ashley is away at war –
Scarlett joins Melanie as a relief nurse at the hospital. But after a
particularly gruesome amputation, performed without the benefit of chloroform,
Scarlett declares she has had enough of death and dying and vows to go back
home to Tara. Melanie has Ashley’s baby and Rhett suggests to Scarlett she will
never find true happiness if she chooses to wait in hope Ashley will return to
abandon them both for her. As the Yankee armies advance on Atlanta, the rebels
torch the city, forcing Rhett, Scarlett, Melanie, Prissy and the baby to flee
by carriage through the burning streets. At the crossroads, Rhett informs
Scarlett he has decided to join the army, forcing Scarlett to make the journey
back to Tara without him. She arrives to discover her mother dead from fever;
the once vibrant fields and house ravaged by army deserters and her father
hopelessly mad, lost in his memories from that gentile time before the war.
Vowing to live
through this ordeal, Scarlett and her sisters, Sue Ellen (Evelyn Keyes) and
Careen (Ann Rutherford) barely manage to keep body and soul together. Scarlett
learns Rhett has been imprisoned for blockade running and rushes off to the
jail in the hopes of procuring badly needed funds necessary to save Tara.
Instead, she decides to marry Sue Ellen’s beaux, Frank Kennedy (Carroll Nyes)
as he has managed to establish himself as a moderately successful hardware
salesman. Lying to Frank about Sue Ellen
having lost interest in him, Scarlett’s treason against her sister saves the
farm. But her marriage is hardly a happy one. After Scarlett is attacked while
driving through a shanty town, Frank and Ashley resolve to uphold the gallantry
of the old south by inflicting their own ‘southern’ justice on the rabble. In this
conflict, Frank is killed and Ashley severely wounded. Only Rhett manages to save the day and
shortly thereafter Scarlett reluctantly agrees to marry him. The two have a
relatively peaceful honeymoon. Rhett lavishes every absurdity on his new wife,
even building her an ostentatious new mansion in the heart of Atlanta. Still,
Scarlett is not satisfied. She bears Rhett’s a daughter, Bonnie Blue (Cammie
King), but then quietly informs him there will be no more sex in their
relationship, as the results have ruined her eighteen-and-a-half-inch
waistline.
More angry than
distraught, Rhett turns to Belle Watling for consolation. But Belle is no fool.
She sends Rhett back to his wife with some heartfelt advice; that his life must
now be focused on raising their daughter. As the years pass Scarlett and Rhett
grow apart, brought back together only after Bonnie develops homesickness while
visiting London with her father. Mammie
is ecstatic to see them come home, and truth be told, Scarlett is also grateful
for their return. She is, after all, pregnant once more with Rhett’s baby. But
their time apart has dampened Rhett’s appreciation for his wife. He is cold and
aloof. Scarlett suffers a horrendous fall and loses the baby; a horror
compounded when Bonnie is killed during a horse-riding accident. A distraught
Rhett locks himself in the nursery with Bonnie’s body, learning Melanie is
going to have another child against her own doctor’s advice. Throughout the
story, Rhett has greatly admired Melanie, and, with her kindness, he recovers
from his grief. But after Melanie dies from pregnancy complications, Rhett
witnesses Scarlett comforting Ashley and naturally assumes she will at long
last ask him for a divorce. Determined to beat Scarlett to the punch, Rhett
goes home and packs. Although Scarlett has had a miraculous transference of her
affections from Ashley to Rhett, his dreams of their life together are now
truly dead. On the steps of their Atlanta mansion, Scarlett begs for her
husband’s forgiveness. “Rhett,” she
declares, “If you leave, where shall I
go? What shall I do?” to which he authoritatively replies, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn!”
Distraught and left to her arctic isolation, Scarlett tearfully recoils on the
stairs, rising anew with the promise of ‘another day’, electing to go home to
Tara, but vowing to think up some way to reclaim her husband’s affections.
In lesser hands,
Gone With The Wind could so easily
have degenerated into trite melodrama. Indeed, the final declaration from
Scarlett was strictly Selznick’s concoction; reaching beyond the novel’s finite
farewell to offer his audience something more substantially hopeful in the wake
of the looming conflict brewing overseas. Yet, GWTW has gone on and ahead of these precepts; a movie continuing to
ripen with age as a heartwarming cultural touchstone for the modern ages –
whatever the changes in the times themselves and audiences’ tastes. GWTW is a perennial. On Oscar night,
the film took home a record nine Academy Awards; ten if one counts the Irving
G. Thalberg bust bestowed on Selznick, in part for his incredible
determination. Earlier in the evening, Master of Ceremonies Bob Hope had set
the tone by quipping “I think it’s
splendid like this, the Academy having a benefit for David Selznick.” Perhaps
it came as no surprise to anyone Vivien Leigh should take home the Best Actress
honors. How could she not? But the audience must have drawn a hushed sigh when
it was announced Hattie McDaniel beat out Olivia de Havilland for the Best
Supporting Actress statuette; McDaniel adding to her heartwarming dissertation,
“this is one of the happiest moments of
my life…for your kindness, it has made me feel very, very humble. And I shall
always hold it as a beacon for whatever I may be able to do in the future. I sincerely
hope I shall always be a credit to my race and to the motion picture
industry…may I say thank you, and God bless you.”
“There was really a lot riding on it,” Kay Brown would
reflect years later, “It took time. It
really took time. And Mr. Selznick was not always the most patient man one
worked for…but I remember Mr. Selznick crying. I cried. Margaret Mitchell too.
We were just all so involved.” This level of investment proved exhaustive
for all concerned. At one point, even the stalwart Victor Fleming left the
shoot, citing a nervous breakdown; Selznick redoubling his efforts with another
Metro loan out, director, Sam Woods, who stayed on even after Fleming came back
to continue. In the end, GWTW was
not Selznick’s folly, though it proved to be his undoing nonetheless. He had
scaled the pinnacle of his profession despite the odds. But whatever endeavor
he undertook afterward would never quite rival the public’s impossible
expectations for another Gone With The
Wind. To be sure there were some very fine – and equally as profitable –
films made at Selznick International afterward; Rebecca (1940) and Since You
Went Away (1944) among them. But in
1946, Selznick made his first costly blunder; Duel in the Sun – a sprawling melodrama that attempted to do for
the Hollywood western what Gone With The
Wind had done for the southern epic. The film, spectacular on its own
merits, was judged by the critics as a wan ghost flower and shabby attempt by
Selznick to recapture the glories of GWTW. By 1949, barely a decade after those heady
times had passed, Selznick was frustrated, broke and forced to sell off his
interests in GWTW to Louis B. Mayer;
some have since argued, restitution Mayer greedily reclaimed, partly as
retribution for Selznick having divorced his daughter, Irene to marry actress,
Jennifer Jones.
On June 22,
1965, David O. Selznick died of a coronary occlusion at the age of 65.
Ironically, the biggest obstacle he had faced in his waning years as a producer
was his own legacy. Unable to cast off the high-polished romanticism that had
served him so consistently throughout the 1930's and early 40's, Selznick’s later
films increasingly fell out of touch with audience expectations. In hindsight,
Selznick seemed almost unable to comprehend how the world of movie-making had
dramatically changed all around him while his attitude toward the movies had
not…could not, and finally…did not. For David O. Selznick – his was a final act
of looking back on these happier times, all too brief, but perhaps best summed
up in a speech he delivered to eager young minds at the University of Rochester
in 1940: “To you who feel the burning
urge to influence the modes and manners, the social and political ideologies of
the future through the medium of the motion picture, I say, here is a
challenge. Here is a frontier that is and always will be crying for the courage
and the energy and the initiative and the genius of American youth. Here is the
Southwest Passage to fame and fortune and influence! Here is the El Dorado of
the heart, the soul and the mind.”
The man and the world that he occupied have passed…but his legacy, and Gone With The Wind in particular, lives
on. Perhaps the real reason why Gone
With The Wind has lasted all these many years is because it remains
faithful to the human condition. Like life itself, the film is a renewable;
rediscovered and revisited by each new generation, who continue to find
something fresh and revitalizing in its artistry. It speaks to us. It always
has. My sincerest hope is that it always will. For a world without Gone With The Wind is quite simply one
I would not want to live in.
Warner Home
Video has given us Gone With The Wind on
Blu-ray – endlessly repackaged, but with the same marginally flawed
1080p transfer. Honestly, for a movie as beloved as this, a 4K release ought to
be in the works by now…one hopes. Rest
assured, whatever 'edition' you buy you are getting the same image and sound
quality, with varying swag factored in, or excised, as the case may be. For
more on the individual goodies available in each edition, I have previously
reviewed GWTW twice; both the 70th and 75th anniversary
box sets, with the 70th preferred. So, search this blog and you will
find the other 2 reviews already posted. As for the transfer: mostly, it sparkles, in
fully restored Technicolor. We can, as
example, recognize for the first time the dress Scarlett makes from her
mother’s old drapes is not simply green, but velvet as well. Fine details pop
as never before. My one complaint – and it is an extremely minor one – is that
some of the transfer seems a tad too dark. Take the iconic moment when Scarlett
approaches the weary dawn after returning home to Tara to declare she will
‘never go hungry again’. Her face is obliterated in darkness. We can’t really
see her acting at all. I am not entirely certain this is, as it was intended by
the original film makers, but I can most certainly attest to the fact this
scene did not look this way on Warner’s previously issued DVD where Scarlett’s
face, particularly her eyes, were very visible.
There are also
minor anomalies worth noting; a fleeting glimpse of edge enhancement in the
matte painting long shot of the carriages arriving at Twelve Oaks, and a queer
strobe effect as the letters spelling out ‘Gone With The Wind’ as they track
from left to right across the screen during the opening credits. Forgivable?
Hmmmm. It would have been prudent of Warner to go back and fix these two minor
blemishes for this reissue. Alas, no. The audio has been remixed to 5.1 DTS
with extraordinary fidelity emerging in the Max Steiner score. We hear chords
and orchestral refrains once thought lost through the limitations of recording
technologies back then and lax preservation efforts since. But it’s all there
and marvelously restored for future generations to admire, Warner having
cleaned up the subtle hiss and pop for an impeccably smooth aural experience.
Extras…well, there
are too many bare-bones editions that feature nothing except Rudy Behlmer’s
audio commentary. If you elect to buy the 70th or 75th
you will be getting a lot of goodies worthy of your coin. Virtually all of the
extras from the 70th edition were ported over to the 75th
– save two new and all too brief featurettes: Old South/New South, a tangential, if impassioned critique of how
films like GWTW inaccurately portray
the South then, and how much has changed in the 150 years since the Civil War.
Warner has also delved into the archives for 13 extra minutes of the Atlanta
premiere. Aside: it would have been prudent to also have the entire Oscar
broadcast, also the original screen tests included herein. As before, the very
best supplements from the 70th anniversary make their reappearance herein. I
want to pause here and say ‘bravo and
thank you’ for this – particularly when other studios like Disney seem
intent on lopping off previously available extras, simply to make their current
reissues ‘different’ though hardly ‘better’ than what has come before. As
example: the superior ‘The Making of A
Legend’: a 2-hour documentary hosted by Christopher Plummer and an audio
commentary from Rudy Behlmer that basically covers the same ground. There are
also brief featurettes from 2009 like Melanie
Remembers – Olivia De Havilland (at 102, the only surviving cast member)
affectionately waxes about her participation on the film. We also get two
ancient TV bios on Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable, plus, 1939: Hollywood’s Greatest Year – hosted by Kenneth Branagh, a
biography on that incredible year in film-making. Alas, it’s too scant on
providing us with movie clips from films produced at other studios. There is
also Moviola: The Scarlett O’Hara Wars –
a rather laughable dramatization with Tony Curtis playing David O. Selznick in
search of his perfect Scarlett O’Hara. Finally, Warner has included the 6-hour
comprehensive documentary MGM: When The
Lion Roars.
I will go on
record here with a complaint I consider extremely valid. MGM: When The Lion Roars is one of the greatest documentaries ever
produced. Moreover, it is an intricate portrait of that bygone and fabled
kingdom: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Unceremoniously dumping in on a flipper disc
without the benefit of being properly remastered is rather shabby to say the
least. I mean, part II is cut in half: Part II/part ‘A’ on side ‘A’ of this
flipper, and Part II/part ‘B’ on side ‘B’. This is ridiculous! What? Warner
couldn’t shell out for the extras six cents it would have cost to keep each
episode of this monumental documentary separate on its own disc?!?! Dumb!
Really dumb!!! Okay, I’m calm again. Bottom line: we could have easily done
without the reissued 75th anniversary. If you already own the 70th,
there is little here to get the juices flowing. Warner gets very high marks for
the remastered film and including all of the aforementioned extras. But the
film is already available in a nauseating proliferation of hi-def editions.
Perhaps for its 80th – next year – we will finally get GWTW amply spread across two Blu-rays –
split at the intermission – and remastered in 4K with the aforementioned minor
tweaks made to its transfer. If you
already own GWTW on Blu-ray, my best
advice is to skip this one entirely and wait in the hope of better things. Bottom
line: highly recommended only if you don’t already own the 70th box set
with all its handsome swag.
FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
5+
VIDEO/AUDIO
4.5
EXTRAS
5+
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