| Collector's Corner August 2002
 Gone With the WindStarring: Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh,
Leslie Howard, Olivia de Havilland, Thomas Mitchell, Hattie McDaniel, Butterfly McQueen,
Ona Munson
Directed by: Victor Fleming
Theatrical release: 1939
DVD release: 2000
Video: Original Aspect Ratio (1.33:1)
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 or Mono
Do you mean to tell me, Katie Scarlett O'Hara,
that Tara, that land doesn't mean anything to you? Why, land is the only thing in the
world worth workin' for, worth fightin' for, worth dyin' for, because it's the only thing
that lasts.
-- Gerald O’Hara
The story is really quite simple. Scarlett O’Hara
(Vivien Leigh) loves Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard), a man that she can’t have. Rhett
Butler (Clark Gable) wants Scarlett, but only if she’ll give up on Ashley. For four
hours, Gone With the Wind takes the audience from Chivalry, to War, to
Reconstruction. Yet the central story remains the misfit ménage à trois and the
way they ruin each other’s lives.
People in the United States have purchased over 202 million
tickets to see Gone With the Wind. The US population when the movie hit the
theaters was 130 million. By any standard except non-inflation-adjusted total sales, it is
the most popular movie in the history of film.
Gone With the Wind received 13 Academy Award
nominations and won 10 (eight categories plus two special awards), including Best Picture.
That’s a wonderful performance in any year. But 1939, the year Gone With the Wind
was released, was the strongest single year in film history. Ninotchka,
Stagecoach, The Wizard of Oz, Wuthering Heights, Mr. Smith Goes to
Washington, Goodbye Mr. Chips, and Dark Victory were all nominees
that year. Gone With the Wind had to rise above the competition to win its 10
Academy Awards.
When Margaret Mitchell’s book Gone With the Wind
was released in 1936, it was an immediate bestseller. One month after it hit the streets,
producer David Selznick paid Mitchell $50,000 for the film rights, the highest advance
ever received by a first-time novelist. You could find a copy of Gone With the Wind
in most houses in the United States. As of today, the only English language book that has
sold more copies is The Bible.
I’m giving you these statistics so you understand the
importance of Gone With the Wind, then and now.
Things were different then. If you were lucky enough to
live in a town with a first-run theater, your film experience was closer to what we would
think of when going to the symphony. White-gloved ushers showed you to your reserved
seats. Men wore suits and ladies wore dresses.
Selznick’s publicity machine had been buzzing. The
public knew that over 1400 women had tried for the part of Scarlett. They knew that Bette
Davis wanted to play Scarlett, at least until she found out that Errol Flynn, a man she
despised, was to play Rhett. Everyone had heard about the scandal over the first use of
the word "damn" in a movie. The filmmakers tried to use other lines like
"my indifference is boundless" or "I don't give a hoot." Selznick
decided to pay a $5000 fine to the censoring group so "damn" could be used in
the movie. The filmmakers also knew that Selznick, the man that had released Anna
Karenina, A Tale of Two Cities, The Prisoner of Zenda, and
Intermezzo had promised to deliver a four-hour, full-color blockbuster.
Those that followed the news knew that Hitler had invaded
Poland the month before and most were thankful that FDR was staying out of it. It was
December 15, 1939 -- the opening night for Gone With the Wind.
The lights went down. From the opening sounds of Max
Steiner’s magnificent overture, through the first close-up of Vivien Leigh’s
gleaming green eyes, climaxing at the scene quoted at the top of the article -- in just 12
breathless minutes, Gone With the Wind owned the audience. Everyone in the theater
knew that they were in the presence of the best Hollywood had to offer. I wish I could
have been there.
What they didn’t know was the behind-the-scenes
turmoil. Filming had started without the director or the star. Director Victor Fleming had
been working past contract time on his prior film, The Wizard
of Oz. Selznick was determined to go ahead and film the scenes of Atlanta burning
to the ground, so he brought in Sam Wood to direct those scenes. He still
hadn’t finalized who would play Scarlett. When Fleming showed up, he had to be
hospitalized for exhaustion. So Selznick called his old buddy George Cukor to start work
on the film.
In the meantime, they decided to use Vivien Leigh as
Scarlett. She wanted the role badly enough to read the book and study the Civil War before
going to audition. But she was not a big star. Clark Gable was refusing to do the scene
where he cried, saying that it didn’t fit his image. And Leigh was refusing to do
kissing scenes with Gable, citing his bad breath.
None of the problems show-up on the screen. All of the
acting is topnotch. Leigh is concurrently perky and self-centered; generous and mean
spirited; defiant and yet, just wishing for someone to take care of her. At the end of the
first act, when she has just finished vomiting-up a dirty carrot she tried to eat, she
falls to the ground in tears. As the sun rises behind her, she shakes an angry fist at God
and swears, "As God is my witness, they're not going to lick me! I'm going to live
through this and when it's all over, I'll never be hungry again! No, nor any of my folk.
If I have to lie, steal, cheat, or kill! As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry
again!" Watching the movie for probably the tenth time in my life, I was still amazed
at Leigh’s powerful portrayal.
Gable was perfect in the role of Rhett Butler. With his
rakish looks and hot-blooded charms, we know what he really means when he takes Scarlett
in his arms and says, "No, I don't think I will kiss you, although you need kissing,
badly. That's what's wrong with you! You should be kissed, and often, and by someone who
knows how."
Ahem. Kiss? Even in 1939, I don’t think anyone
missed what he really meant.
Then there is his famous statement, "Frankly, my dear,
I don't give a damn." The word "damn" shocked people. They should have been
shocked over the total death of love. Usually, when a relationship breaks up, you at least
care enough to be mad. The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s not caring. If
relationships were people, that statement would be a blow to the head with a sledgehammer
-- a violent, devastating murder of the relationship. Gable delivers the line perfectly.
Gerald O’Hara’s statement about the eternal nature of land is proven.
The biggest surprise this time was Hattie McDaniel. I
don’t know why, but I never really paid much attention to Mammy before. She was
brilliant: sassy, wily, and full of love. Notice the way she bosses Scarlett around in the
beginning, getting her to eat. Or, at the end of chapter 13, when she’s talking to
Scarlett about the trouble she’ll get into going to Atlanta: "You know what
trouble I's talkin' 'bout. I’s talkin’ ‘bout Mr. Ashley Wilkes. He’ll
be comin' to Atlanta when he gets his leave, and you sittin' there waitin' for him, just
like a spider!"
The way she spits out the word "spider" is
hilarious. Or watch the repartee between Mammy and Rhett in chapter 17, as he coaxes her
to drink sherry and show her bloomers. Every time she walked on the screen, I
couldn’t take my eyes off of her.
As I started writing this, I remembered a scene from the
Academy Awards this year. During the show, they paid homage to several black actors.
McDaniel was the first African-American to win an Academy Award. They showed her receiving
her award. In a moment of incredible poignancy, this woman, who gave life to a character
filled with determination, intelligence, and love, had to act shy and quiet to make sure
she didn’t appear uppity. I got mad as I thought about it. Not as mad as I got when I
was researching this piece, and found out that Hattie McDaniel didn’t get to go to
the premiere of Gone With the Wind. It was held in Atlanta. She couldn’t go in
the theater in 1939 because of the state’s segregation laws. Rather than create
problems for Selznick and the rest of the cast and crew, people who might have fought for
her right to attend, she sent Selznick a letter saying she would be unavailable that
night. She was not only a great actress, but also a classy lady. She deserved better.
Warner Home Video’s version of Gone With the Wind
is the same as the previous MGM DVD, and both have gorgeous pictures. So good, in fact,
that you tend to forget you’re watching a 63-year-old film. The sound is switchable
between fake 5.1 and mono. Either is adequate. We only get two extras: a trailer and some
trivia. Gone With the Wind deserves more. Hopefully, someday Warner will give Gone
With the Wind the same quality treatment they gave to Citizen
Kane.
In the mean time, this is $19.99 and four hours well spent.
Given some of the babble I’ve seen in theaters lately, the fact that this is the
biggest-selling film of all time is somehow comforting.
...Wes Marshall
wesm@hometheatersound.com |
