Gone With the Wind

I love it it. Except for the woman who plays Melanie.

Fuck that british bitch.

Joan, where were you in the thread about you and your sister??? We missed you both.

I've never actually sat through the entire movie. Someone explain the point of the overture.

Truly one of the greatest movies ever.

If you need the point of an overture explained to you, you are too stupid to live. Please leave Datalounge and go take a film class, a music class and then Google the word "overture," you dimwit.

R6? Every movie doesn't have an overture. Not even all movies about this time in history. All I was wondering was why GWTW specifically used one, you fucking old cunt.

Melanie's birthing scene as Scarlett goes up the stairs..%0D %0D was that glitter on her forehead or actual beads of sweat?

Isn't the overture just some theme music they used to play in movie theatres when people were filing in or during intermission? They seem to play them now and then with certain movies on TCM.

Most of the big epic films had overtures, until maybe the 1980s. Ten Commandments and Laurence of Arabia come to mind. They often had intermission music, as well.

I think GWTW needs a new overture.

I think it should be Lady Gaga's "Poker Face"

Muh-muh-muh-MAH!

Oh God, the poor horse just died.

Here you go r11 - enjoy!!!! ---

Intermission%0D %0D How long does this last?

Thank you, R13.

See everyone!

Ain't that a better overture for GWTW?

Oh my God, R13! THAT was frickin' great.

Has anyone counted the amount of times people's faces get slapped? funny shit..

Frankly, I don't give a damn.

The dress of curtains..%0D %0D for God's sake one sleeve is puffy and the other straight.

The last movie to begin with an overture was 1979's 'Star Trek: The Motion Picture'.

The scenes between deHavilland and Gable are sinply exquisite and often overlooked when talking of the film's greatness.

r21 - I agree 100%. They are great together.

R21, Gable certainly knows how to compensate for working with dead weight.

Gable was unmatched. GWTW and It Happened One Night are the greatest old movies ever.

OH I love this dress, when Rhett and Scarlett are taking a stroll w/ Bonnie.

I'm African American and I never prescribed to the theory about this movie. I've always enjoyed it. This is a fantasy about a Southern Belle. This is not fact and I don't look to a moive to tell me about the horrors of slavery. Thats what books are for and reading actual slave archives. I always loved the movie, Clark Gable and Hattie McDaniel

Gable and McDaniel were great friends in real life. No two actors in the movie knew each other as well as these two. The ease that they do their scenes together is evident.

So, did deHavilland and Vivien Leigh get along?

r26, thank you and bless you. What a refreshing non "shrieking shrew" about the racist themes of the movie. That is the purpose of the movie, to be an entertaining FICTIONAL account of the life and times of a Southern belle during the Civil War. It is grand cinema, not a political statement. In past GWTW threads, the screaming harridans came out of the woodwork to condemn the movie. Tiresome.%0D %0D You sound like a cool person! And guess what? Mammy is the smartest character in the movie, in my opinion. She doesn't let Scarlett get away with jack shit. Calls her out on everything. And Scarlett MINDS HER, too! The only one in the movie that can take Scarlett down a peg or two and the only one Scarlett actually respects!

What's your source on Gable and McDaniel knowing each other well, r27?%0D %0D

Vivian Leigh is brilliant in this. Hattie McDaniel, Clark Gable, Butterfly McQueen, Evelyn Keyes thomas Mitchell, and Alicia Rhett are all excellent or better than excellent.

Livvie DeH's "grand lady" style, even at the tender age of 23, doesn't hold up. And Leslie Howard is an embarrassment.

Wasn't Hattie a lesbian and had a relationship with Claudette Coulbert and Dietrich?

R31 = Joan

What do we think of Ona Munson as Belle Watling?

Tonight she seems off. She's a bit too common and not quite sophisticated enough to be a legend, but maybe I'm just in a mood.

Gable insisted that McDaniel be cast as Mammy. He also threatened to pull out of the Atlanta premiere when McDaniel wasn't invited.%0D %0D She talked him out of it.%0D %0D This is all over wikipedia and the rest of the internet.%0D %0D It's funny how a lot of the old A-List stars (Davis, Hepburn, Bogart, Gable) were solid proressives.

r32, it was Tallulah.

r26 here. Thank you. I guess I get my attitude from my mother and grandmother. They always liked the movie and they explained to me when I was young that this is just a MOVIE, just like Star Wars or Jaws. That is fantasy. Other blacks are ashamed of the slaves or "Mammy" image. The fat black woman image was a myth, but thats why I admire Hattie because she could have played it "country" but she brought dignity. They didn't give her the Oscar, they didn't give her nothing, she earned it. %0D %0D The controversy for me was not race, but why would Scarlett want Ashley when she had Rhett Butler? I never got that.

Was Rhett tinymeat?

"The controversy for me was not race, but why would Scarlett want Ashley when she had Rhett Butler? I never got that."%0D %0D I think a lot of the reason Scarlett wanted Ashley was his social status. Everyone in the county liked her father, but Gerald O'Hara was a roughneck and very unrefined. Miss Ellen had definitely married down. Scarlett hoped to improve her social standing by marrying a rich, educated, cultured gentleman and Ashley fit the bill.%0D %0D Mammy calls Scarlett "a mule in horse harness", and I think that was exactly the image and reputation Scarlett was trying to overcome. She knew Ashley's sisters looked down on her, and in turn Scarlett was very snobbish herself, and was quite willing to label Emmy Slattery as white trash. %0D

I don't think that before or during the war Scarlett felt any insecurity about her social standing or felt any need to improve it. She moved in the circles of all the best families in Clayton County and Atlanta - what would she want to improve?%0D %0D I think it mischaracterizes her relationship with India and Honey Wilkes to say "She knew Ashley's sisters looked down on her". She knew they hated her, yes, but she attributed it to jealousy, not to a lack of social status on her part, and I think Mitchell backs Scarlett's understanding of it. I don't remember Honey or India ever making any status-based or class-based remark about Scarlett or the O'Haras.

I'm African American, and my sister and I love this movie! She always identified with the character and personality of Scarlett. I know there were protests, etc. when the movie came out, but I really don't see why. Of course, maybe they toned down the editorial intro about the grace and beauty of the pre-war South, etc.%0D %0D Slavery was a fact of History. The movie didn't glorify it. They didn't make it worse or better. It was there. Just like Scarlett working those convicts, just like the shantytowns, just like the Klan. %0D %0D They showed all kinds of personalities in the movie. Butterfly McQueen's sullen, lazy youngster who really was rebellious. Poke, who was conditioned to being told what to do. Hard worker, no initiative. Mammy, tough lady, who really ran the show. %0D %0D Scarlett was assaulted by a white assailant and was rescued by a Black man. And that overseer and his wife, the Slattery girl, "white trash" thru and thru. It's a good story.%0D %0D I thought Ashley was gay, too.

[quote]The controversy for me was not race, but why would Scarlett want Ashley when she had Rhett Butler? I never got that.%0D %0D In the sequel, called "Scarlett" (the book, not that godawful television mini-series) Rhett divorces Scarlett, but allows people to think she left him for another man. At one point, Scarlett overhears two English women talking, who had met Rhett through acquaintances, and one says, "But my God, Marjorie! What must that other man be like if she would leave Butler for [italic]him?![/italic]" I always wanted to say, "Amen, sister!"%0D %0D The sequel was almost universally reviled, but I liked it.

great movie, I love when she pulls the radish out of the ground and the the great theme music starts to roar.

According to Hollywood Babylon II, Hattie only went for a little lezzie love when she was "fed up with the men folk."

R43, I think it was a turnip. A radish would elicit no such declarations or swelling music.

"I don't think that before or during the war Scarlett felt any insecurity about her social standing or felt any need to improve it. She moved in the circles of all the best families in Clayton County and Atlanta - what would she want to improve?"%0D %0D In the book, Scarlett feels a constant conflict between her desire to be a True Lady (like Melanie or her mother), and her real nature. Every time she does something ruthless or useful, she feels guilt because she isn't being the kind of noble, self-sacrificing lady she idolizes, but isn't cut out to be. It's not that she's insecure about her social standing, she's insecure about her own lack of ladylike qualities.%0D %0D Oh, and after the war, her society friends are the trashy, nouveau-riche carpetbagger crowd, and Rhett loathes them. Instead he admires the old aristocrats who've lost their money, for some reason.

I know it is heresy, but I hate this movie....a lead character with not a single redeeming quality, long slow narrative sequences, overacting, secondary characters who are nausea inducing.....I can't stand it

"GWTW" is definitely a great film, possibly the best film to come out of Hollywood. Every aspect of it--casting, acting, writing, directing, score-- is superb. Too bad those days are gone forever.

r48 - I don't know if those days are gone for good but I would say "The Godfather" gives GWTW a run for it's money. Every aspect of that movie is also superb. Overall, I think the acting is better in Godfather. The story doesn't have the epic quality of GWTW though.

It was a radish. Pork or Mammie (I can't remember wich one) specifically states that the only thing left to eat are radishes in the garden.

Without Mammie there would have been no Michelle Obama.%0D %0D Discuss.

Comment on the overture question. The overture was included for GWTW, which was based on themes from the film (Meleanie's, Rhett's, Mammy's, etc) by order of the producer David O Selznik. He wanted to set the mood for the film in the 3-4 minutes before the film started, so included the overture and then the intermission/entr'acte music to be sure that local theater owners didn't play popular music of the day in the auditorium which would be inconsistent with GWTW's themes. He was all about control. It was always played when GWTW played in theaters.

I always thought Scarlett was impatient with the "good Southern Lady" ways of Mellie and her mother, yet she would've enjoyed the respect and the admiration they received, except she wanted it by being herself. %0D %0D Scarlett was practical, willful, and too impatient to go thru all the machinations women went thru to get their way.She ran a business while they sat around in second hand clothes, sewing and 'being ladies.'%0D %0D She hated the "simpering" girls. She had an appetite too large for her corsets, she flirted shamelessly with other girls' beaus, when it was nap time she wandered around looking for mischief to get into, and danced the Virginia Reel in her widows' weeds. %0D %0D She didn't really know how to be two-faced. I liked her. Altho, it wasn't until the end that she really appreciated the strength and the gentleness of people like her mother and Melanie.

r 41, first of all, we love Hattie McDaniel, she's a sublime actor and comedienne, and she fucked Tallulah Bankhead! She's a goddess!

Nonetheless, the figure of the black mammy is notoriously problematic and racist, and Mammy in GWTW is the most famous black mammy of all time. Why is she devoted to that white family? Why does she love their children more than her own? No doubt she was raped by her white master when she was a girl, and her children were sold to other plantations. Her job is to protect the southern patriarchy. Sure, "slavery was an historical fact," but: the US had a uniquely punishing and insidious system of slavery, and our country continued to allow slave-owning long after every European slave-trading nation had banished it. The movie sentimentalizes and romanticizes the south's slave-owning culture. It's a giant piece of pro-Jim-Crow propaganda. Blacks weren't allowed to attend the Atlanta premiere of GWTW. Hattie McDaniel was not allow to attend the premiere. At the Oscar ceremony, she sat at the "black table" - she was not allowed to sit with whites. GWTW justifies slavery, it makes slavery look quaint and sweet, it tells white people that blacks like to be owned, and that blacks love whites. Do some research on the number of lynchings that were still going on throughout the south in the 1930s and 1940s. GONE WITH THE WIND was a film that colluded with our country's systematic oppression and murder of black people.

And Vivien Leigh can't act.

"The controversy for me was not race, but why would Scarlett want Ashley when she had Rhett Butler? I never got that."%0D %0D Scarlett wanted Ashley because she couldn't HAVE Ashley. When Melanie dies, and Ashley is hers if she still wants him, her love for him immediately evaporates into indifference. She promises Melanie to look after him but realizes that if she hadn't made that promise: I wouldn't care if I never saw him again."%0D %0D It was a travesty that Gable didn't win an Oscar for GWTW, one of the worst Oscar mistakes in history. %0D %0D In the book, during the time where Melanie is pregnant and Atlanta is burned, the character of Prissy is about 12 years old. In the movie, she's played by an adult woman. To have an adult playing a scared out of her mind, uneducated, servant-girl child is to make the character seem mentally retarded.

R54 you really do not need to re-accquaint me with history, and you're giving the character of Mammy in this particular movie, a backstory that is purely an invention of your imagination. Margaraet Mitchell could've written another whole novel about it. But she didn't. %0D %0D Now, given the context of the times in which this movie came out, is another matter entirely. I agree with what you've written. I am aware of it, and know about it, about the Jim Crow laws, the lynchings, the humiliations and the segregation. %0D %0D Protesting was completely justified. And in that sense, GWTW premiering in ATL, was a catalyst to draw more attention to those inequities. %0D %0D Viewing the movie now, in 2010, I don't see the Black actors as "quaint." The entire movie is full of stereotypes, both Black and White.%0D I don't think the movie re-enforces or supports racism, nor do I feel that it singles out Blacks as markedly inferior to whites. %0D %0D The characters a very human, considering the time in which the movie was made. It came out in the late 1930's. It is not Birth of a Nation by a longshot! I will say this, I don't recall one Black character who was shown to be evil or mean-spirited, or frightening.

Vivien Leigh acts the shit out of this movie - I still say it's probably one of the top three greatest performances on film. With her Blanche Du Bois (haha, I almost typed Devereaux) up there as well.

Add me to the list of people who don't see the appeal of Ashley to Scarlett. I imagine if they had cast a younger, better-looking actor it would have been more believable. Yes, Ashley was a refined man, but not physically appealing - can't believe there were no good-looking refined young men in the county. What about the Tarelton twins?

"Why is she (Mammy)devoted to that white family? Why does she love their children more than her own?" Surrogate mothering is not a concept unique to pre-Civil War America. Throughout history, European aristocracy have been raised by people other than their parents, and these surrogates deeply cared for and loved these children. Don't know why Mammy loving Scarlett, which she clearly does, is hard to believe. And she proudly proclaims her role of diapering three generations of Scarlett's family. Plus, being charged with rearing these children had to be a better lot in life than many other options for a black woman in slavery - and Mammy was smart enough to know that too.

And as far as the stereo-typed nitwit character of Prissy being racist, Aunt Pity-Pat was the biggest no brain character in the movie.

I don't think Prissy came across as an adult. Butterfly McQueen may have been pushing 30, but she looked, sounded, and acted very young. I would have guessed Prissy to be around 14 or 15 from her performance.

The Tarleton Twins, like most of the men in northern Georgia at the start of the Civil War, were practically illiterate, with no interests except guns, hunting and fighting. Ashley Wilkes stood out among his contemporaries by his love for the finers things in life.

Somebody please shoot R54. Boring.

r54, get off this thread you Yankee trash! Your kind's not welcome here!

The history of slavery in the South was really very complex - after all, some of the Founding Fathers owned slaves. In the book, when Scarlett gives Gerald's gold watch to Pork, she says she wishes she could have an inscription ingraved, something like "Well done, good and faithful servant" I think, which I considered a thoughtful gesture. However, I noticed in the movie last night, when she was angry at Prissy (birth of Melanie's baby), she threatened to send her South - a real threat, done to punish slaves, as slaves were treated even wors in Mississippi, Alabama, prob. Louisiana, where i gets really hot, sticky, etc. Plus, this act splits up the slave family unit...one of the few comforts they had.

Prissy is a teenager in the book. I could be wrong but I think in the book she is bought for Tara as a ten-year old when the story first opens.

I think you're right, r64. Isn't it that Gerald is going to buy Dilcey as a favor to Pork because they're married, or want to be married? And then Dilcey doesn't want to leave her daughter Prissy, so he buys her too?

R65: Yup, in the book Gerald is really soft-hearted and everybody on Tara knew it. %0D %0D Was Dilcey even in the movie?

R65, I believe so but, even though the book says Pork and Dilcey are married, I'm pretty sure slaves weren't able to be legally married.%0D %0D Oh.%0D %0D I can SO relate!

Is Prissy really a simple-minded darkie, as Rhett said?

Dilsey was played in the movie by Joan Crawford in blackface, but her scenes, strangely enough, all ended up on the cutting room floor. Film preservationists still hope to find the lost footage of Dilsey/Joan slapping the fire out of a Yankee soldier who wandered into the yam patch at Tara.

^ That was none other than ME, baby, not Mammy Dearest! All those takes nearly cost the use of my right palm, and for what?

It wasn't blackface, it was "tropical" makeup.

Atlanta royalty, Atlanta royalty. Prissy hand me the axe!

Might as well have "Property of Scarlett O'Hara" tattooed on my backside!

Melanie, please!

Leslie Howard comes off badly because Ashley's character was poorly written. But who would you have cast in 1939?

[quote]But who would you have cast in 1939?

Tyrone Power could have handled it.

I don't think I've seen him in anything. I was never interested in him until I read Susie Lee's posts.

The last couple of times I've seen it, I can't stop staring at Vivien Leigh's ever-so slight mustache problem, which I never noticed until they struck that last print and digitally restored it. Now I can't help but notice things like wiglines, the edges of matte shots, etc. Some things just aren't meant to be viewed with that kind of clarity, I'm afraid. Or am I just hopelessly jaded?

I suggested Tyrone Power, but I withdraw that and replace it with Joseph Cotten.

He would have been great in that role.

Rhett and Scarlett's daughter died two weeks go.

Regarding Mammy and her lifelong devotion to a family of slaveowners, people who OWNED her and her children...%0D %0D I find her believable, because you see people like her in all sorts of cultures: Upper-level servants to the aristocracy can be ridiculously devoted to their masters, like in "Remains of the Day". She gains prestige and respect through a close association with the family, authority over her peers, and over the family themselves. She's the head servant in a manor house, which is the highest position a slave woman could ever attain. It's also the highest position a freed black woman could attain in those days.%0D %0D So while I can believe that someone like her would stay with the O'Haras after the war, I also like to imagine what a woman of her intelligence, perception, and authority could accomplish today. U.S. Congress, maybe.%0D %0D

On a slightly related note, I'm watching the 3 DVD set of The Blue And The Gray tonight.

I love you R54. I like the movie but I am not going to pretend that there were not problems with the way black folk were presented.

And sometimes the servant actually marries her master.

Jospeh Cotton was also a true Southerner.

[quote]I don't recall one Black character who was shown to be evil or mean-spirited, or frightening.

The black carpetbagger coming into town. The black guys standing in the streets of Atlanta that Mammy chastises for not knowing their place. It's not subtle.

When Vivien arrived at the Atlanta airport for the premiere, at band playing Dixie greeted her as she decended the plane's steps.%0D %0D Being her gracious self, she exclaimed "Oh they're playing the song from our movie!".%0D %0D Fearing an uproar, David O. Selznick nearly fainted.

I will be forever thankful that I waited until I had a BIG SCREEN opportunity to see this movie. Awesome.%0D Word to you young'uns - seek out Cinerama.%0D %0D I am also happy that I waited on LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. Damn, I can't stomach even the thought of watching either of these ok a *normal* screen.

When you think about freed slaves living in poverty with nothing, it's not hard to understand Mammy choosing the best option she had, which was to live in a mansion with (obviously) as much food as she could eat. Did we ever see her actually do any housework? Her job seemed to be mainly waddling around and bitching about everything. Good "work" if you can get it.

LOL at 89.%0D %0D Indeed, what DID Mammie ever do?%0D %0D And she got to drink booze with Rhett Butler . . .

[quote]I noticed in the movie last night, when she was angry at Prissy (birth of Melanie's baby), she threatened to send her South - a real threat, done to punish slaves, as slaves were treated even wors in Mississippi, Alabama, prob. Louisiana, where i gets really hot, sticky, etc. %0D %0D In the book she said "I'll sell you for a field hand, too" (as opposed to working in the house.) I noticed they left that line out of the movie. %0D %0D

Mammie had 'tude.

In a former Scarlett thread someone posted a clip of Melvyn Douglas' screen test as Ashley. He was far superior to Leslie Howard and surprisingly sexy and rugged.

Do not follow r89's advice about seeing GWTW in Cinerama or any other widescreen process. It was filmed in Academy Standard, which is basically a square shape. Attempts in the 1970's to show it in a widescreen aspect ratio resulted in an image that was blown up to the point of fuzziness and the top and bottoms cut off. A real disaster.

But DO see it on a big screen in its proper proportions. It's a stunning work of color, art design and execution that has well-earned its 70 year reputation.

(And do see Lawrence in a nice widescrren presentation, which was the way it was filmed and meant to be seen.)

Didn't Margaret Mitchell say that the real life man Ashley was based on was gay? Was it an ex-husband or childhood sweetheart?

She didn't say; biographers have mostly agreed that Ashley was inspired by a man (Cliff Henry) she was either engaged to or seriously dated while she was in college. Cliff was gay and supposedly she knew and didn't care; it was the Roaring 20's and she was an independent kinda gal. But he went off to war. . .and then he died.

Well, there's no point in arguing with people who think: a) Vivien Leigh is a good actress; and, b) GONE WITH THE WIND is not a vile, pernicious piece of minstrelsy that was used for decades to give white the impression that black folks want to be owned. Malcolm X was so infuriated by the depiction of blacks in the film that he couldn't watch the thing; in his AUTOBIOGRAPHY, he says he wanted to crawl under his seat and hide from it.

To those of you who think Vivien can't act: Vivien did a great job in "Streetcar" and she was the perfect Scarlett, per both Cukor and Selznick. %0D %0D See a few of her films before you spout off.%0D %0D

[quote]GONE WITH THE WIND is not a vile, pernicious piece of minstrelsy that was used for decades to give white the impression that black folks want to be owned.%0D %0D What white person ever walked out of GWTW thinking, "Gosh, this movie just confirmed my long-standing suspicion that black people want to be owned."?%0D %0D Most white people look at the black characters in GWTW as the sometimes funny, sometimes moving supporting characters they are and leave it at that.

I'm probably the only person on the face of this planet who has NEVER seen "Gone With The Wind." Just no interest I suppose (I loved the High and the Mighty and Casablanca).

I nominate Joel McCrea as Ashley. He was a fine and subtle romantic actor -- and also sexy as hell.

R97, I hope you don't really believe that [quote]GONE WITH THE WIND is a vile, pernicious piece of minstrelsy that was used for decades to give white the impression that black folks want to be owned.%0D %0D If you do, you are suffering; and I feel sympathy for you. %0D %0D

Lots of bizarrely clueless denial in this thread about the racism and enormous historical dishonesty of GWTW.

Look -- it's certainly possible to enjoy the film immensely and appreciate it as a dazzling entertainment and one of the great works of classic Hollywood cinema. I certainly do! Yet at the same time, the ugliness of its racial attitudes can't be denied.

One of my favorite bloggers about classic Hollywood film, Self-Styled Siren, wrote a great post about GWTW several years back. She wrote about her complicated feelings about the film. On the one hand, as a white Southerner, she grew up loving it, and as a sophisticated cinephile, she still loves it.

But on the other hand, as a morally aware adult, she deplores its profound racism. Here's part of what she had to say:

"The movie is racist. Not misguided, not dated, RACIST.

"It is racist in big ways, as it shows the 'good Negros' sticking around to serve their former owners. The bad ones run off. They ride around Atlanta in fancy clothes or congregate in Shantytown until Ashley and Rhett ride in with the (delicately unnamed) Klan and clear it out. Yes, the great stuntman Yakima Canutt played the white man who attacks Scarlett. His accomplice, played by Blue Washington, is black, and the raid is a lynching party. Defend that if you like.

[. . .]

"Even people too sophisticated to take much stock in GWTW's mythology will defend certain of the assumptions behind it, such as the idea that most or even many slaves were well-treated, or better off in any sense than Northern workers. They weren't. Life expectancy for a black slave in the antebellum South was about 21, almost exactly half that of a white person. . .

"It is true that Hattie McDaniel's Mammy is the soul of the movie. The monologue she delivers to Melanie after the death of Rhett and Scarlett's daughter is a moment of utter heartbreak. But Mammy is defined only through her devotion to the white folks. She has personality aplenty, but no existence outside of those she serves. Some people argue that Mammy has a great deal more life and individuality than most black characters in mainstream movies up to that time. Even if you grant that point, and the Siren cites the 1934 Imitation of Life as one counterexample, Mammy was perceived by many blacks even at that time as an insult. McDaniel spent the rest of her life fending off accusations of betrayal. 'I'd rather play a maid than be one,' she supposedly said. McDaniel did a beautiful job with what she had, but what the GWTW script gave her was a stereotype recognizable even in 1939."

Read the whole thing -- it's a great post!

GWTW was made 70 years ago. %0D %0D Should we boycott it because it contains negative stereotypes?

Is anyone suggesting we boycott it, R104?

I strongly urge *anyone* who enjoys film, and/or cares about American history or popular culture, and/or wants to be culturally literate, to see this film. I've seen it a number of times and I never fail to find it wildly entertaining.

But I also find its racism and its dishonesty about history to be quite disturbing.

A number of folks on this thread seem to be suggesting that the only attitude we're allowed to have toward GWTW is one of uncritical celebration. When others of us suggest that a more adult and complicated approach is in order -- one that gives the film its full due for its remarkable achievements as art and entertainment, but also doesn't shy away from looking at the centrality of racism to both the novel and the film of GWTW -- the DL fanboyz and fangurlz seem to want to stick their fingers in their ears and say "la la la la la -- I can't hear you!"

I wonder why they feel so threatened by a spirited, open discussion about GWTW. Personally, I think such discussions -- if they're intelligent -- enrich the viewing experience.

[quote]They ride around Atlanta in fancy clothes or congregate in Shantytown until Ashley and Rhett ride in with the (delicately unnamed) Klan and clear it out.

Rhett wasn't in the Klan.

It's always amazing to me how furiously people deny that GONE WITH THE WIND is racist. Yet it its racism has long been definitively established. Imagine how different the story might have been if it had made Mammy its central character and heroine - if it had been about her life and loves, her losses, her family, her sense of tradition. GWTW is a moral cop-out, because it chooses to show its major black characters only in relation to their servitude. It prefers to imagine that black people existed at the time only as adjuncts of white people.

Face it: everything after Intermission is a bore. And everything before is hardly as entertaining as Mandingo.

R103 needs to shut up. His yammerings about the racism of GWTW are boring and tiresome.%0D %0D GWTW is just a movie, a movie made over 70 years ago. Times were different; there was no such thing as being "polically-correct" back then. And how politically-correct could you be when telling the story of white, slave-owning, Southern plantation owners during the Civil War?%0D %0D GWTW is an entertaining movie with some brilliant performances. It's not a documentary for God's sake, although some people seem to think that it is supposed to be an entirely accurate depiction of the people and happenings during that era. %0D %0D %0D

Slavery is an historical fact. You can't insist GWTW is racist simply because it portrays that reality. %0D %0D In film studies clss we had to watch Birth of a Nation. BOAN caricatured Blacks, made them buffoons, clowns,sexual predators, and monsters. They were portrayed as sub-human simians. It was repugnant, and loathsome, and disgusting.%0D %0D GWTW is not BOAN. If I'm not mistaken didn't Ashley say he'd free his slaves at some point in the movie? From the limited perspective of the time in which it was made, 1930's, I think GWTW was pretty balanced.%0D %0D Of all the slaves who worked Tara, only four chose to remain, all of them worked in the house. %0D %0D There are a lot of people like Mammy. If Eve Arden had been a Black woman would we consider Mildred Pierce racist? There are people who identify with authority and assume they are an extension of it, and that they are important. %0D %0D They never think of themselves as subservient. I have known secretaries and PAs who act the same way. %0D %0D There is no doubt that racism existed and still exists in the way Blacks are portrayed in movies and on TV. Sexism exists in those places,too. %0D %0D GWTW is not clean. Yes, it's racist in that it portrays a way of life that was hideous and shameful.But that way of life existed. It happened. If we were watching a story about Mammy, they'd have called it "Roots." %0D %0D GWTW tells the story of a wealthy Southern family, plantation owners, cotton producers, during the Civil War. %0D %0D It shows what happens in the war's aftermath during Reconstruction. When I hear people like Rhett or whoever, mourn the loss of a way of life, I laugh. They are delusional. They've been defeated in every way possible. %0D %0D We see the bitterness and the huge reversal of fortune for the slaveowners, the ascendancy of Yankee capitalism intruding on this previously agrarian society. %0D %0D You can dismiss GWTW as simply a piece of racist trash. But it isn't. I think we can acknowledge that the characters had a racist perspective without insisting the movie is racist. It's not that simple.

Apparently the ladies at the Atlanta premiere screamed with joy when Scarlett shot the Northern deserter.

I always thought it odd that the Northern deserter looked so much like a young Gerald O'Hara.

I wonder what Franchot Tone would have done with the part?

I'm not really familiar enough with the work of these other Ashley suggestions to evaluate them.%0D %0D But really - Ashley should not have been a hard role to cast, should it? Was there a shortage of YOUNG, HANDSOME, romantic men who could act in Hollywood at the time? It's not like it demanded an actor of Olivier-level abilities... and really, no B-level actor could have been stiffer or more wooden than Leslie Howard was in the role anyway.%0D %0D Even if straight Selznick didn't have an eye for what Ashley needed to be, you'd think Cukor could have steered him to a better choice.

He should have been young and handsome, but he also needs to be bland, hollow and weak.

If we cast it today Ben Affleck or Brad Pitt would both work.

No, if we cast it today, Ryan Reynolds would make a good Ashley, or maybe a young Bill Pullman. Remember, they didn't want anyone to compete with Rhett's strong, dashing image. Ashley had to be very watered down. Rhett was flash. Ashley was likable, but weak and unreliable. %0D %0D For me, his best scene was when he was out cxhopping wood at Tara, and Scarlett went out to ask for his help and guidance about finding the tax money, and he started rambling on and acted so defeated and weak. That was a turning point for her altho maybe she didn't realize it just at first.%0D %0D I still marvel at how well calibrated Clark Gable's interpretation of Rhett was. Well turned out without being foppish. An opportunistic rogue with no pretensions.

Ashley was supposed to be stiff. He was never comfortable, never adjusted in his life. He wanted to go up North and work in a bank. He was in love with his books and with history and poetry.

Prissy is a child when Dilcey presents her to the O'Haras, after Gerald has bought both her and Prissy from John Wilkes. She tells Scarlett that Prissy will be a competent handmaiden to her and tells her Prissy can fix clothes and hair "just like a grown person." During the burning of Atlanta Prissy is still a child, although it may be that she's just barely in her teens. %0D %0D Dilcey was not in the movie. A shame; she would have been a good character. She was part American-Indian, part African-American; she's dignified and hard-working and honest. A very admirable character.%0D %0D Other important figures in the book who were not in the movie:%0D %0D Honey Wilkes: she's Ashley's other sister. Scarlett steals Charles Hamilton from HER, not India. India is in love with Stuart Tarleton in the book. He is her One True Love and she never marries after he's killed at Gettysburg. The gossipy Honey eventually does marry, much to the surprise of her relatives who never thought she'd "catch" another man after Charles threw her over for Scarlett.%0D %0D Wade Hampton Hamilton and Ella Kennedy: Scarlett had a child with each of her husbands. Wade is like a clone of his father Charles: pale, brown-eyed, timid and quiet and shy due to Scarlett's bullying. Ella, daughter of Frank Kennedy, is described as being an ugly baby and when she gets older she's described as being "giddy-brained." It would seem that she was possibly suffering from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome; Scarlett drank straight bourbon nightly while pregnant with Ella. %0D %0D Will Benteen: he's an ill soldier dumped off at Tara after the war ends. He'a "Cracker"; that is someone who is not a wealthy landowner, someone from the lower classes. But he's a hard worker, a good farmer, and is very smart, although uneducated. He falls in love with Careen, but she can't forget her True Love Brent Tarleton, and joins a convent. So he ends up marrying Suellen. It's a marriage of convenience for both; he wants to stay at Tara and she is desperate for a husband. %0D %0D Mrs. Tarleton: She's the mother of the Tarleton twins and five others. Her only interests in life are breeding (both human and horsebreeding) and horses. She's down to earth and outspoken and a fearless rider. She gives Gerald a delightful speech about why cousins shouldn't marry. %0D %0D Grandma Fontaine: She's the mother of the Fontaine brothers. She's a fiesty old woman who speaks her mind and she really tells it like it is.%0D %0D One of the best things about GWTW the novel is that it is packed with unforgettable, vivid characters.

Melanie (dying) to Scarlett: "Look after him (Ashley) ... but never let him know." Know what???

[quote]Know what???%0D %0D Don't let Ashley know that Melanie asked Scarlett to look after him. It would hurt his pride.

[quote]Was there a shortage of YOUNG, HANDSOME, romantic men who could act in Hollywood at the time?%0D %0D There most certainly was NOT.

Did they edit Sally Cato out?

Didn't the lady authoress confess that she based Rhett Butler on Clark Gable? So his being perfect in the role wasn't such an achievement?

Another vote for Randolph Scott as Ashley.

See? the "GWTW is racist posters" are total 'tards. The movie and book are about the DEEP SOUTH DURING AND AFTER THE CIVIL WAR PERIOD. Slavery existed. The movies depicts that time. The reality was WORSE than what was depicted in the movie. Of COURSE the movie is "racist" because those TIMES were racist.%0D %0D Good lord, it's like watching a movie ABOUT gorillas and then being offended because there are gorillas in it.

[quote]Rhett and Scarlett's daughter died two weeks go.%0D %0D My God! She must've been 145 if a day.

[quote]Rhett and Scarlett's daughter died two weeks go.

The last we saw, Melanie had convinced Rhett to allow her to be buried. You would think the apparent later discovery that she was still alive would have warranted at least a few seconds of screen time.

I blame poor editing, r127.

"Didn't the lady authoress confess that she based Rhett Butler on Clark Gable?"%0D %0D She claimed she was thinking of Gary Cooper, which can't be right. Cooper always had a rather shy and humble manner, even when he was playing tough guys, and that wouldn't have done at all. Gable had the character's open sexual magnetism, his extraordinary self-confidence, and a well-hidden vulnerable side. Gable was perfect in the role, and it's the best performance he ever gave.%0D %0D And Randolph Scott as Ashley? Puh-lease! Scott was always a rough, tough, macho guy, not someone who'd rather read poetry than fight. Tyrone Power would have been a much better match, so sweet and handsome, but he would have looked like such a weenie when compared to Gable - which would have been exactly right for the character.

r54/97/107, you're a fucking bore. Shut the fuck up.

Vivien Leigh is brilliant in GWTW. Sorry, she is. Oh, wait, why don't you give us some examples of what YOU consider brilliant acting. We could all use a good laugh. (Let me guess, your list begins and ends with Meryl Streep).

[quote]Didn't the lady authoress confess that she based Rhett Butler on Clark Gable?%0D %0D Fetch me my smelling salts! You can call Margaret Mitchell a "lady author" or an "authoress" but saying "lady authoress" is redundant. It's like saying "female actress."%0D %0D You have offended the English majors on this board more than GWTW's depiction of slavery offends black people.

I LOVE Franchot Tone!!

Wouldn't Ronald Colman have been the logical choice for Ashley? He may have been a little old but no worse than Leslie Howard.

"Melanie (dying) to Scarlett: "Look after him (Ashley) ... but never let him know."%0D %0D Know what???"%0D %0D Never let him know that he's being looked after. Melanie asks Scarlett to make sure Ashley's business stays afloat; "Ashley isn't practical", she tells Scarlett. Scarlett says she'll do that but in a subtle way: "I'll just kind of suggest things to him." And Melanie dies knowing her dreamy, impractical husband will be taken care of after she's gone. Scarlett intends to keep her promise, but doesn't relish the idea of having to look after the interests of Ashley Wilkes. With the death of Melanie her feelings for him completely disappear.%0D %0D

Ronald Coleman was a serious contender for Rhett.

[quote]Wouldn't Ronald Colman have been the logical choice for Ashley? %0D %0D Ronald Colman looks a little too much like Clark Gable. They needed the physical contrast between men that Leslie Howard provided against Gable.

Tyrone Power would have provided a good physical contrast with Gable, as well as having the sweet and gentle personality Ashley needed. He was also much more beautiful than Gable (although Gable was 100x sexier), and that would have made her attraction to him much more understandable. %0D %0D But he wasn't blond, and I suppose they wanted to cast someone fair. Feh.

Leslie Howard hated the part and I am not clear why he agreed to do it. He was much too fey, too British drawing room, never attempting a Southern accent at all. His British accent in the film is a total distraction.%0D %0D "Yesterday I put on my Confederate uniform for the first time and looked like a fairy doorman at the Beverly Wiltshire- a fine thing at my age." (Leslie Howard shared his feelings about playing Ashley in a letter to his family.) %0D %0D Selznick was SO involved in casting him, though. Yes, the screen tests show that some other actors were MUCH better, including Melvyn Douglas. Selznick thought Douglas "too beefy" and too rough-hewn for the part, though.

Didn't Ashley need to be a bit weak and then die? Most leading men of the time wouldn't -- or couldn't -- take on such a role.

Ashley doesn't die in the book or the movie.

Stop hating women. Your misogyny is killing queer teens all over the US. (And Vivien Leigh can't act.)

I read that Mitchell wanted Basil Rathbone for Rhett.

Joel McCrea was much too sexy for Ashley. Leslie Howard was perfect for the part. Not that I don't love Leslie...he was great in Smilin Through and The Scarlet Pimpernel. But GWTW works because we can't understand what Scarlett sees in him. You can't have an Ashley that's sexier than Rhett.

On TCM tonight 4/14/14 8 pm

None of the four leads are especially likable. Ashley was priggish and prissy (sorry.) Clark looked fat and like he smelled. Vivian was pretty but hammy. Melanie was too good to be true. Still, I really like this movie and it goes fast. They did a great job.

My favorite characters were Mammy and Prissy. Mammy is the ONLY person in the whole movie who is smart. Everyone would fall apart without her.

Butterfly McQueen is awesome. I had no idea she was 30 in this. I thought she was a teen. She played a teen very well, always into themselves and trying to get out of doing anything. She was also excellent in Mildred Pierce.

R143, Leslie Howard was 20 years too old for the part, and not very handsome. Ashley's supposed to be dreamy. We are supposed to understand what Scarlett sees in him. Otherwise, Mitchell wouldn't have described him as handsome and debonair.

He was too old for the part and for years I thought he was terrible. Then, after around the 25th time I watched the movie, I gained a new appreciation for his performance. He has two bad moments. One is the part where he and Melanie reunite after the war and they are running. Terribly directed scene though if you removed the last shot of Melanie, it would work. The other is the part where he turns his head and says something like, "Oh why can't we go away and pretend we never said these things". Other than those two moments, he's excellent in the movie. Yes, too old, but his performance is still great.

Just starting on TCM.

Racism! Racism!

Sorry for bumping an old thread but have no other way.....

GWTW is on PBS/Channel Thirteen tonight!

In Mississippi, they show it backwards to give it a happy ending.

Well it is good to see GWTW without the commercial breaks network television broadcasts insert.

It's worth saying once more: HATTIE MC DANIEL is so good, wonderful, what a great actress. I would have loved to have met her. Mammy is the real star here; I know everyone says it is Scarlett, but Scarlett could not function without Mammy, who is the only smart person at Tara.

Wouldn't it be something if Hattie were alive today (and young-ish)--with more roles open to people of color, she would be a superstar.

[quote] Wouldn't it be something if Hattie were alive today (and young-ish)--with more roles open to people of color, she would be a superstar.

Superstar? That fat ol' ho?

I'm just obsessed with the movie.

The Meades were hilariously old.

Timeless:

They'll love it in Florida!

How is a thread from 2010 alive today?

Ban dis raciss thread!

Ashley was THE catch of the county. Scarlett, as the queen bee of the county would naturally want him. Though it seems odd that she would even try given that it was common knowledge that the Wilkes always married their cousins (gross!!!)

WHY did the Wilkses marry their cousins though?

What are they, people or racehorses?

Why? R162? Mostly to illustrated Mrs. Mitchell's opinions about why the aristocracy of the Old South failed and lost everything, the Wilkes embodied a lot of things she disapproved of - being inbred and weak and uninterested in real life and up their own asses.

After he's been married some time Ashley says "She's like me, Scarlett. She's part of my blood and we understand each other.", other people just say "The Wilkses always marry their cousins". So Ashely and Melly are the products of inbreeding, not just engaged in it.

Scarlett if the novel is like Julia Roberts or Jennifer Lawrence - a tasteless, incurious, ball of charisma, high spirits, grim sexuality and strong will who will do anything to get to the top. This book is about the American Dream. And it's surprisingly funny. Melanie is a lot less wishy-washy and saintly as ODH portrayed her. She's kind of a really respectable naive nerd.