Watching GWTW on TCM right now

And?

OP is from 1994.

I can still hear Olivia de Havilland’s southern drawl…

Chapter One, I am born I begin my life at the beginning of my life…

Op, you need to engage the group with... "What's your favorite part of GWTW?" or "What part of GWTW upset you the most?"

See where I'm going with this?

"What's your favorite part of GWTW?"

This, God what a tedious movie 🙄

I was young. I'd never seen anything like it.

Very moving ^

The best movie ever made.

The scene where Scarlett shows up in that amazing, stunning red dress for the weak, idiot Ashley.

No woman looked more perfect than in that moment.

One of my favorite scenes of any movie of all time.

Vivien was never more beautiful. That subtle raising of her eyebrow is everything. Question me, motherfuckers. 🤨

Perfection 🤩

Lindsey Graham really nailed it as Aunt Pittypat!

They should’ve had someone sexy play Ashley so we could understand why she was so obsessed with him.

This scene for me.

People always complain about Leslie Howard, but who else would have been right for it? Howard was a star, a really good actor, and brings an intelligence and a nobility that few actors had, plus a sense of gravitas and maturity. Yes, he's too old, and he tends to walk through it (with a couple of over the top moments.) But it works for me. I can't think of anyone who'd be better. Maybe Randolph Scott. He's tall, blonde, good looking and southern. But he's not half the actor that Howard is. Who else?

^ I don't know, someone who didn't come off as being a little light in the loafers, maybe 🙄

GWTW belonged to Hattie McDaniel

I actually think Errol Flynn would have been good as Ashley. He was a decent actor and was great at playing world weary. Plus it would have been another Errol Flynn/Olivia deH. pairing LOL.

[quote] Almost as upsetting was the scene where the women are staying up all night when the men lead the raid on the Shantytown, and the atmosphere is so tense, and Melanie starts reading David Copperfield aloud. I remember imagining what it might be like to find yourself in a tense situation and on top of all the tension, someone would start reading David Copperfield aloud… that really worried me.

OP, You realize that "raid" was either the Klan or a similar white supremacist group attacking and possibly murdering formerly enslaved Blacks and others deemed dangerous to Southern white womanhood?

So, I hope you found the inherent racism of that scene and throughout the film very troubling.

Flynn was a Rhett, not an Ashley, and would have done it had Gable turned it down.

Why were they raiding the shantytown again? I honestly can't remember. I think that's where Frank gets shot too. Scarlett was nothing if not destructive.

^ Maybe Scarlett longing for an Errol Flynn and settling for a Clark Gable might have made for a more interesting triangle

Scarlett was obsessed with Ashley because she couldn't have him. She was an immature child unused to not getting her way.

I read that that Ashley was based on a real person from Mitchell's life who was gay.

[quote]^ I don't know, someone who didn't come off as being a little light in the loafers, maybe 🙄

He's British, you know.

Actually, and go with me on this....Ronald Coleman as Rhett. I'm pretty sure he was Selznick's second choice if he couldn't get Gable. I watched several Coleman films on TCM in February. This time I watched him with Rhett Butler in mind. He was a great actor and I think he would have done as well.

Errol Flynn was actually a bit too "hunky" for Ashley, IIRC. For years I thought Leslie Howard was awful, but upon (many) repeated watchings, I saw the subtlety in his performance. I like it a lot more now.

^ "He's British, you know. "

Yes and they're all a little light in the loafers 😏

R19, Scarlett was attacked (robbed, not raped) on the road that passed the Shantytown en route to her sawmill. In the book, her boobs were fondled! She had not consented.

Ronald Coleman was way too old to be Ashley (like Leslie Howard)

[quote]Ronald Coleman was way too old to be Ashley (like Leslie Howard)

R22 suggested him as Rhett, not Ashley. He said:

[quote]Actually, and go with me on this....Ronald Coleman as Rhett.

Richard Widmark would be Ashley. Born in 1914, so, the perfect age in 1939.

Ronald Coleman was too old to be Rhett OR Ashley

Greatest title sequence ever!

Not a fan. I get a bigger kick out of Carol Burnett wearing the curtain rods.

Was there a freewheeling veranda number?

Leslie Ann...

Errol Flynn was NOT a Rhett. Apparently you've never read the book. And Ronald Colman - NO way. He would have been a fine Ashley, if he were at least a decade younger. But I still think Errol would have been a good choice, and at least made Scarlett's obsession with Ashley believable.

Ok, I'll be that Pain-in-the-Neck who announces the novel was so much richer than the film, but it's true.

I dislike the movie. It glorifies slavery, racism, caste societies, white supremacy.

Mitchell, in the novel, of course, does the same.

I will, however, give Mitchell credit for inadvertently writing the best expository on race relations in the USA ever written in a popular novel. If you're the least bit curious as to why race relations are the way they are in 2024, read the novel.

It's all in there.

From a pure plot point, my biggest complaint about the screenplay for the movie is that it undermines Mitchell's central tragedy at the heart of the Rhett Scarlett love story.

In Mitchell's story, Rhett can never tell Scarlett he loves her or can let on to her that he does. Scarlett doesn't realize she loves Rhett until he, finally, falls out of love with her.

The screenplay has Rhett tell Scarlett he loves her almost right off the bat.

Obviously, the screenplay could never include all of the sub-stories and characters. I get that.

But there is no excuse for undermining the central romantic tragedy at the heart of the Rhett Scarlett love story.

Maybe they can create a mini-series and add all the stories that the movie didn’t have time for.

Just like they are doing with the Potter franchise.

I’ve never read the book so I would love to know how Scarlett treated her kids and if they are just as spoiled as she was.

I thought Ashley/Leslie was so perfect and handsome as a teenager. I was absolutely shocked when I saw his birth year in an old Hollywood book. He was nearly 50.

My favorite scenes are when Rhett gets out of jail and visits Scarlett after she marries Mr Kennedy (it’s even better in the book) and when he proposes.

She was pretty crappy mom to Wade Hampton and Ella. Mammy, pansy, and Melanie mostly took care of wade. She calls Ella ugly and she favors Bonnie over her.

In the book Ashley has a second sister named Honey and she’s the one that’s engaged to Charles not India. India was engaged or almost engaged to one of the twins before he got killed in Gettysburg. The other twin was courting Scarlett’s sister Careen. There’s no Will (he marries sue ellen but loved careen who becomes a nun) in the movie but Mammy and Pork get some of his good lines in the movie. No fontaines. None of the twins’ siblings. Cathleen’s family and downfall aren’t mentioned. No Dilcey (pork’s wife and prissy’s mom). I think the Scarlett mini series might have had will in it but i only watched bits and pieces of it over 20 years ago.

Scarlett wanted Ashley because he kept her at arm's length. Had he not done that, he would be just one of many of her rejects.

Yes, Scarlett pretty much neglected her kids in the book. She was too self-involved and selfish and they were inconvenient and spoiled her waistline.

The book also had Ellen O'Hara, Scarlett's mother's, backstory...."Fee LEEP!! Fee LEEP!!"

I think Scarlett was so shitfaced knocking back the brandy, she gave Ella fetal alcohol syndrome.

I liked the laconic Will Benteen, kind of a Tom Petty type.

So who sired the other 2 kids?

I just might have to read the book. How the hell do you write off 2 kids!!

🤔🥴

She had a kid by each husband.

Mel was a class act. Scarlett a braindead hooker.

So there’s a Kennedy a Hamilton and a Butler.

Sheesh, I was about to call her a woman of loose morals but then I remembered she was actually married 3 different times!

Thanks, R43.

I won't watch the film or read the novel again. Overrated.

But Leigh was perfect and looked perfect and gave a great performance in a flawed film.

r42, I encourage you to read the book.

I'll say this for Mitchell. She was very talented at giving all the characters, even the minor ones, interesting back stories.

r39 alludes to Ellen's. It's very tragic.

[quote]People always complain about Leslie Howard, but who else would have been right for it? Howard was a star, a really good actor, and brings an intelligence and a nobility that few actors had, plus a sense of gravitas and maturity. Yes, he's too old, and he tends to walk through it (with a couple of over the top moments.) But it works for me. I can't think of anyone who'd be better. Maybe Randolph Scott. He's tall, blonde, good looking and southern. But he's not half the actor that Howard is.

Even the greatest actor is not going to come across well if he's terribly miscast in a role, which was the case here.

I too used to think that Errol Flynn would have been excellent casting as Ashley, because he was so much handsomer and sexier than Leslie Howard. But I suppose, in a way, that casting would work against the idea that the main reason Scarlett wants Ashley so badly is that she can't have him, not because she loves him or has the hots for him.

[quote]I can still hear Olivia de Havilland’s southern drawl…

"Attention! Attention! This is Miss Schuster. Please listen very carefully. A swarm of killer bees is headed this way...