How dare I even think of giving GONE WITH THE WIND anything less than four stars, you may ask. Well, I’ll tell you in just a bit.
First let’s get the plot description out of the way. Scarlett O’Hara (Vivian Leigh, A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE) is the beauty of her town and the desire of many of the men. She is in love with Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard, PYGMALION), but he is engaged to his cousin, Melanie Hamilton (Olivia de Havilland, THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD). (I guess because that’s what Southerners do.) Scarlett is furious and that’s when the roguish Rhett Butler (Clark Gable, IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT) walks into her life and they begin their love hate relationship. This story is set in front of the tragedy of the Civil War and reconstruction.
Now, I’ll address the film’s problems. First and foremost, it’s a melodramatic soap opera, but a very good one. Many of the “love” scenes between Scarlett and Ashley are way over the top. One of the things the film does well is portray the war and reconstruction with care and intelligence (if not a little romanticized as well). However, it abandons this toward the end for big time drama. There are more deaths at the end of this film than in some teen horror flicks.
The film also does a skillful dozy-doe around the slave issue. It's not totally PC, but that's actually good because the 1860s sure weren't PC either. All the characters are really nice to the “darkies” and Mammy (Hattie McDaniel, SHOW BOAT) is probably the smartest and most respected character in the film. McDaniel deserved her Oscar for supporting actress for a wonderful performance. Especially note, her performance on the stairs toward the end of the film as she recaps events for Melanie. It’s strictly exposition used to save time, but McDaniel adds real emotion to the dialogue and ends up developing her character more instead of just filling the audience in on what has happened.
With that all said, the film is amazing at what it is – a tale of roguish characters and lustful affairs. It’s the stuff that makes soaps so irresistible. So why is it a classic? Simply put – Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler are two of the best characters ever put on screen. Combative relationships are hard to make believable, but here it works perfectly. In essence, they’re cut from the same mold. They’re selfish and money-grubbing, but when times get tough they rise to the occasion with strength. This personal drama and the characters’ natures are brought to light by the events around them. The crisis of the war allows us to see what kind of people Scarlett and Rhett are. The melodrama is used to show their true nature whether it’s good or bad.
You just have to love Scarlett as she manipulates situations to her favor easily when the good-hearted Melanie is involved and how she gets one-upped by Rhett whose more her equal in the con game. Scarlett is actually the opposite of the stereotypical Southern belle. She's more like a woman of the 1930s when the film came out.
The writing, especially the dialogue, is amazing. The “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn” line is simply wonderful. It’s famous because it encapsulates the audiences’ feelings about Scarlett perfectly. At first, I found the final moments a little tacked on and hokey, but as I write this review, it seems exactly right. Scarlett would never just let Rhett walk out like that. I mean she obsessed about Ashley for decades.
I wasn’t going to give this film four stars at first, but as I wrote this review I realized how amazingly crafted the film is. Plus its characters are unforgettable and the setting is used perfectly. It reminds me just how poorly films like TITANIC and PEARL HARBOR tried to do what this film did. Those films' mistake was never having original characters to start with. The cookie cutter romances in those films just cheapen the historic tragedies that they are set in front of.
GONE WITH THE WIND succeeds so amazingly because it has characters first and then lets them live during times of tragedy. The war and reconstruction are not just backdrops for the characters, but the character’s lives mirror the rise and fall and possible rebirth of the South.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
