Member Review My Review of "Gone with the Wind" 74 years too late.

TinCan

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Some movie reviewers like to suggest tweeks to movies that, they think, will improve the story. Although GWTW was made 9 years before I was born I still think these few tweeks would enhance the final product no end.


1. Scarlett O'Hara - sell her to a house of ill repute where she belonged.
2. Rhett Butler - show more about his blockade running and army service and what an over all cool dude he was.
3. Melanie Hamilton - marry her to someone who truely loved her and would make her happy for the rest of her life.
4. Mammy - let her do anything she wanted to.
5. Ashley Wilkes - shoot him for being the dumbest man to ever walk the earth.
6. Prissy - shoot her for being the most annoying person to ever walk the earth.
7. Gerald O'Hara - get drunk with a fine Irish gentleman and have a high old time.
8. Stuart Tarleton - see # 5
9. Brent Tarleton - ditto above.
10. Belle Watling - show her becoming a society maven and looking down HER nose at the old hens of Atlanta.
11. Dr. Meade - see # 7
12. Big Sam - have him get rid of 5,6,8,9 & 13.
13. Frank Kennedy - see # 5.

Never read the book, but, I'm sure these few changes would enhance the 1939 movie no end
 
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I would have to agree. For its time, it was considered a cinematic achievement due to its budget and "Big Production" values. But now, Its atrocious.
I cant help but think, Maybe, in a parallel universe, Scarlet O'Hara is the reason General Sherman burned Atlanta and destroyed Georgia........................ Its the only thing that would make sense.
 
Some movie reviewers like to suggest tweeks to movies that, they think, will improve the story. Although GWTW was made 9 years before I was born I still think these few tweeks would enhance the final product no end.


1. Scarlett O'Hara - sell her to a house of ill repute where she belonged.
2. Rhett Butler - show more about his blockade running and army service and what an over all cool dude he was.
3. Melanie Hamilton - marry her to someone who truely loved her and would make her happy for the rest of her life.
4. Mammy - let her do anything she wanted to.
5. Ashley Wilkes - shoot him for being the dumbest man to ever walk the earth.
6. Prissy - shoot her for being the most annoying person to ever walk the earth.
7. Gerald O'Hara - get drunk with a fine Irish gentleman and have a high old time.
8. Stuart Tarleton - see # 5
9. Brent Tarleton - ditto above.
10. Belle Watling - show her becoming a society maven and looking down HER nose at the old hens of Atlanta.
11. Dr. Meade - see # 7
12. Big Sam - have him get rid of 5,6,8,9 & 13.
13. Frank Kennedy - see # 5.

Never read the book, but, I'm sure these few changes would enhance the 1939 movie no end

TinCan,

HY-sterical!

And pretty da** good. :wink:

Sincerely,
Unionblue
 
My father was brought to see the movie, when it first came out in theaters. He's told us about the scene in which Rhett tells Scarlet, "Frankly my dear..." Everyone in the theater gasped - that sort of language was really shocking, back in the day. I've never seen the thing, start to finish, but in pieces. A half hour here, a half hour there. Couldn't stand the whole thing in one sitting.
 
I am astounded at some of the reactions to this period piece. And you call yourself Historians? The covert message thru all the racist bigotry is that war is really stupid; women have to fight with every weapon at their disposal for even a tiny piece of the action; that war is really, really stupid (this is not an accident, I know I'm repeating myself); that most men are really, really stupid and run by their emotions and their testosterone, while women are run by reason; and war is really, really, really stupid.
 
I am astounded at some of the reactions to this period piece. And you call yourself Historians? The covert message thru all the racist bigotry is that war is really stupid; women have to fight with every weapon at their disposal for even a tiny piece of the action; that war is really, really stupid (this is not an accident, I know I'm repeating myself); that most men are really, really stupid and run by their emotions and their testosterone, while women are run by reason; and war is really, really, really stupid.

I might have got that message had I been able to say awake for more than 20 minutes while watching this snooze-inducing movie.

And well done TinCan. Very funny.:rofl:
 
GWTW has to be considered on separate levels, the history, historiography, and the art of cinema. It is not history. It is Margaret Mitchell's history, but hardly a complete picture or accurate history. Mitchell was interested in telling a story and does well. She published at a good point in the book business and the story was a hit. Alas, most readers assumed it was history.

Mitchell wrote the book in the 1930s when The Lost Cause was alive and well in Atlanta. It would be interesting to speculate what story a Margaret Mitchell born 1963 would write. The story is a good example of a people conforming their memories to their sufferings. Interesting images are the loyal slave Jim, the ditzy slave Prissy, the ex-overseer-turned-scalawag, and the brave Confederate resistors, etc.

As for cinema the academics and the students are still taking the film apart. It has all the elements of a good story within the story, conflict, artistic accomplishment, and success. It may not stand up artistically to modern standards, but I will let serious students of film undertake that discussion.
 
Dave,

I believe your contention that,"most readers assumed it was history"is incorrect. Your being a little unfair to suggest that the millions of people who read the book couldn't tell the difference between a work of fiction and a history. GWTW was always a novel and ol Margaret never deemed it otherwise.
 
The movie has been re released on wide screen at select theaters. It showed here in Waxahachie but, I could not bring myself to sit through a three hour movie.
 
Some movie reviewers like to suggest tweeks to movies that, they think, will improve the story. Although GWTW was made 9 years before I was born I still think these few tweeks would enhance the final product no end.


1. Scarlett O'Hara - sell her to a house of ill repute where she belonged.
2. Rhett Butler - show more about his blockade running and army service and what an over all cool dude he was.
3. Melanie Hamilton - marry her to someone who truely loved her and would make her happy for the rest of her life.
4. Mammy - let her do anything she wanted to.
5. Ashley Wilkes - shoot him for being the dumbest man to ever walk the earth.
6. Prissy - shoot her for being the most annoying person to ever walk the earth.
7. Gerald O'Hara - get drunk with a fine Irish gentleman and have a high old time.
8. Stuart Tarleton - see # 5
9. Brent Tarleton - ditto above.
10. Belle Watling - show her becoming a society maven and looking down HER nose at the old hens of Atlanta.
11. Dr. Meade - see # 7
12. Big Sam - have him get rid of 5,6,8,9 & 13.
13. Frank Kennedy - see # 5.

Never read the book, but, I'm sure these few changes would enhance the 1939 movie no end
I had a great idea to cast Errol Flynn as Ashley Wilkes.
 
I would have to agree. For its time, it was considered a cinematic achievement due to its budget and "Big Production" values. But now, Its atrocious.
I cant help but think, Maybe, in a parallel universe, Scarlet O'Hara is the reason General Sherman burned Atlanta and destroyed Georgia........................ Its the only thing that would make sense.
I don't think you could persuade very many that its atrocious.
 
most men are really, really stupid and run by their emotions and their testosterone, while women are run by reason

And emotions and estrogen have no effect on women's reasoning ?

:rofl:

Anyway, back on topic & to the movie.

I will never understand why the Katie Scarlett O'Hara character had such a fixation on the Ashley Wilkes character.

But none the less, love it or hate it . . . GWTW is an essential film in the history of cinema.
 
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Frankly, I’ve never seen why, though? I mean if you are looking for ahistorical claptrap that is also a historic film with a massive budget and real artistic merit, Birth of A Nation is a better bet? And for early technicolor there are other famous films out there. What am I missing about the movie that attracts so many people to study it?
 
Many people did assume it was history. The fact that the film won so many Oscars and that the book won the Pulitzer prize gave it a certain authority.

I think it had a huge influence on how the war was perceived outside the United States. The Lost Cause myth was not widely known in Canada, but when I saw GWTW in a rep theatre in Canada in my teens (1970s) and sat through it twice, I definitely absorbed its point of view and held onto that perception for many years.
 
I would guess that most women saw GWTW as a period romance, with the classic elements of love, beautiful houses , gorgeous clothes, handsome men, peril, etc. It could have been set in any era: the American Revolution, The Wars of the Roses, the English Civil War. The setting was incidental to the story, the Civil War was just that with which the author was most comfortable.
As for Scarlett, she was that classic case of a woman wanting what she can't have. When she can have him she doesn't want him any more, realizes that she really loves Rhett but loses him, a perfect set up for a sequel book or movie. Pure Harlequin Romance.
 
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