Word: scarlett
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...Margaret Mitchell's book has a claim to be great literature, it is because of the wide variety of characters portrayed so skillfully and so vividly. Pre-and post-Civil War South has been discussed before, and will be many times again; but never has there been a Scarlett and a Rhett, an Ashley and a Melanic, an Ellen, a Gerald, a Mammie, a Belle Watling, and such a profusion of individual minor characters, all so real and so credible. Some are types, perhaps, and yet they all have the spark of life. In the movie they are reproduced with...
...only are the characters well portrayed but all the technical jobs have been carefully done. The pace, a little too leisurely, perhaps, in the first half, quickens after the intermission, and Scarlett's visit to Rhett in the prison, and the Klan's revenge for the attack on her are overwhelmingly effective. The photography is often brilliant and the color is never in bad taste. The background music is well chosen. It is a movie to be discussed in superlatives, and from all indications, it will still be going strong (at 75e a seat) when our children graduate from Harvard...
...Southern side. Legend No. 2 was the heroic and unhappy love story of two people who were strong, brutal, brash, realistic, American enough to survive Legend No. i. Like all good legends, these were told without subtlety, subjective shadings, probings or questionings, its characters were instantly recognizable types. Scarlett's "I won't think of it now, I'll think of it tomorrow" was a catch line. Whatever it was not, Gone With the Wind was a first-rate piece of Americana, and Americans in the mass knew what they wanted before the critics had got through...
...almost four hours the drama keeps audiences on the edge of their seats with few letdowns. There are unforgettable climaxes: 1) Scarlett shooting the Yankee "deserter" ("deserter" is a concession to Northern protest: in the book he is one of Sherman's raiders) ; 2) the scene of mass desolation as the quietly weeping people of Atlanta read the casualty lists after Gettysburg. Audiences are jerked out of their seats when the mood of defeat is smashed triumphantly as a band bursts into Dixie. By great cinema craft, it is the first time the whole of Dixie is heard...
There are few comic concessions, but there is sly humor in Prissy 's (Butterfly McQueen) singing of Jes' a Few Mo' Days, Ter Tote de Weery Load. There is -sumptuous satire in the sets of the barbaric mansion, the realization of all Scarlett's ideals, in which Rhett and Scar lett enshrine their garish passion. In contrast, sudden lyrical shots lighten the cinemagnificence. Technicolor (using a new process) has never been used with more effective restraint than in Gone With the Wind. Exquisite shot: Gerald O'Hara silhouetted beside Scarlett against the eve ning...