“Gone With the Wind” (Movie Review-12/20/39)

Microfiche-New York Times archives, McHenry Library, U.C. Santa Cruz | 12/20/39 | Frank S. Nugent

[Homer_J_Simpson]

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[Homer_J_Simpson]

Free Republic University, Department of History presents World War II Plus 70 Years: Seminar and Discussion Forum
First session: September 1, 2009. Last date to add: September 2, 2015.
Reading assignment: New York Times articles delivered daily to students on the 70th anniversary of original publication date. (Previously posted articles can be found by searching on keyword “realtime”.)
To add this class to or drop it from your schedule notify Admissions and Records (Attn: Homer_J_Simpson) by freepmail. Those on the Realtime +/- 70 Years ping list are automatically enrolled. Course description, prerequisites and tuition information is available at the bottom of Homer’s profile.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

GWTW-Opening Credits

[Oztrich Boy]

Another chick flick

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Clips -

Has the war started?

Virginia Reel

Savannah Would Be Better

Tear You To Pieces

Little Spitfire!

Bringing A Baby

All Our Prayers

Never Be Hungry Again!

Frankly, My Dear . . .

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Production Photos:

Behind-The-Scenes Photos

Wardrobe Stills

Behind-The-Scenes Stills-Production Staff

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Costume Sketches

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Vivien Leigh Publicity Stills

Clark Gable Publicity Stills

[anniegetyourgun]

That probably explains why it remains my favorite movie of all time.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

TCM’s trailer is from the 1961 reissue. So I didn’t post it.

[Bringbackthedraft]

Hollywood’s Golden Year. Some of their greatest movies were made in 1939. GWTW even had a part for TV’s “Superman”.

[fieldmarshaldj]

I’ll add to this Stanley Crouch’s latest column entitled, “Shut Up, Scarlett !” more about his indignant grandmother’s uproarious reaction to seeing Vivian Leigh and Butterfly McQueen’s slapfest.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-12-19/shut-up-scarlett

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Anyway "it" [GWIW] has arrived at last and we cannot get over the shock of not being disappointed; we had almost looked forward to that.

It was eagerly anticipated by 58,000,000 people according to Gallup and few were disappointed. A truly great film set in a lost culture, filmed in a lost civilization.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Florence King, one fiesty Southern lady, had some things to say about the novel and the film. Martha Mitchell was a scrupulous observer and recorder; there is more truth and insight about the era in a page or scene from GWIW than yards of scholarly dissertations or perverse modern characterizations of the antebellum South.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

See my #13. I’m very masculine in my tastes and person, but I am in awe of Mrs. Mitchell’s accomplishment.

[AnAmericanMother]

My mom was there for the Atlanta premiere at the old DeGive Opera House (the Loew's Grand as it was then - now sadly no more).

She sat on her daddy's shoulders so that she could see Leigh and Gable walk into the theater. It was a Big Deal for a little town, as Atlanta was then.

[AnAmericanMother]

Martha Mitchell was the gabby wife of a certain Washington bigwig long ago.

You're thinking of Margaret Mitchell.

I respect Florence King's opinion, but I don't like the book. I wrote my thesis analyzing a Civil War era plantation family and their environment in detail -- and the South was not like that. Mitchell's book details a fantasy of what Southerners -- in the midst of a depression that hit them very hard -- created as a myth of their glorious past.

She does touch on the truth in her characterizations, because many Southern women were as ruthless as Scarlett . . . but most were less obvious and more effective. And many of the other characters hit Southern types off very well -- almost as well as King did in her Southern Ladies and Gentlemen.

[KarlInOhio]

After running the movie prices through the nflation calculator you can see how much it would cost in today's dollars to see the movie.

Astor with reserved seating
matinee $0.75 to $1.10 which is $11.51 to $16.88 in today's dollars.
evening $1.10 to $2.20(?) -> $16.88 to $33.76 in today's dollars.
weekend matinee $0.75 to $1.65 -> $11.51 to $25.32

Capitol
matinee $0.75 to $1.10 ->$11.51 to $16.88
evening $1.10 to $1.65 -> $16.88 to $25.32

Those were not cheap tickets. Were $0.75 to $2.20 typical movie prices in 1939, or were they higher than normal because the film was so long, it was a "spectacle" and because those were New York prices?

[WVNan]

Favorite movie and novel for all time for us “chicks”.

[Loyal Buckeye]

The golden age of Hollywood is long gone.

[ought-six]

“I’ll never be hungry again!” is one of my favorite scenes of any movie. Amd Scarlett is one of my favorite characters from any medium, and Vivien Leigh played her perfectly. GWTW is a classic on so many levels. One of my all-time favorite films.