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24
MOTION PICTURE HERALD
December 16, 1939
SHOWMEN'S
REVIEWS
This department deals with new product from the point, of view of the exhibitor who is to purvey it to his own public.
CONE WITH THE WIND
(Selznick-MGM)
Epic Drama in Technicolor
by WILLIAM R. WEAVER
Hollywood Editor
'Birth of a Nation" — a kindred
"Gone with the Wind" is a bigger and better triumph for this day and time.
Every year since its founding in 1932, Ouigley Publications' Fame, official Audit of Personalities in the entertainment world, has rated David O. Selznick as Number One producer on the brass tacks basis of verified box office grosses obtained by showmen exhibiting his pictures. Three distributing systems have dispensed them during that time. No theory of chance can explain that record. Consistency can and does. "Gone with the Wind" is consistent in whole and in part, in conception, execution and from any seat in the auditorium, with all the number one pictures the number one producer ever made, plus.
Stripped of statistics, personalities and percentages, all of which have nothing to do with the case after the first half dozen minutes of running time, "Gone with the Wind" is, from the showman's point of view, simply and magnificently a bigger and better "Birth of a Nation."
It is not the same story, but it is a story about the same events and times and their influence upon the same civilization and its people.
It is told in much the same tone of voice and with the same smashing effect. Quite possibly neither producer nor distributor will relish the inevitable comparison of "Gone" with "The Birth," although none could be more honorable.
The film is, however, here and now, for today's screen, almost precisely what that one was, for a dawning art a quarter century back.
The Selznick transcription of the Margaret Mitchell best seller is almost literally a page-bypage presentation of the story nearly two million people bought her book to read. It is also a most literate and faithful transcription, begging no issues, dodging no hazards, a tremendously dramatic screen play by the late Sidney Howard directed for the most part by Victor Fleming, in lesser part by George Cukor, who started it, and Sam Wood, who finished.
The central character of the picture is, of course, Scarlett O'Hara.
Vivien Leigh makes it come alive and keeps it vibrantly interesting from opening shot to fadeout. She is alternately and unpredictably tempestuous, cool, cowardly, heroic, generous, avaricious, tender, venomous, shrewd, stupid, a natively mercurial personality forced this way and that by need, circumstance, ambition, envy, hate, selfishness and a distorted devotion, but mostly by emotions she never fully understands. The role and her handling of it are worthy of all the publicity about them and more.
Only slightly secondary in story importance is the Rhett Butler assignment given Clark Gable in compliance with the practically unanimous demands of persons canvassed in a Gallup poll. This stalwart performer, never out of the top 10 in Motion Picture Herald's exhibitor poll of money making stars, might have been born for this spot. He portrays a man of unbridled emotions, including lust, and unfettered
tongue. He employs force and a liberal ballast of liquor as means of contriving to have his husbandly way with a wife who has forbidden him her bedroom, and he leaves her, at the picture's end, with the statement, in reply to her question as to what will become of her, "I don't give a damn."
Olivia de Havilland plays a gentle lady of the Old South, faithful to tradition and loyal to family, a character in sharp contrast with that of Scarlett. In similar contrast to the robust crudity of Rhett Butler is the gentlemanly but dreamy nobility of the Leslie Howard characterization. Brilliant in the relatively minor but strong footage allotted to her performance as the generous and patriotic madame whose elegant brothel continues prosperous when all of Atlanta has been impoverished by the war is Ona Munson, already on the screen in other pictures made since she finished this role, and likely to be seen in many more hereafter.
Individual acting achievements are many. Thomas Mitchell turns in a series of graphic bits as the Irish plantation owner made mad by the war, Victor Jory packs into two brief appearances as a former slave driver turned carpetbagger, a complete picture of the terrorists he typifies, Harry Davenport plays a doctor of the old school vigorously, and Laura Hope Crews is brilliant as a fussy matron. Hattie McDaniel, as Scarlett's colored mammy, sets a new high in that department, winning spontaneous midpicture applause of the Hollywood preview audience.
The story of "Gone with the Wind" is no thumbnail sketch. The author used 475,000 words to tell it and didn't waste any, but a bit of information as to what it's about is necessary for a showmanly approach to the business of selling tickets to the customers. It is important for a showman to know, for instance, that the siege, capture and burning of Atlanta are described in such detail and on such a scale as no camera has presented a comparable calamity until now.
It is well for showmen to know, also, that there is candor in dialogue when the story demands it, that a girl about to deliver a laboring mother's baby commands a pickaninny to bring clean twine, a scissors and plenty of hot water, It is a circumstance to know about that much
of the second section of the picture has to do with the having of babies and the not having of them, the heroine's yenning for her best friend's mate and his indecision in the matter, and that, although passion pounds steadily throughout the picture, only the hero's suggested but unseen intimacy with the generous madame and a plantation hand's seduction of a girl not shown until he's corrected that matter matrimonially will be difficult to defend against possible moral protest. Mr. Gable's eloquent "damn" is so completely in character as to seem indispensable.
Depth and breadth and sweep of the picture are beyond anything the screen has seen.
The picture is bigger and better than any of its parts and one of the best of these is Technicolor, here so completely a part of the whole and yet so vital to the success of it as to command a new and more prominent place in the calculations of producers and in the advertising copy of exhibitors. Yet "Gone with the Wind" is not properly to be broken down into constituent elements. One does not ask what Rembrandt's paints were made of, or what quarry furnished Angelo his stone.
"Gone with the Wind" is, finally and utterly, a David O. Selznick production, the best of all Selznick productions and, in view of the Selznick production record as number one producer for the past eight years, that would seem to be all that anybody ought to be wanting.
Previewed at the Four Star Theatre in Hollywood at the showing for the press only, attended by 900 men and women, variously special writers for magazines, newspapers, wire services and syndicates — probably the hardest boiled audience ever assembled before a screen. The challenge of pretention and promise in the production and promotion of "Gone with the Wind" had the spectators militantly ready to say "just another movie." Instead, they thrilled and wept and cheered and applauded. The picture with its 220 minutes took them like Sherman took Atlanta.
Presented by Selznick International in association with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. From Margaret Mitchell's novel, "Gone With the Wind." Produced by David O. Selznick. Directed by Victor Fleming. Screen play by Sidney Howard. Released by Loew's, Inc. Production designed by William Cameron Menzies. Art direction by Lyle Wheeler. Photographed by Ernest Haller. Technicolor associates Ray Rennahan, Wilfred M. Cline. Musical score by Max Steiner. Technicolor supervision by Natalie Kalmus; associate, Henri Jaffa. P. C. A. No. 5729. Running time when seen in Hollywood, 220 minutes. Adult audience classification.
CAST
Rhett Butler dark Gable
Scarlett O'Hara Vivien Leigh
Ashley Wilkes Leslie Howard
Melanie Hamilton Olivia De Havilland
Brent Tarleton George Reeves
Stuart Tarleton Fred Crane
Gerald O'Hara Thomas Mitchell
Ellen O'Hara Barbara O'Neil
Jonas Wilkerson Victor Jory
Suellen O'Hara Evelyn Keyes
Carreen O'Hara Ann Rutherford
Prissy Butterfly McQueen
John Wilkes Howard Hickman
Indie Wilkes Alicia Rhett
Charles Hamilton Rand Brooks
Frank Kennedy Carroll Nye
Cathleen Calvert Marcelle Martin
Aunt "Pittypay" Hamilton Laura Hope Crews
Doctor Meade Harry Davenport
Mrs. Meade Leona Roberts
Mrs. Merriwether Jane Darwell
Rene Picard Albert Morin
Maybelle Merriwether Mary Anderson
Fanny Elsing Terry Shero
Uncle Peter Eddie Anderson
Belle Watling Ona Munson
Phil Meade Jackie Moran