A grand, great and glorious hymn to two self-mythologising worlds - - the Old South in which it's set and Hollywood at its pre-war, pop-culture-defining pinnacle - - Gone With The Wind, even now, supports every claim made for it by movie hagiographers. Driven by producer David O Selznick's vision, a ravishing, rich colour palette, Vivien Leigh's diamond-bright intensity and Clark Gable at his Clark Gable-est, the film's tumultuous momentum rides magnificently over its every weakness - - from Leslie Howard's RP-voiced autopilot performance to stubborn unease with the slave-owning world, it can't help eulogising. Sixty-six years on, this "movie of movies" still defines the magic of Hollywood.
DVD Extras:
This four-disc set presents a sparkling restored version of the near-four-hour film split over two discs. It's `complemented' by a faintly surreal commentary from Ned Flanders-esque film historian Rudy Behlmer, who genially drones fact after dull potted-biography fact over even the most compelling scenes, like an unsilenceable trainspotter at a dinner party.The highlight of the disc three, the two-hour Christopher Plummer-narrated 1989 documentary The Making Of A Legend, is pure cinema-history gold. Occasionally hobbled by awkward re-enactments, it's stuffed with frank and funny first-hand stories (notably by Selznick assistant Kay Brown). We're told of the producer's Benzedrine-fuelled monomania, the "cunning, conniving and manipulative" Leigh, original director George Cukor's intuitive sympathy for his female actors and the energy of replacement director, man's man and "complete bastard" Victor Fleming. Then there's Gable's refusal to use a Southern accent, F Scott Fitzgerald's brief appearance (and sacking) as script doctor, studio intrigue and financial brinksmanship and a clear sense of the fever that gripped America (and the world) from the moment the film was greenlit. Elsewhere, short doc Restoring A Legend talks emulation filters and digital realignment via interviews with quietly excited boffins beaming with shy pride. Trailers-through-the-ages follow, along with an original Hearst newsreel and a hammily scripted 11-minute theatrical short, The Old South - - complete with a modern, PC-conscious preface. There's an opportunity to snigger briefly at excerpts from the movie's dubbed German, French and Italian versions, and to note, in a four-minute featurette about the 1961 Civil War Centennial event in Atlanta attended by Selznick and the surviving principal actors, that Leigh and Olivia de Havilland waving patiently at the Southern crowd look exactly like two bored-and-gracious Queen Elizabeths on walkabout. Disc four explores the far ranges of information overload with mini-biographies of 13 cast members, from Oscar-winner Hattie McDaniel to Ona Munson; an hour-long '70s-era Gable documentary chummily hosted by Peter Lawford; and a well-intentioned 46-minute doc on Leigh, which memorably evokes her ambition, charismatic talent and battles with mental illness and marital tragedy but is let down by Jessica Lange's earnest, clunky voiceover. Perhaps best of all, a beaming de Havilland, the film's lone survivor, hosts her own cosy, pink-hued and faintly Barbara Cartland-esque 40-minute reminiscence, conjuring up memories as sweet and sunny as the bedtime story she appears to be reading. Eerily like her character Melanie Hamilton, she seems to have survived by dint of sheer kindness.
