| Major Cast (89 more uncredited) | |
|---|---|
| Thomas Mitchell | as Gerald O'Hara |
| Barbara O'Neill | as Ellen - His Wife |
| Vivien Leigh | as Scarlett - Their Daughter |
| Evelyn Keyes | as Suellen - Their Daughter |
| Ann Rutherford | as Carreen - Their Daughter |
| George Reeves | as Brent Tarleton - Scarlett's Beau |
| Fred Crane | as Stuart Tarleton - Scarlett's Beau |
| Hattie McDaniel | as Mammy - House Servant |
| Oscar Polk | as Pork - House Servant |
| Butterfly McQueen | as Prissy - House Servant |
| Victor Jory | as Jonas Wilkerson - Field Overseer |
| Everett Brown | as Big Sam - Field Foreman |
| Howard C. Hickman | as John Wilkes |
| Alicia Rhett | as India - His Daughter |
| Leslie Howard | as Ashley - His Son |
| Olivia de Havilland | as Melanie Hamilton - Their Cousin |
| Rand Brooks | as Charles Hamilton - Her Brother |
| Carroll Nye | as Frank Kennedy - A Guest |
| Clark Gable | as Rhett Butler - Visitor from Charleston |
| Laura Hope Crews | as Aunt 'Pittypat' Hamilton |
| Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson | as Uncle Peter - Her Coachman |
| Harry Davenport | as Dr. Meade |
| Leona Roberts | as Mrs. Meade |
| Jane Darwell | as Mrs. Merriwether |
| Ona Munson | as Belle Watling |
| Paul Hurst | as Yankee Deserter |
| Isabel Jewell | as Emmy Slattery |
| Cammie King Conlon | as Bonnie Blue Butler |
| Eric Linden | as Amputation Case |
| J.M. Kerrigan | as Johnny Gallagher |
| Ward Bond | as Tom - Yankee Captain |
| Jackie Moran | as Phil Meade |
| Cliff Edwards | as Reminiscent Soldier |
| Lillian Kemble-Cooper | as Bonnie's Nurse in London |
| Yakima Canutt | as Renegade |
| Marcella Martin | as Cathleen Calvert |
| Louis Jean Heydt | as Hungry Soldier holding Beau Wilkes |
| Mickey Kuhn | as Beau Wilkes |
| Olin Howland | as A Carpetbagger Businessman |
| Irving Bacon | as Yankee Corporal |
| Robert Elliott | as Yankee Major |
| William Bakewell | as Mounted Officer |
| Mary Anderson | as Maybelle Merriwether |
| MPAA Rating: | G |
| Distributor: | MGM (film); Warner Brothers (video) |
| Production Company: | Selznick International Pictures |
| Release Date (US): | 17 Jan. 1940 |
| Domestic Box Office: | $198,655,459 (Mojo) |
| Foreign Box Office: | $201,500,000 (Mojo) |
| Production Budget: | $3,977,000 (Est.) |
At Tara, a luxurious plantation outside Atlanta, the O'Haras, Gerald and Ellen, have raised three beautiful daughters, of whom Scarlett is the most impulsive and willful. She has numerous beaus among the local boys, and when Captain Rhett Butler chances to visit he is smitten with her as well. But it is the eve of the Civil War, and soon their comfortable existence is swept aside. The young men march off wearing gray. Captain Butler is a blockade runner, and he too joins the effort. The cause is lost; the men trickle back, some wounded, some in caskets. Shortly comes General Sherman to raze Atlanta, and then the hated carpetbaggers arrive. The family is scattered, Tara abandoned. When after several years Scarlett staggers back with a few servants, she finds it intact but stripped. She and her companions must all work to survive: washing, tending the sick, planting and harvesting a meager garden, delivering a baby or two. Scarlett is hard-pressed but finds a reservoir of strength within herself.
Gradually, things improve. Captain Butler appears again, amid a tumult of interpersonal relationships, to further complicate things when he declares his love for Scarlett. Then, he's off again. The next time she sees him he is in a Yankee prison. But he soon bribes his way out of that with some of the wealth he piled up during the blockade-running years. Eventually they begin a tumultuous marriage, raise a daughter, and lose her to a stupid accident. This triggers agonizing excesses of angst, followed by temporary separations, until Rhett finally walks away after delivering the famous line about not giving a damn.
Gone with the Wind is indisputably an epic. Everything about it surpasses the typical film: the elegance and variety of the sets; the richness of the costumes; the devastation of Atlanta's bombardment; the violence waged by, and on, renegade Yankees; the poverty and privation suffered by the residents of Tara in the aftermath of conquest; and the emotional suffering they feel when relationships fall apart. It even surpasses other films in running time, at 238 minutes. It won ten Academy Awards and is deservedly on the National Film Register.
All that said, however, it struck me as a glorified soap opera. I don't fault any aspect of its production; all are top-notch. I simply don't like it; it is not my kind of film. One specific fault that struck me is that the scenes where husbands construed faithlessness on the part of their wives, or vice-versa, seemed contrived. For example, at one point Mr. Kennedy (?) is embracing Scarlett because she is distressed at the tumult that has engulfed the South. Kennedy's wife enters the room, takes one look and assumes the worst.
My Rating:
8 out of 10
Capsule review: This film is big in all respects. It has a large cast, expansive sets, impressive effects, emotive acting. It is rightly called a spectacular. But the number of characters can be confusing. I found it hard to keep the husbands straight. For all its magnificence, Gone with the Wind strongly resembles a glorified soap opera.
| IMDB Rating: 8.2 | Raters: 213,911 |
To contact Chris Winter, send email to this address.