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Rating:  - Every view is a pleasure
Every viewing of this treasure brings new insights and appreciation of the production of this movie. The extras helped me see the familiar characters in a brighter light. The tinny sound of past releases that I have seen is gone and in its place is a fuller more pleasant aural experience.
Rating: - Never in my life have I known you to have a handkerchief.
Nothing more can be said about this film, the most successful independent film of all time, and this DVD release is eye-popping to behold. But the 5.1 mix has flopped channels and I'm astounded that no one else has mentioned it here. Do most people, who claim to be movie-lovers, just plop the discs in the player and sit there stuffing their faces and yelling at the kids while the movie flickers helplessly across their televisions, without noticing that the left/right channels are flopped? First example: the little boys swinging the bell at the beginning - the bell swings to the left, the ring is to the right, and vice versa. Scarlett's flung vase shatters on the right, when she throws it to screen left.
This is not a problem with my set-up; all other films I pump through the speakers are perfect. I've even tried it on the earphones and it's awful. It would be nice to switch over to the original mono mix, mostly because I'm a purist and it's a better mix anyway, but that apparently was just slapped onto the DVD set without any sweetening and is so grating to the ears as to be painful.
There. My one complaint in this review is not about the film, but about the DVD release. I have no complaints about the film; accusations of racism are justified, but pointless. It was 1939. Get over it. And anyone with any historical intelligence can sit there, watch the film, and see that the South, the white South, is portrayed as a bunch of yammering, racist, ignorant small-town fools who deserved to lose everything. Rhett says this over and over again and Scarlett herself comes to realize it. So the film has many layers - romance for the Old South, realization that it was a very, very bad idea. By the end, it isn't about war or slavery, it's about two people who loved each other so much, it hurt them.
Rating:  - Racist, Overblown and Overrated
There is more offensive racist content in the opening credits of this film than in the entirety of the wonderful "Song Of The South" (set in the post-Civil War south) currently being suppressed by Disney. Hattie McDaniel richly deserved her Academy Award (and is likewise wonderful in SOTS, which also gives us a glimpse of her musical talent), but the glorification of the culture of slavery that permeates every frame of the film is disgusting and is not redeemed by the overblown production values. The choppiness of the storyline reflects the lack of continuity due to multiple directors and re-writes, and the last hour is especially tedious. Why this film is glorified and "Song Of The South" suppressed is beyond me. "...A civilization Gone With The Wind"... if only that were true; the current series of noose-hangings throughout my own New York-New Jersey metropolitan area proves that racism is the dirty little gift that keeps on giving. At the very least, this film requires a disclaimer for younger audiences, as Warner has done with various vintage cartoon collections.
Rating: - It's still a GREAT movie!!
This was an outstanding movie 50 years ago, when it ran in the same theater in Norfolk, VA for a year . . . and it's still an outstanding movie!
Rating: - gone with the wind review
I love this movie. I could watch it over and over and over. It came in wonderful condition thank you so much!
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