The Thing About Gone With The Wind

In recent days, folks are hyped up about Gone With the Wind.  I sat and pondered over this.

To be honest, I was probably 23 years old before I saw the movie....via my cable-TV connection in the barracks in Louisiana.  This was the 221-minute version, with another hour of commercials added in.  On the long-scale....this was about five hours of viewing and I could not imagine how you'd run this in a normal theater in 1940.

On the drama side?  Well....I give it plus-points.  Then I come to the final fifteen minutes of the movie.  This whole thing is mostly a five-hour dramatic piece about Rhett and Scarlett, and last minutes really deny this whole relationship thing, and Rhett has just had enough of all the drama and fake-love stuff....so he says adios and walks off.

I sat there for about half an hour.....mute on, with the next movie running.  I'd put five hours into watch what was a historical romance piece, which turned into a one-star ending at the close.  I felt negative about that.

Since then....I've probably watched about 90 minutes of the beginning on one occasion, and flipped the channel at some point.

Yeah, I'll admit.....it's just a marginalized story, bound into some epic deal, with Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh.  For historical content?  I might give it two stars.

Now with this anti-Civil War crowd?  I would imagine each person that made the anti-statement....would admit that they've never watched it, and probably can't pass more than 30-percent of questions on a general history quiz.  If you asked them who stars in the movie, or the direction of the script?  Zero knowledge.