Frankly, my dear....

I watched about a third of Gone With the Wind last night. I hadn't seen the movie in quite a long time, and I checked the DVD out of the library. My impressions of the film remain pretty much the same as when I first sat through the whole thing, about seven or eight years ago: I find the whole depiction of the slavery-era South as a land of undying chivalry really cloying, and offhand I can't think of a single character in this movie who is not in need of a big dope-slap. That includes Rhett Butler, who seems to inexplicably fixate on Scarlett O'Hara the second he catches his first glimpse of her. Clark Gable's performance is wonderful, of course, but his character alternates between being a cynical realist (telling all those Southern gentlemen that when war comes, they're likely to get their asses kicked) and being a boob ("You're still thinking about Ashley?", a line that is repeated way too many times).

The Max Steiner score is wonderful as always, though, and the film is still an impressive production after all these years - - in the parts where nobody is talking.