Making of a Legend: Gone with the Wind

[Snarky Oracle!]

I got the impression that Scarlett didn't want Ashley because she really wanted him, but because she assumed she could have him if she wanted him.
And then Leslie Howard's somewhat underwhelming physical appearance kinda makes sense to me.

In the book, Ashley's a metaphor for the old world for which Scarlett pines. In the movie, her fixation for him just seems designed to piss off Rhett.

 

[Laurie Marr]

Cooper is my favorite of the 1930s male stars and certainly better than Howard -- I think he might be too much better. Cooper as Ashley throws the story out of whack because then Scarlett preferring Ashley over Rhett makes sense. There should be a touch of delusion in Scarlett's pining for Ashley but Cooper was maybe the only star of the era more charismatic than Gable.

He was wooed to play Butler and said of that time: "It was one of the best roles ever offered in Hollywood ... But I said no. I didn't see myself as quite that dashing, and later, when I saw Clark Gable play the role to perfection, I knew I was right."

 

[Willie Oleson]

Gosh, I just realised that I have no idea who Gary Cooper is. I looked him up and his face doesn't look familiar at all.
I thought I knew him from the PUTTIN' ON THE RITZ song "dressed up like a million-dollar trouper, trying hard to look like Gary Cooper" but subconsciously I have always been thinking of Cary Grant, apparently.

 

[Toni]

Gosh, I just realised that I have no idea who Gary Cooper is. I looked him up and his face doesn't look familiar at all.
I thought I knew him from the PUTTIN' ON THE RITZ song "dressed up like a million-dollar trouper, trying hard to look like Gary Cooper" but subconsciously I have always been thinking of Cary Grant, apparently.

Cooper is the most underrated actor of his era, from today's POV. He was ultra-beautiful when he was young, ultra-charming in his comedies, and ultra-convincing in his dramas. In this case, the Academy did right by giving him 2 Oscars. For a while, I thought that Kevin Costner should have played him in a biopic. Besides, if you look at him, you can see a bit of James Dean or Brando in him (who of course debuted many years after him). He played every role with dignity and quiet strength. His career is worth discovering, and you´d be surprised many times by how versatile he was.

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[Willie Oleson]

He looks like a Baldwin!

 

[Crimson]

But I said no. I didn't see myself as quite that dashing, and later, when I saw Clark Gable play the role to perfection, I knew I was right."

Well Cooper was right in that regard. He wasn't well suited to Rhett; "scoundrel" wasn't his specialty. Cooper could have been suited for Ashley if Ashley was what Scarlett thought he was. But Ashley was a mundane fraud, not the idealistic golden boy that Scarlett imagined.

 

[Laurie Marr]

Cooper is the most underrated actor of his era, from today's POV. He was ultra-beautiful when he was young, ultra-charming in his comedies, and ultra-convincing in his dramas. In this case, the Academy did right by giving him 2 Oscars. For a while, I thought that Kevin Costner should have played him in a biopic. Besides, if you look at him, you can see a bit of James Dean or Brando in him (who of course debuted many years after him). He played every role with dignity and quiet strength. His career is worth discovering, and you´d be surprised many times by how versatile he was.

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Cooper was very beautiful in his youth. Not only did he anticipate the Deans and the Brandos in looks, but he patented a very naturalistic acting style that some would have you believe never existed prior to the 50s.

 

[ClassyCo]

They won't let you have it??

Well, it hasn't been released yet.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Cooper could have been suited for Ashley if Ashley was what Scarlett thought he was. But Ashley was a mundane fraud, not the idealistic golden boy that Scarlett imagined.

See, now that's a good choice, Cooper for Ashley; Ashley may have been a fraud (I haven't read the book in 30 years) but anything is better than Miss Leslie Howard.

David O. Selzick wisely resisted having a contrived "happy ending":

 

[Karin]

I agree, sometimes there are no happy endings or second chances in life. I actually love how the movie ended. It's a classic and it stayed true to the book. I wouldn't change a thing. That said I did enjoy the sequel series "Scarlett" that finally gave us a happy ending too. I especially like how it had Scarlett go back to find her Irish roots and reconnected with her family.

 

[Crimson]

David O. Selzick wisely resisted having a contrived "happy ending":

The ending is the best part of the movie. Conclusive yet ambiguous, a comeuppance for Scarlett and also an affirmation of her determination.

I didn't do more than peek at the mini-series sequel. Aside from being impossible to match the original cast -- although Ann-Margret as Belle was inspired -- there's no need for follow-up. The tantalizing possibilities left by the original is the ending, not an invitation for answers.

 

[Angela Channing]

I sometimes like when a film changes the ending from the original material because it makes it more original and surprises the audience. My favourite example of this is the 1979 Hair in which a totally different character dies at the end.

However, that alternative ending for Gone With The Wind doesn't work because it shows Scarlett as being weaker and more dependant on Rhett whereas Margaret Mitchell's ending shows her being strong, defiant and in control. They were right to consider alternative endings and also right to reject that one.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

The ending is the best part of the movie. Conclusive yet ambiguous, a comeuppance for Scarlett and also an affirmation of her determination.

I didn't do more than peek at the mini-series sequel. Aside from being impossible to match the original cast -- although Ann-Margret as Belle was inspired -- there's no need for follow-up. The tantalizing possibilities left by the original is the ending, not an invitation for answers.

Yes, the sequel was something I only saw bits of -- Joanne Whalley came off more like Pam Ewing than Scarlett O'Hara. Like Hitchcock observed: casting is character. And after Selznick searching the world for the correct Scarlett and finding the right one with Vivien Leigh, how likely is it that some by rote TV miniseries more than half-a-century later will get it right again? Especially when they're just thinking feministically that Scarlett is "a strong woman" and that's all.

However, that alternative ending for Gone With The Wind doesn't work because it shows Scarlett as being weaker and more dependant on Rhett whereas Margaret Mitchell's ending shows her being strong, defiant and in control. They were right to consider alternative endings and also right to reject that one.

I don't find Scarlett t be such a strong person in particular. She was spoiled and predatory, and exploited men like Ashley, Rhett (who at least knew what she was doing), Frank Kennedy, and anyone who could do her some good. Some people might call that "strength" and think that Scarlett reciprocating anything would make her weaker and dependent.

She was always totally dependent on men like Rhett, but as long as she was unconscionable about it and refused to genuinely care about them in return, she remains "strong and independent." Scarlett was a narcissist, probably with sociopathic tendencies, but that seems like "strength, defiance and control" to some.

The final ending in GWTW exposes Scarlett as her own victim, one so selfish that she ran off the only wealthy man who (thought he) loved her despite his thinking he understood her flaws and issues and accepting it all... But Rhett realized in the end that he was projecting his own psychology -- that of an iconoclastic rapscallion with deeper sense of fairness underneath the veneer -- onto that of Scarlett, a grasping, shallow woman who really cared about no one after all was said and done.

It was no coincidence that Scarlett "suddenly realized" she "loved" Rhett just as he was walking out the door. Her "tomorrow is another day!" optimism is only about her future perseverance in finding yet another rich man off of which to glom. After he dies (and he will) she'll exist, if she's lucky, as a bitter and statured dowager who's eventually credited with the accomplishments of the men she's exploited.

Like what they say about old buildings, politicians and whores if they last long enough.

But Margaret Mitchell herself didn't (last long enough). The poor thing dying on Peachtree Street less than a decade after the movie -- a movie that eerily showed almost the exact same thing happening to Scarlett on the very same street.

I've often found that a fiction project that gets it as "right" as possible will tap into an objective frequency and accidentally reveal things well in advance. Like the better years of THE SIMPSONS where even the presidency of Donald Trump is prognosticated decades earlier.... A man named Kennedy "shot through the head" always hits me as weird.

BTW: In my teens and twenties, I had a friend who really resented Rhett Butler because she felt he'd gone back on the deal he and Scarlett had struck, that he had dumped her for just being herself. The fact that Rhett had overrated Scarlett's internal character just his fault and his own miscalculation about what he could handle... All I could do was SMH silently.