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Sunday, June 30, 2013

Anniversary - Gone With The Wind

On June 30 1936 the massive writing/publishing/cultural phenomenon Gone With the Wind was first published. It sold 1,000,000 copies in six months! It won awards and not too long after that, they made the movie, which is a phenomenon in its own right. When you think about it, Margaret Mitchell's book was the cause of creativity in others. Music, costume, screenplay, acting...

Perhaps not the best time to admit I don't greatly care for the book, which I read in my teens and thought a 1000-page Mills and Boon. That's before we even get to the racism and the fact that you want to give the heroine a huge boot in the backside.

Nevertheless, I went to see the movie -also in my teens - and didn't much care for that either. And that was before my PC period began. A friend wanted to go see it and the trailer advertising it at our local cinema looked good, so I agreed to see it a second time and still didn't like it.

As an adult, I realise the film is a masterpiece of cinema - and I suspect that if I watched it on TV, say, I would get sucked in and watch the lot. And I'd have fun spotting the well-known actors in cameo roles, such as a very young George Reeves, before he put on the cape and suit and took to the skies as Superman, playing one of Scarlett's suitors. And knowing that Vivienne Leigh was British behind that southern drawl would be fun; I didn't know that as a teen. Actually, the actress who played one of Scarlett's sisters said that it was better she was British, because an American from the North would roll their r's in a way a Brit wouldn't.

But I'm never, I'm afraid, going to find it romantic or go gaga over it, or over the novel on which it was based. So, I'm a philistine. Sorry!

As a Pratchett fan, though, I will always have a giggle remembering the "click" Swept Away made in his novel Moving Pictures. Now that book would be worth filming!

2 comments:

Gloria said...

My name is Gloria Gravitt Moulder I recently published both an ebook and paperbackk on Amazon the title of my book is "Bargain With A Devil The Tragedy Behind Gone With The Wind" I hope you will check it out. There were so many lies published about the death of Margaret Mitchell when she was hit and fatally injured in 1949. The purpose of my book is to keep a promise I made to my dad before he died that I would tell his side of the incident that took the life of Georgia's Icon to set the record straight on what actually happened to her.

Sue Bursztynski said...

This is a good time to promote your book, then. Good luck with it!