Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American historical epic film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer-winning 1936 novel of the same name. It was produced by David O. Selznick and directed by Victor Fleming from a screenplay by Sidney Howard. Set in the 19th century American South, the film stars Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Leslie Howard, Olivia de Havilland, and Hattie McDaniel, among others, and tells a story of the American Civil War and Reconstruction era from a Southern point of view.
The film received 10 Academy Awards competitive, 2 honorary), a record that stood for 20 years.Ben-Hur surpassed it in 1960.In the American Film Institute's inaugural Top 100 Best American Films of All Time list of 1998, it was ranked fourth. Gone With the Wind is considered one of the top rated romance films and an enduring symbol of the golden age of Hollywood. The film was the longest American sound film made up to that time – 3 hours 44 minutes, plus a 15 minute intermission. It was among the first of the major films shot in color (Technicolor), and won the first Academy Award for Best Cinematography in the category for color films. The film has made $400,176,459 in theater receipts since its release,but the gross when adjusted to 2010 prices is approximately $2,984,000,000, which makes it the highest grossing film of all time adjusted for inflation.
Movie SynopsisPart 1
The film opens on a large cotton plantation called Tara in rural Georgia in 1861, on the eve of the American Civil War. Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh) is flirting with the two Tarleton brothers, Brent (Fred Crane) and Stuart (George Reeves), who have been expelled from the University of Georgia. Scarlett, Suellen (Evelyn Keyes), and Careen (Ann Rutherford) are the daughters of Irish immigrant Gerald O’Hara (Thomas Mitchell) and his wife, Ellen O'Hara (Barbara O'Neil), who is of aristocratic French ancestry. The brothers share a secret with Scarlett: Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard), whom Scarlett secretly loves, is to be married to his cousin, Melanie Hamilton (de Havilland). The engagement is to be announced the next day at a barbecue at Ashley's home, the nearby plantation Twelve Oaks.
Part 2
Scarlett sets her family and servants to picking the cotton fields. She also kills a Union deserter who threatens her during a burglary, and finds Union currency in his wallet, enough to sustain her family and servants for a time. With the defeat of the Confederacy and war's end, Ashley returns from being a prisoner of war. Mammy restrains Scarlett from running to him when he reunites with Melanie. The dispirited Ashley finds he is of little help to Tara, and when Scarlett begs him to run away with her, he confesses his desire for her and kisses her passionately, but says he cannot leave Melanie. Gerald O'Hara dies after he is thrown from his horse in an attempt to chase from his property a Yankee carpetbagger, his former plantation overseer (Victor Jory) who now wants to buy Tara. Scarlett is left to support the family, and realizes she cannot pay the rising taxes on Tara implemented by Reconstructionists. Knowing that Rhett is in Atlanta and believing he is still rich, she has Mammy make an elaborate gown for her from her mother’s drapes still hanging in the parlor. However, upon her visit, Rhett, now in jail, tells her his foreign bank accounts have been blocked, and that her attempt to get his money has been in vain.
Movie Trailer
GONE WITH THE WIND TrailerMovie CreditDirector: Victor Fleming, and 2 more credits »
Writers: Margaret Mitchell (novel), Sidney Howard (screenplay), and 4 more credits »
Stars: Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh and Thomas Mitchell
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