The true worst film of all time

Rating: 1/10 (21 November 2004)

I didn't think Plan 9 From Outer Space was the worst film of all time. I think either The Creeping Terror or Gone With The Wind. At least, that's what the interviewee I refer to in my summary said. Not having seen The Creeping Terror myself, I will just nominate Gone With The Wind. The reasons why this film is horrible and overrated are numerous. Some of them may be considered politically correct, I don't know. But even the politically correct reasons have some pretty solid sub-reasons built into them.
One such reason, and it shows the mentality of the times, is Prissy, the maid who simply cannot seem to talk in a normal tone of voice. When she is telling Scarlett how she knows nothing about birthing babies, I could have sworn that if the lines were being ADRed (highly unlikely in those days, but bear with me), someone in the studio was putting a live wire somewhere where they probably shouldn't. African Americans constantly complain about how they are unfairly stereotyped, but I never hear them complaining about this film, which bewilders me to no end.
The opening crawls describe the lifestyle led by the so-called heroes as something "gone with the wind", hence the title. Well, things die for a reason. It's funny how they don't mention the rampant smallpox or measles that killed more Americans than the last five wars (that's wars, not three-month skirmishes) put together. Eras are only as wonderful as your investigations allow them to conclude. There are people, after all, who seem to believe the Middle Ages were a better time to live simply because the church had greater control over our society. Never mind things like bubonic plague (and people wonder why I consider Paul Verhoeven, maker of such realism exhibitions as Flesh + Blood, one of the greatest filmmakers who ever lived).
Clark Gable makes a decent fist of his role, playing the cold, cool heroic character that has served as a prototype in everything from Elvis pictures to The Godfather. Vivien Leigh, on the other hand, is utterly annoying, and comes off more as a spoiled, bratty child than a heroine. Seriously, listen to her "fiddle-dee-dee"s enough, and you'll be instantly reminded of that brat whose head got stuck in the lavatory bowl in a boarding school on a regular basis. Such a scene would have improved the film immeasurably.
And that, in a nutshell, is why I gave Gone With The Wind a one out of ten. People look back on the pre-civil war days with fondness, perhaps, but they only do so because of the rose-coloured glasses they look at the past with. Were I to make a film about the eMpTyV era that I grew up in, I'd describe it as an era that has gone with the proverbial wind, and like the one depicted here, I'd thank my stars that it has.