"I'll figure a way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day."

Rating: Null/10 (1 October 2013)

It is a bit remarkable that I, a long-time fan of the movies, only now got around to watching GWTW, even though it was released just 6 years before I was born. I was able to get the DVD of the restored film from my public library.
A film this old and this famous, a film that has been analyzed so much over the decades, there really isn't anything I can contribute to its description or analysis. My only intent here is to capture a few of my own reactions to the story and to the characters.
Certainly the central character is Scarlett O'Hara played well by Vivien Leigh, as a spoiled and impetuous young lady (she must have been 24 or 25 during filming) in deep southern Georgia. She and her family are hit hard by the War Between The States, not only changing their lives but resulting in their beloved plantation 'Tara' being left in ruins.
Scarlett had a very hard time loving, or even really caring, for anyone. She wanted the things she wanted and found ways to get what she wanted, most often by manipulation. When she met Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), a wealthy man from Charleston, she saw him as a ticket back to wealth. But in a manner befitting both of their strong wills, there was a deep affection between them that they just were unable to express in a productive and loving manner.
Even though Gable was obviously a big movie star, I have not seen much of him before seeing GWTW. Even if we ignore his uncredited roles, he had about 40 movie roles before this one, and almost 30 more after that. So seeing him here is really the only role I can relate to, and I found him just perfect.
GWTW is a melodrama, the war is just interwoven to make Scarlett's and Rhett's stories more interesting. Some fans will certainly muse, that had the story not ended where it did, Scarlett would have made good on her final lines, to restore Tara and get Rhett back: "I'll figure out how to get him back, After all, tomorrow is another day."
Perhaps as a reflection of their roles in this movie, neither Gable nor Leigh reached 60. He was 59 when he died of a heart attack, and she, reportedly a very heavy smoker, died of tuberculosis when she was only 53.