A foul wind...please recast Ashley!

Rating: 7/10 (9 April 2009)

The production values are spectacular and many of the performances are excellent, but the central theme of a romantic triangle ultimately fails to convince. It isn't that Leslie Howard was a bad actor. He was a great Henry Higgins. He was simply not the right casting choice for Ashley Wilkes. Yes, he played Ashley as a moralizing weakling, which is how Mitchell wrote the character. But he could not create the charisma one needed to sympathize with Scarlet's feelings of loss. Had Howard been cast opposite someone like Miriam Hopkins as Scarlet O'Hara, he would have held his own well enough. But throughout the 3 plus hours of the movie as produced with Vivien Leigh in the title role, one is too mystified as to why someone so glamorous and sexual as Scarlet cares about this flat-liner. One can't even buy it with the explanation that she only wants what she can't have or she only wants someone who rejects her. It's not just because Howard comes across as a colossal closet case, who married Melanie only because no one would expect sexual ardor of him with such a woman. It's just that Vivian Leigh's Scarlet is so aware of her worth and radiance, one can't imagine her being enthralled by anyone so inferior as Ashley, someone who doesn't even stand up well in comparison to her other long-shot suitors, let alone to Rhett. This fatal casting flaw makes the movie a magnificent misfire. In a few years, with the advance of computer imaging technology and convincing vocal duplication, Gone With The Wind can at last be redone with the existing footage enhanced by a better casting choice for Ashley spliced in. There are two ideal actors from the period. Both are blonds and exceptionally virile, offering a much more convincing counterbalance to the machismo of Clark Gable. The first is Errol Flynn, who, had he been cast, would have played wimpy against type and beat Gable and Robert Donat that year for the Oscar. The Academy loves the fabulous playing unfabulous. The second choice would be Brian Aherne, like Flynn also breathtakingly handsome and able to play the character as written by Mitchell. Both casting choices would have made the viewer understand Scarlet's misguided attraction. You would totally comprehend how it is possible to look at such a man and imagine something that is not there in a way that simply is not possible with Leslie Howard in the role.