The Decamping Husband's Farewell

Rating: 7/10 (5 January 2009)

GWTW is a woman's picture about feisty Scarlett and the men in her life. Ostensibly about the American civil war, it degenerates into a story of marital disharmony, recognisable in any era with its overtones of women's lib.
David Selznick's MGM background leads him to mimic their films which predominately reflect the lives of upper middle class American society. Scarlett comes from the upper echelons of the cotton plantation owners and when Ashley goes to fight the Yankees he becomes a Major. This is an unusually high rank for a young man with no previous military service;likewise Scarlett's first husband, Charles Hamilton, becomes a Captain.Most young officers would have been second lieutenants. GWTW is atypical as it does not therefore represent the life of the ordinary fighting man. This fascination for the affluent in life reflects Miss Mitchell's own life since both her father and second husband were lawyers.
The film opens with Scarlett and her friends jabbering away at nineteen to the dozen. This fast pace of dialogue continues for several minutes making it impossible to catch much of what is being said. Eventually the film settles down to a more acceptable pace. All of her beaux seem to be West Point graduates which reflects Miss Mitchell's day dreaming at 15 of being a boy and entering West Point.
Mr. Howard as Ashley is so bewilderingly miscast that it is hard to understand why another player could not have been found. He comes over as a father figure rather than a newly wed young man. He looks his age (45) and is far too serious; he rarely laughs or jokes and is never frivolous.
Of the supporting actors, Thomas Mitchell plays Scarlett's father very convincingly and his Oscar was well deserved; in a smaller role Dr. Meade is very well played by Harry Davenport. Miss Mitchell probably based him on her own days as a beginning medical student.
The film is so drearily long because the plot is structurally unsound. The first part deals with the Civil War in a conventional way but only as it affects the privileged few. In the second part Scarlett eventually marries the likable rogue Rhett, based on the real life blockade runner Charles Trenholm, but after the birth of their only child she forsakes her marriage vows by excluding him from the marital bedroom. To which Rhett, obviously seriously hurt emotionally by Scarlett's rejection, responds "You know I could divorce you for this?" Forget about the Civil War from here on it's just the well-worn story of battling embittered spouses. Miss Mitchell's mother had been a suffragette and this seems to have rubbed off on her and her novel. One night a drunken Rhett, carries her upstairs in his arms to bed and ravishes her. This has parallels in Miss Mitchell's own life as her first marriage was annulled after she suffered the same fate from her husband.
I have not read the book but at over 1000 pages in length it has been considerably condensed; one major change is that Scarlett has three children by Rhett compared with just Bonnie in the film. This significantly changes the situation when Rhett leaves her with his oft-quoted farewell 'Frankly, my Dear, I don't give a damn' (a simple but effective piece of alliteration), a similar emotion must have passed through the mind of many an exiting spouse. Scarlett is left alone with no children compared with two in the novel. However this is where both the novel and the film end. Was this done to make Rhett's departure more morally acceptable? The entire film revolves around Scarlett and Rhett but although Scarlett is in almost every scene it is Rhett who is the commanding presence and steals all his scenes. At the beginning of the second part action drags without Rhett and Miss Leigh fails to hold her audience. The tedium which sets in could have been relieved if there had been a sub-plot to the story. This is an essential element of such a long story and is a weakness of Miss Mitchell's novel.
A further weakness is that there are too many convenient deaths. Characters are killed off willy-nilly when they hinder the story's development. Very early on, Scarlett's first husband, Charles Hamilton, dies after a short illness. Later, her second husband Frank Kennedy is conveniently killed when they go out to a 'political meeting' concerning shanty-town raiders and get involved in a skirmish with Yankee soldiers. There is the death of Bonnie which lets Rhett off the hook morally as there are no children to support after he leaves Scarlett. The death of Scarlett's mother of typhoid fever is acceptable. This is another parallel with Miss Mitchell whose mother died of Spanish 'flu. Melanie conveniently dies in childbirth leaving Ashley potentially free to marry Rhett after he eventually leaves Scarlett but both the novel and the film only make this point obliquely when Rhett tells Scarlett that 'all you need now is a divorce and your dreams of Ashley can come true.' Finally he realises he has seen through Scarlett's scheming ways and tells her ' you think that by saying: 'I'm sorry,' all the past can be corrected'. In fact, Scarlett loves no one; she is incapable of love and just loves herself. She proved herself to be unsuited to married life as she rejects the act of procreation and behaved like a vixen throughout.
The story would have been more true-to-life if the clergy had been represented, especially in the hospital scenes.
The film is more outspoken on marital matters than the feature films of the period. It also makes it clear that the 'saloon', a centre point of westerns, is not just a place for men to have a drink, gamble and brawl but is a bawdy house.
The restored DVD has a sharpness and clarity previously unseen and I recommend it to any fan of GWTW.