Frankly, I just don't know...

Rating: Null/10 (31 January 1999)

I go back and forth on this one. "Gone With the Wind" was reissued when I was just a kid, and all my parents' friends were talking about how they loved this definitive romantic tale of the War Between the States. So my level of anticipation was high when my folks took me downtown to see it at the old Loews State Theater in Memphis. I was not disappointed. It was one of my first *adult* films, and I was swept away by the story and the music and the Technicolor cinematography and the sheer power of the melodrama. (A few days later, when I tried to obtain the book at the library, I actually had to get special permission to check it out with my juvenile library card.) I must have read the book ten times during junior high and high school. After I graduated college the movie was re-reissued, and I took a date to see it. She hated it and so did I. I couldn't believe I'd ever enjoyed such an overwrought potboiler. Then, some years later, Ted Turner restored the print to its original glory and I watched it on television. This time I deemed it a masterpiece. So, "Gone With the Wind" is on my list of films I'll watch again. But frankly, I don't know whether I'll give a damn.