Gone With Vivien Leigh.

Rating: Null/10 (27 June 2015)

When a group of women who called themselves The United Daughters Of The Confederacy heard that the role of Scarlett Ohara might be going to an Englishwoman they felt offended. Then when they heard that the role might go to Katherine Hepburn they changed their tune. "Better an Englishwoman than a Yankee", they said. Without a shadow of doubt, "Gone With The Wind" based on Margaret Mitchell's best seller remains one of the greatest movies ever made. Vivien Leigh was not only a great beauty she was also a great actress & gives a fantastic performance as Scarlet Ohara. Everyone who had read the book had said that the role of Rhett Butler just had to go to Clark Gable, even though Selznick International Pictures had to make heavy concessions to the MGM Studio for his services. Gable, himself, was somewhat reluctant to accept the role because he realised it was a "woman's picture" & he might not live up to expectations. He did, of course, & the rest is history. Despite endless rewrites of the script & a change of director from George Cukor to Victor Fleming it all worked out well in the end. When Victor Fleming took over he is reported as saying the script was "no effing good" & ordered another complete rewrite. Max Steiner wrote a really marvellous sweeping musical score for the movie, another of its strong points. Possibly the most memorably famous scene in all movie history takes place about halfway through the movie to Max Steiners music known as Tara's Theme. With the confederacy destroyed by war & Scarlet Ohara's home Tara also ruined she stares angrily up to the heavens & makes her "As God Is My Witness" speech. It is wonderful stuff & this a wonderful movie.