Evening star., 1940-02-03

naturally is Gone With the Wind.
AS this department, not to mention
virtually every other reviewing de.
partment, has said, Mr.. Selznick
has done full honor to Margaret
Mitchells panorama of the Civil
War. In every department, casting
production and direction, he has
made his picture worthy OF its
name as the greatest achievement
In screen history even though some
may demur at calling it the greatest
picture of all time. To have main
tained such level of quality In
handling such mass of material is
the thing that is earning him the
applause and the dollars OF the
Nation.
A second weeks contemplation OF
"Gone With the Wind" heightens
the admiration for Selznick's wis
dom in recognizing the Mitchell
story as the great American legend
Seeing it this way, it was apparent
that his only course was to avoid
tampering with the story as he
would were he making any other
tale from folk literature. Stories
OF such profound appeal, whether
or not they be great drama, belong
to the people and woe unto the
translator who modities them. Mr.
Selznick courted no such woe.
In casting Vivien Leigh as Scar
lett O'Hara, Clark Gable as Rhett
Butler, Olivia De Havilland as
Melanie and Leslie Howard as Ash
ley Wilkes, he brought the major
characters to life just as they ex-
listed in the book. The same care
of selection is manifest down to
the most minor of the minor figures.
That challenging chore accomplish
ed, all that was left was to provide
these characters stage as vast
and as highly colored as that which
Mrs. Mitchell created in her book.
Mr.. Selznick made no mistake there
either, although he denied Scarlet
a pair of children for which a
minority condemns him on the
ground that it sort of idealizes her)
and some of his more expansive
settings look a bit fragile in techni-
color.
Further reflection upon the va
rious excellences of Gone With the
Wind" neceSsitates mention of two
Of the happiest bits of subordinate
casting which any picture ever en-
joyed. They are the performances
of Thomas Mitchell as Gerald
O'Hara and Hattie Mcdaniel as
Nanny, the corpulent, stormy old
slave who served as Scarlett's men,
tor with such simple wisdom and
SO deep love.
In the early part of the story,
Mr.. Mitchell is easily adequate to
the task of indicating where Scar
lett derives that love for land
(Tara which is her invariable
refuge and source of strength. His
real brilliance as performer shines
more brightly in those postwar
passages, when, bereft of his reason
by virtue of the disaster to his
lands, he can only humble inco-
herently. Reduced to the use of pure
pantomlme in these scenes with the
glittering Miss Leigh, Mitchell domi-
mates them as if he stood alone
in a spotlight reciting a Maxwell
Anderson solliquy. 1t is acting of
the kind that probably will earn
him an academy award for the best
supporting performance of the year.
The odds are equally good that
Miss Mcdaniel will earn a like dis
tinction for her performance as
Nanny, the portrait of a slave who
understood so much of life and could
feel it so deeply.
"The Fighting 69th," a documen-
tary account of the war record of
one OF Americas great fighting
units, into which has been inserted
but one conspicuous extraneous
Unread OF drama, is one of the finest
DTS OF acting ever turned in by
warmers postgraduate in realism.
The regiments story was dotted with
some colorful personalities, Father
Francis P. Duffy, Maj. wild Bill"
Donovan, Joyce Kilmer, etc. They
come to life, under the grim cir
cumstances which might be ex-
pected when Warmers 90 to war.
In the performances of Pat OBrien,
George Brent and Jeffrey Lynn.
Excellent as those portraits are,
however, the acting tour de force
OF THE Fighting 69th" is that Gre
ated by James Cagney. Richly
schooled in the art of impersonating
a snarling, ratlike human, Cagney