Gone with the Wind

'Gone With the Wind' to celebrate 75th anniversary with theatrical screenings showing the movie as it was originally shown seventy-five years ago.  I took my mother to see GWTW, and it was worth every second of the five hours we sat in that theater.  Though the movie has a running time of 238 minutes (with overture, intermission, entr'acte, and exit music), the theater where we saw it apparently didn't know how to run a movie.  The intermission should have been 15 minutes, but due to technical difficulties was over 45 minutes.  It was still worth it to see my mama enjoy a movie that she has loved since she was a teenager.

TCM is presenting screenings of Gone With the Wind on Sept. 28 and Oct. 1 in movie theaters across the nation. If you are a fan of the movie, it is worth the price of the ticket to see it (even if ticket prices are more than the $10 that was the cost to see the originally premiere in Atlanta with Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh in the audience).

Because we still give a damn: Long considered among the greatest films ever made, Gone With the Wind starring Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Leslie Howard and Olivia de Havilland celebrates its 75th anniversary this month.

Here are the details from Fathom Events, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment and TCM:

Scarlett O’Hara won and then lost Rhett Butler, Atlanta burned and the antebellum South was shown in all its splendor and decimation in one of cinema’s most treasured and most successful films, “Gone With the Wind.” And now, as part of the festivities to mark the 10-time Oscar©-winning film’s 75th anniversary, Fathom Events is joining with Warner Bros. Home Entertainment and Turner Classic Movies to bring “TCM Presents: Gone With the Wind” back to its original home in select theatres nationwide and presented in its original aspect ratio so audiences can experience it as it was originally shown 75 years ago. The film will be exhibited on Sunday, September 28 and Wednesday, October 1 at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. local time.

In addition to the classic film, which starred Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara, Clark Gable as Rhett Butler, Olivia De Havilland as Melanie Hamilton and Leslie Howard as Ashley Wilkes, “TCM Presents: Gone With the Wind” included a specially produced introduction by  TCM host and film historian Robert Osborne.

As any fan of classic films or American literature surely knows, “Gone With the Wind” is the Epic Civil War drama about spoiled southern belle Scarlett O'Hara. Starting with her idyllic life on the plantation Tara, it traces her unrequited love for Ashley Wilkes, her tempestuous relationship with roguish Rhett Butler and her struggles as Atlanta burns, her family home is decimated and she vows to never go hungry again. As has been evident from the enduring devotion that fans have for the story – on film, on the pages of Margaret Mitchell’s original novel, on TV and home entertainment formats – frankly, they DO give a damn about Scarlett’s triumphs, travails and ultimate will to survive.