Beauty vs Beast: Miss Scarlett Decides
Monday, December 15, 2014 at 8:30PM 
Fiddle-dee-dee y'all it's Jason from MNPP here with today's sweeping Southern epic edition of "Beauty vs Beast." Yes indeedy today is the 75th anniversary of the biggest movie that ever was and probably ever will be - David O. Selznick's Gone With the Wind (if any movie's ownership belongs to its producer, it's this one) premiered in Atlanta on this day in 1939. Three hundred thousand people lined the streets surrounding the Loews Grand Theater, the cap of three days worth of festivities which brought over a million people to the city. Most of the stars attended, save Leslie Howard who'd returned to England because of WWII, as well as Hattie McDaniel and the other black actors in the film who would've been segegrated from the rest of the cast thanks to Jim Crow. (A situation echoed several months later when McDaniel had to make her way from the back of the room to accept her Oscar.)
The film immediately smashed every record in sight - it sold just about half as many tickets as there were people in the United States, and adjusted for inflation its box office in today's dollars sits at something like three and a half billion dollars. It was a hit!
There were several character iterations I could've gone with for today's competition, but it seemed to me to face Viven Leigh's towering performance as Scarlett O'Hara off against anybody (Melanie, imagine!) would've flounced and trounced any ol' nobody in her way, so instead let's make like we're Scarlett herself and stricken with a crisis of suitors! A beau-tastrophe! Whomever shall we choose?
You've got seven days to vote, which should just give you about enough time to re-watch the first half of the movie up to the Intermission, so get to it.
PREVIOUSLY We took on 2014's blood-soaked war of the sexes with David Fincher's Gone Girl last week, pitting Ben Affleck's full-frontal assault as Nick in one corner opposite Rosamund Pike's icy cool girl Amazing Amy in the other - sure enough Amy kept her nickname tight in her calclating grasp, making off with over 70% of the vote. Said Mareko:
"Cool Girl is fun. Cool Girl is game. Cool Girl is hot. Cool Girl never gets angry at her man."
Reader Comments (21)
Nat, the Knight of Cups trailer is out, do something :P
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC-3rnv_b3o
How can you not vote for Rhett? He wins for making whoring respectable if nothing else.
Well... the argument has been made that Rhett's a rapist, by some. Just puttin' it out there!
is unaccompanied buggy rider a euphemism?
par -- i like it. whatever its a euphemism for.
henry -- also supposedly Gable had bad breath. I don't know.. I am weirdly attracted to Leslie Howard in direct proportion to how stuffy he feels in a movie. so...
Scarlett's warned about Rhett at the start of the movie because he took a girl out for an unaccompanied buggy ride and ruined her reputation.
My boyfriend, a true Southern gentleman, knew that bit by heart and suggested it to my delight.
Nat: I can fix bad breath. But Milquetoast is Milquetoast.
Howard was a beautiful man, I give you that but Ashley (both as written and played) was deathly dull. I prefer Howard when he is being a proper English gentleman. That one I find hot.
Regardless of the actors playing them, Ashley is a simpering jackass but Rhett seems like he would be a lot of fun.
in an actual physical fight Rhett wins. Scarlett chooses Rhett ultimately in the end. Gable got the Oscar nomination. And most importantly, Rhett doesn't really give a damn.
Scarlett would not be pleased with all of you impugning her beloved Ashley.
Nonsense. Scarlett would just think about it tomorrow.
My favorite Gable performance. Broke my heart. And Leslie Howard's Ashley was way too world-weary for my taste. Noble, but tired.
All of my reasons for voting for Rhett over Ashley can be summed up in one look.
When Scarlett is desperate to get the taxes that were raised on Tara she implores Ashley for help. After she initially tries to run away with him to Mexico where they'd be happy together away from all the madness, he tells her all they have left to live for is....honor. The look of sheer "Are you fucking kidding me?" Leigh gives completely galvanizes why she can never really depend on him and why I can't vote for Ashley to do anything.
#TeamRhett
Rhett! I do like Ashley, but Rhett all the way, always.
One of my biggest hurdles to liking Gone With the Wind is that I have NEVER understood just what Scarlett sees in Ashley. He's just so deathly DULL. Yes, Leslie Howard is nice to look at, but I am always bored to death whenever Ashley says or does ANYTHING in this movie. So that's an easy win for Rhett.
This is Gable's best performance. But let's get back to that rapist problem. It is disturbing--the thought that Scarlett enjoyed being taken by force. This is similar to the scene in Duel in the Sun, where Gregory Peck rapes Jennifer Jones. This makes her fall madly in love with him. I'm not sure what the filmmakers were thinking of when they came up with this stuff, but that's just f'd up.
So with my middle name do you really think I will vote for Rhett? Although mine is a family name, Lesie Howard was one of my mother's favorite actors. And Paul you are so right about the world weariness, think Petrified Forest. Even the Scarlet Pimpernel has that tone.
And oh by the way, although clearly Ashley suffers too often in comparison to the dashing Rhett, he IS supposed to symbolize the defeat of the South.
Leslie19 - I was about to drag out a family story about my grandmother's favorite actor. It does put me in a pickle since I don't particularly like Rhett or Ashley.
Can I opt out and vote for Scarlett instead?
I always end up rooting for her to end up with Ashley in the first half of the movie, and then Rhett in the second half. So I went with Ashley because he's clearly going to lose and I find Howard somewhat more attractive than Gable.
What is with mothers/grandmothers and Leslie Howard? My mom was also a fan (especially of The Scarlet Pimpernel) and it never made much sense to me, knowing her taste otherwise (she adored Tyrone Power, for example). I guess LH represented something "finer."
Ashley is the biggest cad in the whole movie. He's got Olivia de Havilland at home, and he's stringing along Vivien Leigh the whole time. Nope. NOPE. Rhett's a slut, but at least he's got principles.