THE CINEMA
4. Gone With the Wind." At the Empire, the Ritz, and the Palace.—" For Freedom." At the Gaumont.
WAY back in the early days of this century a certain business man remarked that there would never be any money in a film lasting for more than ten minutes. After seeing Gone With the Wind, one can appreciate his point of view. For this film has no justification whatever for lasting the three hours and forty minutes which are only too modestly claimed for it. Like most screen subjects, all it has to say could be compassed in a neat ninety minutes ; forty-five for the American civil war and forty-five for the personalia Gone With the Wind is a particularly good illustration of Hollywood's periodic (and almost always fatal) phases of megalomania. That it is based on a well-known novel is beside the point ; most films are. based on novels, but they must be judged as films none the less. Moreover, the big-scale, or spectacular, type of film— particularly if it exceeds the normal length—must necessarily be made by a genius. D. W. Griffiths, for instance, made Birth of a Nation, Isn't Life Wonderful, and Way Down East ; and the makers of Gone With the Wind are not worthy to unlatch his cutting-room door. Where the epic sweep of a nation at war with itself was required they have relapsed into petty personalia. Where a savage story of sex-tangles has to be told, they spin it out over two hours in a haze of ill-digested gobbets of pseudo-Ibsen and pseudo-O'Neill. And as for the clash of class and race, both of which rise unbidden to the mind as the film drools on, these are conveniently sugared over with some perfunctory dialogue. All this is all the more re- grettable in that every technical resource of the modem studio has been lavished on the production, and the director, Victor Fleming, is a person of proved skill. From time to time, indeed, certain sequences turn up which would in a normal film be highly effective, but which, because they are blanketed and smothered by a vast total footage, fail to impress as they should. At times one feels that the removal of, say, every other shot from the film would be something of a step towards coherency and interest.
What is to be set against this catalogue of defects? In the first place, three first-class acting performances, well-sustained, not over-exaggerated, and emotionally satisfying, by Hatty McDaniell, Olivia de Havilland, and Ona Munson. Next, one or two scenes of terrific spectacle—notably the dreadful panorama of the wounded and dying in the hot sun at Atlanta railroad station. Next the shooting (by Scarlett O'Hara) of a marauding Yankee soldier, over whose face the plummy Technicolor blood terrifyingly btibbles before he falls. Or, again, Scarlett's magnificent tumble down the rich red stair- case ; or her green velvet costume ; or an occasional gleam from her cat's-eyes. And colour effects—dramatic, elegant, and frequently just hideous—colour effects which at times re- mind of a poorish Silly Symphony. These and other memories one glimpses in retrospect through the tinted fog of this repetitive and shamelessly shapeless film.
It must in all fairness be now conceded thattGone With the Wind will probably surge to success on the strength of its " best-seller " story, on the strength of its stars, Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, and Leslie Howard (who perform the requked gestures competently), and even—such are our present dis- contents—on the strength of its length. But none of that will ever make it a good film, any more than the Bearded Lady in a circus sideshow can ever be quite the same attraction as the pure and satisfactory sawdust circle of the Big Tent itself.
For Freedom, on the other hand, is a very different scuttle of fish. It is a feature film ingeniously built up as a vehicle for presenting reconstructions of the Battle of the River Plate and the Altmark ' incident. As far as these reconstructions go, it may be said that they contain all the necessary in- gredients to express for us our patrotic pride, but that a great opportunity has been missed in not using the animated models of the sea battle as a means of giving a really clear picture of the strategy involved. As it is, we get the thrills but miss the explanations. For the rest, we are treated to the sight of Will Fyffe as a newsreel chief, and to several well-cut collections of newsreel material, which give a vivid if depressing picture of the years which led up to the present war. For Freedom is, if nothing else, a timely production, and it avoids the errors of taste which so often mar prestige films in time of war.
BASIL WRIGHT.
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