Three husbands and a civil war

Gone With the Wind (1939)

Probably the first major block buster was adapted from the novel of the same name and stars Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh and Olivia de Havilland. Civil war gets in the way of a plantation owner's daughter and her ambitions.

Weighing in at nearly 4 hours long this is a serious marathon of a movie that took it's toll on the numerous writers and directors that worked on the project. This film is clearly a landmark in film making and the first half in particular has some great cinematography as well really impressive sections where Atlanta is being burnt to the ground (no CGI here). There are also some really great performances from the cast, it is easy to see how the film went on to pick up 8 Oscars.

What the film is really about is women of the 1930s struggling for freedom and control of their own lives in both personal terms and economic. Unfortunately the film is not as progressive in it's view of the South and race relations, at best you could say the story paints a massively naive view of the Confederacy but really reflects on how even 90 years after the civil war racism was still rampant in American culture. What the story does well is have interesting, not necessarily likeable characters, and manages not to drift too far into the realms of melodrama.

4/5 a flawed milestone in the history cinema.