Gone with the Wind (70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition) [Blu-ray]
Period romance. War epic. Family saga. Popular fiction adapted with crowd-pleasing brilliance. Star acting aglow with charisma and passion. Moviemaking craft at its height. These are sublimely joined in the words Gone with the Wind.
This dynamic and durable screen entertainment of the Civil War-era South comes home with the renewed splendor of a New 70th-Anniversary Digital Transfer capturing a higher-resolution image from Restored Picture Elements than ever before possible. David O. Selznick’s monumental production of Margaret Mitchell’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book can now enthrall new generations of home viewers with a majestic vibrance that befits one of Hollywood’s greatest achievements.
David O. Selznick wanted Gone with the Wind to be somehow more than a movie, a film that would broaden the very idea of what a film could be and do and look like. In many respects he got what he worked so hard to achieve in this 1939 epic (and all-time box-office champ in terms of tickets sold), and in some respects he fell far short of the goal. While the first half of this Civil War drama is taut and suspenseful and nostalgic, the second is ramshackle and arbitrary. But there’s no question that the film is an enormous achievement in terms of its every resource–art direction, color, sound, cinematography–being pushed to new limits for the greater glory of telling an American story as fully as possible. Vivien Leigh is still magnificently narcissistic, Olivia de Havilland angelic and lovely, Leslie Howard reckless and aristocratic. As for Clark Gable: we’re talking one of the most vital, masculine performances ever committed to film. –Tom Keogh
Also on the disc
The Ultimate Collector’s Edition of Gone with the Wind is beautifully restored for Blu-ray, showing off how good a movie can look even many decades after its release. The second Blu-ray disc has a wide variety of bonus material. New for the Ultimate Collector’s Edition are two 2009 documentaries: 1939: Hollywood’s Greatest Year is narrated by Kenneth Branagh and summarizes the famous films that debuted that year, including Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Stagecoach, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington; “Gone with the Wind: The Legend Lives On” is a 33-minute study of the legacy of the movie, with interviews of film critics, Ted Turner, former Georgia Senator Max Cleeland, and surviving cast member Anne Rutherford (Careen O’Hara). Also new for the UCE is Moviola: The Scarlett O’Hara War, a 1980 television movie that dramatizes the casting of Gone with the Wind, starring Tony Curtis, William H. Macy, Sharon Gless, Morgan Brittany, and others. Much of the rest was on the 2004 four-disc edition, including the commentary track by Rudy Behlmer and documentaries on Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, other actors, and the filming and restoration of the movie. The third disc is a double-sided standard DVD of the documentary MGM: The Lion Roars, and the UCE comes in an oversize box with a beautiful photo book of stills and theatrical posters, reproductions of studio correspondence and a publicity booklet, a soundtrack CD sampler, and art cards. –David Horiuchi
Stills from Gone with the Wind (70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition) (click for larger image)
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Rating: 
(out of 867 reviews)
List Price: $ 84.99
Price: $ 46.76
Tags: gone with the wind blu ray, Vibrance, Home Viewers
Review by Benjamin J Burgraff for Gone with the Wind (70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition) [Blu-ray]
Rating:
It seems like a ‘new, improved’ edition of “Gone With the Wind” has appeared every couple of years, offering the ‘ultimate’ in picture and sound reproduction, and extras. It can become expensive keeping up, and frustrating (much like buying a classic Disney DVD, when you know a more complete “Special Edition” will soon render your “First Time on Video” copy obsolete), but the new GWTW Four-Disc Collector’s Edition most assuredly deserves a place in your collection.
First off, the picture and sound quality is astonishing. Warner’s Ultra-Resolution process, which ‘locks’ the three Technicolor strips into exact alignment, provides a clarity and ‘crispness’ to the images that even the 1939 original print couldn’t achieve. You’ll honestly believe your TV is picking up HD, whether you’re HD-ready, or not! This carries over to the Dolby Digital-remastered sound, as well. All of the tell-tale hiss and scratchiness of the opening credit title music, still discernable in the last upgrade, is gone, replaced by a richness of tone that will give your home theater a good workout. (Listen to the brass in this sequence, and you’ll notice what I’m talking about…)
The biggest selling point of this edition is, of course, the two discs of additional features offered, and these are, in general, superb. Beginning with the excellent “Making of a Legend” (narrated by Christopher Plummer), Disc Three offers fascinating overviews about the film, the amazing restoration, footage from the 1939 Premiere (and the bittersweet 1961 Civil War Centennial reunion of Selznick, Leigh, and de Havilland), glimpses of Gable and Leigh with dubbed voices for the foreign-language versions, the international Prologue (tacked on to explain the Civil War to foreign audiences), and a 1940 MGM documentary on the “Old South” (directed by Fred Zinneman) memorable today for it’s simplistic view of the time, and stereotypical portrayal of blacks.
Disc Four is a mixed bag; the long-awaited reminiscences of Olivia de Havilland are more chatty than informative (with the 90-year-old actress more interested in discussing her wardrobe than on-set tension…although a prank she pulled on Gable is amusing), and the Clark Gable Profile is superficial (A&E’s biography of ‘The King’ is far superior). Things improve, however, with the insightful, sympathetic TCM biography of Vivien Leigh (hosted by Jessica Lange), and a WONDERFUL section devoted to brief bios of many of the GWTW supporting cast, narrated, again, by Christopher Plummer (although I wish the filmmakers would have included bios for Ward Bond, Victor Jory, Fred Crane, and George ‘Superman’ Reeves).
All in all, the GWTW Four-Disc Collector’s Edition isn’t perfect, but offers so much terrific material that it is CERTAINLY the one to own!
Review by William Sommerwerck for Gone with the Wind (70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition) [Blu-ray]
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As with the “Wizard of OZ” BD set, the GWTW set is elaborated — and made “spendier” — with the addition of material that might not be absolutely necessary for one’s enjoyment. The box is covered in red velvet flocking (green would have been more appropriate and amusing — qv, Carol Burnett). There’s a CD “sampler” of Max Steiner’s score, running a measly 45 minutes. Given that Max took excessive scoring to the max (Bette Davis had some pointedly unkind things to say about it), a “sampler” could have filled two CDs, and still not have exhausted the music (though the music might exhaust you). *
As with “OZ”, there’s a 52-page hard-backed book that’s largely content-free, plus reproductions of some of the watercolor set-design paintings (in their own little envelope), and various memoranda sent to and from David O. Selznick. I was expecting a reproduction of Gerald O’Hara’s pocket watch, but it likely would have been of even poorer quality than the kiddie watch in the “OZ” box.
The best bonus is a reproduction of the 25-cent (expensive in 1939) souvenir booklet. It includes pieces by the principals, notably one from Clark Gable telling how badly he wanted to play Rhett Butler and much he enjoyed every minute of making the film. (He didn’t want to appear in “costume” films (having had bad luck in a film about Irish revolutionaries), was afraid to take on a role the public had such definite ideas about, and got along poorly with the first director, George Cukor.)
As I write this, I haven’t viewed all the supplemental material on the second disk. (There’s a lot.) The third disk duplicates the “When the Lion Roars” feature included in the “OZ” box — though the package labeling suggests it’s unique to GWTW.
GWTW was always unsharp and muddy-looking — until the Ultra Resolution transfer of the original three-strip negatives a few years ago. It was a major improvement, and the DVDs showed the film as it had never been seen.
This edition apparently uses a new Ultra Resolution transfer, at twice the resolution (8k versus 4k) of the previous. Some scenes — such as Ashley escorting Melanie to the balcony of Twin Oaks — are breathtaking, far superior to what the DVD offered (and /that/ wasn’t exactly chopped liver). The best Technicolor films, properly transferred, push HD to its limit.
What most surprised me, though, was the awareness of how the film’s color balance is adjusted to produce specific effects. Many scenes have an appropriately warm, “burnished” coloration that /does not/ carry over to the scene’s subtle colors. For example, at the fund-raising bazaar, there’s a bottle of pastel-colored candies (which you’ll probably never notice in the SD edition) that retain their correct colors, “unromantized” by the rest of the image’s warmth. Similarly, in the scene outside the hospital where Belle Watling makes a donation, her costume is vividly colored (there’s no question about her profession!), even though everything else is drab.
Several sequences are outstanding, particularly the one where Scarlett returns to Aunt Pittypat’s home to tend to Melanie. It’s a model of Technicolor photography, one that any cinematographer would be proud of — as good as anything being done today. In earlier transfers of poorer prints, this sequence is flat and two-dimensional. You can’t see how magnificently lit and photographed it is.
At its best, the Technicolor resembles large-format, ultra-sharp Polacolor. That’s a compliment! If you’re fortunate enough to have a large display, you’ll gasp at some of the images.
One of the most-startling moments occurs when Scarlett goes to the train station to look for Dr Meade, one of the most-famous scenes in movie history. Hundreds, if not thousands of injured men lie on the ground, waiting for medical attention that will likely never come. There weren’t enough extras, so dummies were used. And for the first time, you can actually /see/ which of the “extras” are dummies! You can probably tell better than the camera operator!
In short… The BD edition is a major improvement over the excellent DVD edition. It gives the impression that the movie makers were able to manipulate Technicolor to get specific aesthetic effects. ** And it shows just how /beautifully photographed/ this film is, something even the original Technicolor prints never fully revealed. The DVD probably captured most of this (I no longer have it for comparison), but you’ll never see it in standard definition on a “small” screen. Looking at excerpts in the supplmentary material /not/ taken from the Ultra Resolution transfer is a reminder of just how “messy”-looking the original GWTW was. It no longer is. I’ve never enjoyed watching it so much.
It’s becoming apparent that an HD transfer, shown on a big display, is not the best way to watch a movie at home, but the best way to watch a movie, period.
The sound is so-so, of limited range and not particularly clean. (Disney does a much better job cleaning up the audio of its classic films.) The reviewer who said it filled the room as well as any modern soundtrack most own Bose 901s. It would sound better in a theater, with big horn speakers that started rolling off above 5kHz. If GWTW was recorded in RCA multi-track, the stems don’t appear to have survived. (Those for “OZ” exist and have been used, though not, apparently in the Blu-ray.) Music and dialog are mono throughout, but individual sound effects (particulary explosions) are panned to the side or rear when appropriate. The music sometimes seems too loud for the dialog, and the overall level is by far the lowest of any Blu-ray I’ve yet auditioned. I had to really crank up the volume, far, far beyond 11.
This is an expensive set, but it represents such a significant improvement over the last DVD edition (as good as it was) that it’s worth seriously considering. Even if your BD player has a good scaler, the DVD won’t look anywhere nearly this good on your HD monitor. Highly recommended.
PS: Just because a film is a classic doesn’t mean it’s suitable for everyone in your family. The G rating is ridiculous. GWTW is at least PG, containing, as it does, women of questionable virtue, a fair amount of violence (including a scene in which Scarlett is attacked, and another in which she shoots a Yankee, practically blowing off his face), and Rhett dragging Scarlett up the stairs to “molest” her. The MPAA ratings board is nothing if not inconsistent.
PPS: Though Vivian Leigh and Hattie McDaniel received Oscars, I consider Butterfly McQueen’s performance as Prissy the best in the film. Though she hated the role (it’s too easy to interpret Prissy as representing slaves in general, rather than one in particular), she showed great courage in taking it, and delivers a finely nuanced performance.
* Max Steiner wrote the first great film score for a talky – “King Kong”. It epitomizes his style — “Mickey-Mousing” almost every screen action, and the heavy use of Leitmotivs for characters and events. (Note how Melanie’s motive appears every time she does, and how Rhett’s is played — breaking the scene’s mood — when he leaves Scarlett for the last time.) He was also the first sound-film composer to underscore almost the entire length of a film — this is not a recent development. It’s worth noting that GWTW, despite some memorable music, did not win “Best Score” for 1939 — Herbert Stothart’s for “Wizard of OZ” did. I find it considerably more imaginative and appealing.
** The Technicolor print uses dye transfer, in which each color is layed down separately from its own gelatin matrix. This allows a great deal of flexibility in controlling the contrast and color balance — if you’re willing to put out the time and money. According to the supplementary material, the color balance /was/ adjusted on scene-by-scene basis for GWTW, just as it is for modern films – that’s what the “color timer” person does. A high-quality print from 1939 was found, and guided the restorers in adjusting color balance.
Review by for Gone with the Wind (70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition) [Blu-ray]
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I used to think that this Hollywood classic was for everyone. However, after reading nearly 300 reviews of the film, I think that isn’t true anymore. This movie is NOT for you IF 1) you think a movie must be as historically accurate as a history book, 2) you think a 1939 movie should reflect the values of the 21st century, 3) your attention span is so short that you must only see movies from 90-120 minutes in length, 4) you can only accept politically correct films, particularly in terms of racial issues, 5) you are so DUMB as to think widescreen movies were made before the 1950s (although to be fair, Selznik originally intended to use a special widescreen process for the so-called “burning of Atlanta” sequence but gave up on the expensive idea), 6) you can only accept computerized special effects as they appear in modern films, or 7) your idea of great acting is to be found in slasher or teen films being made these days.GWTW is NOT a documentary on the Civil War period. It is NOT a history of slavery in America. It is NOT a story of perfect people behaving perfectly at all times. It IS an adaptation of a novel written by a Southern woman who, as a child, sat and listened to the stories the old Confederate veterans told about the old days before, during, and after THE war. It IS a love story, probably about the novelist’s grandmother, which reflects the attitudes left over from that long-ago time. To criticize this film for so many unrelated issues is silly. It stands on its merits as a masterful film that tells of bittersweet love and lost fantasy. That it succeeds so well is a tribute to the actors and filmmakers of over sixty years ago.
Review by D. Paul Dalton for Gone with the Wind (70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition) [Blu-ray]
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I do hope you’ll return and revise your rating to a ’5′ once you digest this information:
Gone With the Wind was never released in a Widescreen version on DVD because it was never released in a Widescreen version on film. In fact, when it was released (1939), there were NO “Widescreen” movies at all — becaues no one had yet thought about formatting movies in that way.
Through the 1940s and into the 1950s, essentially ALL movies were in the 3:4 format that we now consider to be “regular”. My understanding is that those proportions originally were adopted by the film industry to roughly correspond with the proportions of viewable area for the “live” theaters extant when the film industry started. Similarly, when television arrived in the late 40s/early 50s, its screen format was determined by copying the 3:4 screen proportions of films made up to that time. By the mid-1950s, the film industry became concerned about losing its audience to TV, so various WIDESCREEN formats (CinemaScope was one; I think there was another called VistaVision; I can’t remember the others offhand) were conceived by the film industry in the 1950s as a way in which the film industry could distinguish its film products from what could efficiently be shown on television screens. This was the film industry’s attempt to keep audiences coming to theaters to see their movies, rather than just waiting to see movie productions on home televisions; by coming to the theater, the audience could experience something different that what television could offer.
Other “ideas” in this effort against TV included attempts to interest audiences in 3D films, as well as enhancing film audio, both by greatly improving sound range and fidelity and later by adding stereo, at a time when TVs had only a single, inexpensive speaker that didn’t sound all that “hot.” In fact, the creation/addition of 5.1 audio (Surround Sound) was yet another film industry effort to distinguish itself from what then was available for use in homes.
Anyway, if someone now wants to issue a “Widescreen” version of GWTW, the only way to do it (without distorting the content) would be to cut off the top and/or bottom of every frame all the way through — just think about how THAT would look . . .
Review by calvinnme for Gone with the Wind (70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition) [Blu-ray]
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An asterisk below indicates this feature was on the 2004 release of this film. The bottom line is that discs 1-4 are pretty much repeats of the 2004 release and disc five has the new material. There are also two books and a CD new to this release. This is, of course, a very good film. It was playing in theatres from 1939 until 1976 when it made its television premiere. However, Warner Bros. has many other great films languishing in its vaults that I’d like to see get just one release. The contents of this 5 disc package are:
Includes the first two discs in the 2-disc S.E. which is the movie itself with commentary by historian Rudy Behlmer. *- Same commentary as before.
DISC 3 (About the Movie):
“The Making of a Legend: Gone With The Wind” the 1989 documentary made by Selznick’s sons. *
“Restoring a Legend” – An in-depth look at the restoration. *
Dixie Hails “Gone with the Wind”. Footage from 1939 Atlanta and 1961 Civil War Centennial Atlanta premieres. *
Historical theatrical short “The Old South” (1940) directed by Fred Zinnerman. *
Atlanta Civil War Centennial 1961 premiere newsreel *
International prologue *
Foreign language version sample scenes *
Theatrical Trailers *
DISC 4 (About the Cast):
Three Documentaries:
“Melanie Remembers: Olivia de Havilland Recalls Gone With The Wind” *
“Clark Gable: A King Remembered” *
“Vivien Leigh: Scarlett and Beyond” *
The Supporting Players – Cameo portraits of an unforgettable ensemble *
DISC 5:
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment presents 1939: Hollywood’s Greatest Year – New documentary about Hollywood’s watershed year narrated by Kenneth Branagh. This is a very good documentary that has been playing on TCM as of late.
Gone with the Wind: The Legend Lives On — Exploring the legacy of the most beloved film through illuminating interviews, footage and visits to historical sites, events and museums
Moviola: The Scarlett O’Hara Wars 1980 WBTV Special never before on home video – This movie stars Tony Curtis as David O. Selznick as he looks for the actress that he wants to play Scarlett. I haven’t seen it on TV since its original run back in 1980, but it was pretty good as I remember.
Trailers
Plus these Premiums:
20-page reproduction of the original and complete 1939 Souvenir Program
40-page Production History Book with photos and production notes
Eight Frameable 5×7 Art Prints
CD soundtrack sampler featuring eight tracks:
Main Title
Tara
The Barbecue
Escape From Atlanta
I’ll Never Be Hungry Again
Paddock Scene
Scarlett In The Mist/Rhett Leaves
Flashback/Finale
NOTE:
The 2-disc Blu-Ray release will have all the content above on 2 discs.
Exclusive to the Blu-Ray Ultimate Collector’s Edition is MGM – When The Lion Roars Documentary, which you can, of course, buy separately here – MGM: When the Lion Roars.