FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1998
By John McKay
The Canadian Press
For those who missed last summer's short-lived theatrical re-release of the new restoration of Gone With the Wind (MGM), now it comes to video in all of its retouched Technicolor glory. Everything they said about this new version is true. An alternating comparison between the previous video issue and this remastered print confirms that the improvement is nothing short of startling. The colours are richer, deeper and more lifelike. In fact it probably looks better now -- at least to our 1990s eyes -- than the pastel, candycane tones that were popular in the 1930s. And the digitally-enhanced sound is especially brilliant, considering the stereo is fabricated from the original mono track.
Gone With the Wind was the victim of much technical abuse over the years. Back in the 1960s, they had the bonehead idea of trying to turn it into a widescreen movie by cropping off the top and bottom of the frame and stretching it out. But composed with a square screen in mind, it fits comfortably into our TV sets with no feeling the image has been cropped.
This is also the first time this all-American classic is available at an affordable for-sale price, previous editions having been limited to rather expensive boxed sets.
As for the plot, one still wonders what fiery Scarlett O'Hara ever saw in that wimp, Ashley Wilkes when she could have had Clark Gable's rugged Rhett Butler anytime. Gone With the Wind's first tape endures as the better half of the tale, magnificently rendered and exciting while the second part degenerates into a hopelessly maudlin period soaper that suggests the screenwriters were desperately trying to gram too much Margaret Mitchell misery into the final hour.