By Andy Seiler
USA Today
April 22, 1998

Gone With the Wind is back with the Technicolor.

New Line Cinema will re-release the 60-year-old Civil War epic June 28 in 200 to 250 theaters, possibly expanding to 500 in the second week.

The restoration of the torrid Southern romance of Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara cost more than $1 million. For the first time in decades, it will be shown in true Technicolor, an eye-popping process largely abandoned in the 1950s.

The movie will get a contemporary ad campaign and poster and the kind of advertising budget usually spent on new films.

"We want to make this a big deal," says the studio's Mitchell Goldman.

Can a 60-year-old film draw audiences, especially when it is opening against Eddie Murphy in Doctor Doolittle?

"Gone With the Windis a perfect choice for re-release," says David Davis, entertainment adviser for Houlihan Lokey, pointing to the success of Star Wars and Grease.

Gone With the Wind is the most popular movie ever released in North America, far ahead of Titanic and Star Wars, based on ticket sales and taking inflation into account.

And by a nearly 2-1 ratio, more than 1,400 readers who e-mailed USA Today this month chose GWTW over Titanic as the better of the two movies.

"I was in that preemy they had in Atlanta," he would tell visitors sitting on his front porch. "Surrounded by beautiful guls. It wasn't a thing local about it. It was nothing local about it. Listen here. It was a nashnul event and they had me in it--up onto the stage. There was no bob-tails at it. Every person at it had paid ten dollars to get in and had to wear his tuxseeder. I was in this uniform. A beautiful gul presented me with it that afternoon in a hotel room."

"It was in a suite in the hotel and I was in it too, Papa," Sally Poker would say, winking at the visitors. "You weren't alone with any young lady in a hotel room."

"Was, I'd a known what to do," the old General would say with a sharp look and the visitors would scream with laughter. "Tis was a Hollywood, California, gul," he'd continue. "She was from Hollywood, California, and didn't have any part in the pitcher. Out there they have so many beautiful guls that they don't need that they call them a extra and they don't use them for nothing but presenting people with things and having their pitchers taken. They took my pitcher with her. No, it was two of them. One on either side and me in the middle with my arms around each of them's waist and their wasit ain't any bigger than a half a dollar."

Sally Poker would interrupt again. "It was Mr. Govisky that gave you the uniform, Papa, and he gave me the most exquisite corsage. Really, I wish you could have seen it. It was made with gladiola petals taken off and painted gold and put back together to look like a rose. It was exquisite. I wish you could have seen it, it was..."

"It was as big as her had," the General would snarl. "I was tellin it. They gimme this uniform and they gimme this soward and they say, 'Now General, we don't want you to start a war on us. All we want you to do is march right up on that stage when you're innerduced tonight and answer a few questions. Think you can do that?' "Think I can do it!' I say. 'Listen here. I was doing things before you were born,' and they hollered."

"He was the hit of the show," Sally Poker would say, but she didn't much like to remember the premiere on account of what had happened to her feet at it. She had bought a new dress for the occasion--a long black crepe dinner dress with a rhinestone buckle and a bolero--and a pair of silver slippers to wear with it, because she was supposed to go up on the stage with him to keep him from falling. Everything was arranged for them. A real limousine came at ten mintes to eight and took them to the theater. It drew up under the marquee at exactly the right time, after the big stars and the director and the author and the governor and the mauor and some less important stars. The police kept traffic from jamming and there were ropes to keep the people off who couldn't go. All the people who couldn't go watched them step out of the limousine into the lights. Then they walked down the red and gold foyer and an usherette in a Confederate cap and little short skirt conducted them to their special seats. The audience was already there and a group of UDC members began to clap when they saw the General in his uniform and that started everybody to clap. A few more celebrities came after them and then the doors closed and the lights went down.

GONE WITH THE WIND
Release Date: June 26

An epic romance about star-crossed lovers set against the backdrop of tragic times. No, not Titanic--it's Gone with the Wind, back in a restored print with digital sound. America, get out your handkerchiefs once again.