Gone With The Wind is on TCM (Turner Classic Movies) today. Starting in just a few minutes. I have to say, and those who know me best would admit, it is my all time, hands down favorite movie. Of all time.
I think I fell in love with it somewhere around the age of 8 when I saw it for the first time while spending the night with my Aunt Barbara (my Dad's only sister). She told me how she skipped school to see it in the theater! To my 8 year old mind, skipping school was probably one of the worst offenses you could commit. Skipping school? Insanity!
I was smitten the first time I saw Scarlett O'Hara in that white & green dress at the Wilkes' BBQ. How can you not be?
From that point, obsession took over. I looked forward to it showing on tv (once a year back then & before the age of the VCR/DVR). Immediately acquired a paperback copy of the book which I read. And read. And read some more. All 1034 pages. Or something like that. My father told me he had read it in school & proclaimed it the worst book he'd ever read. Sacrilege!!!! Clearly he just didn't get it!
But Aunt Barbara did. And somehow, my Mom too. The GWTW gifts started somewhere after that. Collector plates. Music boxes. My Mom (and other collectors) kept the Franklin Mint in business in the '80's buying everything & anything GWTW for me. (and the other collectors, for themselves). When I was in college & working at Waldenbooks I would snatch up every book about the movie.
While we're discussing books, let me just say that Scarlett, the sequel----bad. Bad, bad, bad. We won't discuss it further. And the tv movie made from it? Blech!
When I lived in Portland, ME, I made friends with another GWTW freak. Her collection was almost as extensive as mine. I had more music boxes, but she had the Vivien Leigh bio. We would have showings at her house. Bring our favorite memorabilia, have drinks and munches & watch the movie. A box of tissues always found its way to the couch as I pretty much cry for the last 30-45 min of the movie. Scarlett running thru the fog back to Rhett? Yeah, I'm a goner at that point.
The highlight of my time in Portland was the movie being shown at the State Theater. GWTW on the big screen???? We were there 2 nights in a row.
Before my ex & I got married he had to sit through the movie. I should have known it wasn't going to work when all he did was mock the movie.
So 30+ years into my love affair with the movie, I find myself comfy on the couch, knitting project nearby & the Wee One in her room for rest hour.
One of these days she & I will take a trip to ATL to the Margaret Mitchell house (I'm ashamed to admit, I haven't been in all the time I've lived here!) . And in a couple years she & I will have a Mommy & Wee One movie night where I'll introduce her to the movie that has been one of my joys since I was a wee one!
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5 comments:
That is so awesome! Thanks for sharing such a cool story.
I agree. It is one of my all time favorite movies. I am watching it also and knitting on a sock. I have not been to Margaret Mitchell's house but when I was in Altanta in the 80's I went to Joel Chandler Harris' house.
That's awesome! I got a little teary just reading :) (Happens all the time now.) I never really connected with GWTW maybe because my mom didn't? Have fun sharing with wee one when the time comes!
My Mom is a Sound of Music fan--beyond that she doesn't like to watch the same movie over and over and over. Plus, I think she realized long before I did, Scarlett's flaws.
I knew you loved the movie, but I didn't know about your obsession w/ anything GWTW!! How did I not know this? So, Joe's great-grandmother (I think!) was the dress designer for the green dress! I had a Scarlett porcelain doll that Joe's grandmother had hand-painted, with the green dress made from the original dress design. She was goregous! She fell off a shelf, and was beheaded. The doll, not the grandmother!! Anyway, I haven't read your blog in forever!! I really should do that more often.
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