Contemporized Classic

The pre-Hollywood superstars -- Sarah Bernhardt, Eleanora Duse, Edwin Booth -- survived in legend and, perhaps fortunately for them, their greatness has to be taken on faith by posterity. But Chaplin, Garbo, the Barrymores and other film greats survive on celluloid, and in the movie houses or on TV's late, late shows, their legends are constantly up for review.

Once again, filmgoers have the chance to rereview two such fabled Hollywood performances: Clark Gable as Rhett Butler and Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara in David O. Selznick's Gone With the Wind. Since its gala 1939 premiere in Atlanta, G.W.T.W. has been seen by more than 295 million people and earned $75 million in rentals for MGM. This month MGM re-released it for the fifth time, and already has advance bookings (at an average of $3 per reserved-seat ticket) totaling $1,000,000.

On the solid theory that audiences are now accustomed to spectaculars that come with stereophonic sound on wide, wide screens, the studio has gone to great lengths to contemporize its classic. The print has been widened to accommodate 70-mm. screens, which unfortunately destroys the symmetry of Director Victor Fleming's compositions --notably by cutting off Gable's face above the hairline in closeups. Required to brush up the fading color on the original print frame by frame, studio technicians have done their job well, although there is still occasional blurring. Composer Max Steiner's original magnolia-lush score, however, sounds better than ever in a re-engineered six-channel stereo version.

To a generation sophisticated by Godard, Fellini and Bergman, Gone With the Wind may at times seem unbearably square. The lack of cinematic verite palls during the film's long, unfocused second half. By the end of G.W.T.W., Melanie's eternal benevolence, as faithfully enacted by Olivia de Havilland (the last surviving star of the film), is almost insufferably cloying. Still, the sweep and power of the story are there, the burning of Atlanta remains one of the finest battle scenes ever filmed. Gable never played Gable better, and never was the glowing ideal, or illusion, of fiery Southern girlhood better embodied than by Vivien Leigh.

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