‘GWTW’ Blu-ray set looks gorgeous
Video Viper for Dec. 11, 2009
Most of the time, this column reviews movies.
This week is a little different because the movie I’ve chosen is “Gone With the Wind.”
Even if I wanted to, how could I slam “GWTW?” I mean, it’s one of the top 5 films of all time.
I first experience the film as a student at Kent State University and was absolutely mesmerized by the scale and scope of the film.
When I ran a WEEKENDER contest a few years ago, asking people what their favorite movie of all-time was, “GWTW” won, no contest.
That’s not bad for a movie that was released 70 years ago. How many movies that are that old can people even name these days?
My reason for discussing this landmark film is the fact it was just released in Blu-ray in a beautiful 70th anniversary package.
The first disc contains the four-hour film and is breathtakingly beautiful. It is really a step up and being on Blu-ray, it has a higher capacity so the whole film fits on one disc without any compression. It also contains an historical commentary of the film.
Disc 2 has “The Making of a Legend: Gone With the Wind,” an really interesting look at the history of the film. You wonder how it ever got made in the first place. The documentary comes in at 123 minutes.
The disc also includes the 33-minute “Gone With the Wind: The Legend Lives On,” which tells about the film’s legacy.
Another documentary, at 68 minutes, describes what a great year 1939 was for movies.
There’s also a biography of Clark Gable. Another about Vivien Leigh. Reminiscing about the film by survivor Olivia de Havilland is another extra. She describes how Leigh and Gable played Battleship while waiting to do their scenes.
There’s yet another documentary about supporting players and another on film restoration.
There’s also a 97-minute television movie, “Movieola,” with Tony Curtis playing David O. Selznich.
There’s also trailers and other shorter films on the disc.
Disc 3 includes “When the Lion Roars,” a three-part, six-hour documentary hosted by Patrick Stewart about the history of MGM.
Then there’s a CD of Max Steiner’s unforgettable score.
The set includes a recreation of the program movie goers got as their entered the theater to see the film back in 1939-40 and another book of pictures and stories about the film.
A little “GWTW” video history. Back in the early 1980s, VCRs were primarily for adult entertainment, but the powers-that-be realized for the industry to survive, it must move more into mainstream movies.
Movies quickly were released on home video, but not “GWTW.” It was too big of a film to ever be released to the home audience.
The home video industry would not come of age without “GWTW.”
Somehow, a version was released on Japanese Laserdisc, but you had to order an expensive import and it had Japanese subtitles. Also, you needed a Laserdisc player, which few people had. (The format died with the advent of DVD, which was a smaller, more compact version of the same thing.)
MGM relented and released a two-disc specialty version of the film on both VHS and Beta at $89..95 in 1989, complete with certificate of authenticity and no discount.
Years later, a scaled-down, two-tape version was released on VHS for $19.95.
The first DVD version was a two-sided disc with no extras and quality not much better than the VHS.
A few years later a feature-filled DVD set was released, but it sort of floats in the middle of the screen of today’s 16:9 ratio high definition televisions.
That’s why I was happy to see the Blu-ray version released.
How many copies of the film have I collected over the years? First off, I recorded off of CBS when it aired it over two nights, cutting the commercials out and fitting the whole thing on one Beta VCR tape in the 80s. Quality: Adequate for its time.
I upgraded to the Beta box set with certificate of authenticity when a wholesale Beta catalog store discounted the set from $89.95 to $7.99. How can you pass that up?
Then I got the two-disc VHS set, followed by the plain vanilla DVD (what was I thinking when I bought that?) to the original DVD set and finally the beautiful Blu-Ray box set.
The set is also available on standard DVD, but last I looked, deepdiscount.com offered Blu-ray for $1.50 LESS than standard definition. Discounted to $45, it is a much better bargain than the original videotape version at $89.
Maybe the next version will be in 3D or super high definition?
Whatever it is, I’ll probably be there with my wallet out.
For tomorrow is another day.
GONE WITH THE WIND
• Directed by Victor Fleming and others
• Written by Margaret Mitchell (novel) and Sidney Howard
• Runtime: 238 minutes
• Rated G for all audiences
• 5 stars out of 5
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