David Selznick’s ‘Gone With the Wind’ Has Its Long-Awaited Premiere at Astor and Capitol, Recalling Civil War and Plantation Days of South–Seen as Treating Book With Great Fidelity – NYTimes.com

Movie Review

Gone With the Wind (1939)

THE SCREEN IN REVIEW; David Selznick’s ‘Gone With the Wind’ Has Its Long-Awaited Premiere at Astor and Capitol, Recalling Civil War and Plantation Days of South–Seen as Treating Book With Great Fidelity

By FRANK S. NUGENT Published: December 20, 1939

Understatement has its uses too, so this morning’s report on the event of last night will begin with the casual notation that it was a great show. It ran, and will continue to run, for about 3 hours and 45 minutes, which still is a few days and hours less than its reading time and is a period the spine may protest sooner than the eye or ear. It is pure narrative, as the novel was, rather than great drama, as the novel was not. By that we would imply you will leave it, not with the feeling you have undergone a profound emotional experience, but with the warm and grateful remembrance of an interesting story beautifully told. Is it the greatest motion picture ever made? Probably not, although it is the greatest motion mural we have seen and the most ambitious film-making venture in Hollywood’s spectacular history.

via Movie Review – Gone With the Wind – THE SCREEN IN REVIEW; David Selznick’s ‘Gone With the Wind’ Has Its Long-Awaited Premiere at Astor and Capitol, Recalling Civil War and Plantation Days of South–Seen as Treating Book With Great Fidelity – NYTimes.com.