"Frankly, My Dear"

By David Hudson on 02/28/2009

Molly Haskell's "Frankly, My Dear: 'Gone With the Wind' Revisited" is "an earnest work of moviegoer remembrance that's also affectionate scholarship," writes Armond White in the New York Times Book Review. "Haskell's argument is mounted on feminist principles that at first glance seem antithetical to a film widely regarded as prefeminist fluff. She contends that 'themes centering on women' are 'always an inferior subject matter to socially conscious critics of literature and film.' After 70 years of 'GWTW' bashing, a creditable critic finally says, 'Not so fast!'"

"Haskell is a major talent, an artist among critics who, in her early 30s, wrote the seminal book about women in cinema, 'From Reverence to Rape' (1974)." The San Francisco Chronicle's Mick LaSalle: "In the three decades since, many have gone wading in the same scholarly waters, but Haskell, to date, still remains in possession of the single biggest fish. Her research and insights - her intelligent understanding of all she surveys - are unsurpassed."

Haskell "argues convincingly that the power of the 'Gone With the Wind' archetypes - their 'extraordinary human resonance' - derives principally from the deeply divided natures of Margaret Mitchell, David Selznick and Vivien Leigh," writes Adam Begley in the New York Observer. "The argument touches on a wide variety of complicated topics, from race and gender to mass culture and the history of the Civil War, but that doesn't stop Ms Haskell from paying minute attention to the details, say, of the saga of how Leigh got to play Scarlett. In short, 'Frankly, My Dear' is both ambitious and entertaining, cultivated and gossipy."

"The iconic popularity of the book and movie - Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel came out in 1936 and has since sold over 30 million copies; the 1939 movie with Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh remains the all-time Hollywood box office champ with US$1.3 billion (inflation adjusted) in tickets sold - means her story is never far from the public consciousness." For Maclean's, Peter Shawn Taylor talks with Haskell about why Scarlett is, as she puts it, "the perfect character for our times."

Ed Strong: "The best measure of whether her book succeeds? It leaves you yearning to return to Tara, again."

Online listening tips Aaron Aradillas talks with Haskell on Back by Midnight and she'll be a guest on the Leonard Lopate Show, too, on Monday.

[Photo: "Gone With the Wind," MGM, 1939]

Tags: Gone With the Wind, Molly Haskell, Vivien Leigh