I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Frankly, my dear

Join us every week for a trip into the weird and wonderful world of trailers. Whether it’s the first teaser for the latest instalment in your favourite franchise, an obscure preview for a strange indie darling, whether it’s good, bad, ugly or just plain weird – your favourite pop culture baristas are there to tell you what they think.

Not all of the films that Alan has written about in his chronology of Best Picture winners are much known these days – but it’s likely that every film fan has at least heard of the 1939 winner: Gone with the Wind.

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One Best Picture After Another #12: Gone With The Wind (1939)

Welcome to One Best Picture After Another – where I attempt to watch all the winners of the Academy Award for Best Picture, starting at the very beginning. And attempt to answer two simple questions – is the film still actually any good? And why did it win?

7/10

It speaks volumes about the vast cultural impact of Gone With The Wind that, when I was a kid, it still enjoyed some status as a reference point. We recognised the line “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn”, even if we didn’t really know where it came from. This was over forty years after its release and yet it still had a popular legacy.

Despite all this, I did not actually see the film for quite a long time. Even when I got older and got into watching classic films, I never quite felt the pull to make me want to get the VHS, or later the DVD, of this film. It took until the 21st century, and a screening at London’s prestigious British Film Institute cinema for me to finally resolve to see it.

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