Pages

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Gone With The Wind


One of my favorite movies - Gone With the Wind - is on Turner Classic Movies right now. Scarlett just told that wussy Ashley Wilkes that she loved him at Twelve Oaks plantation. Of course Ashley whined about loving Melanie and then scurried off to fight the war.

When I was a young gayling, The Wizard of Oz was my favorite movie. I couldn't wait until it's annual showing on CBS - and I would literally count down the days. I SWEAR, it was in my gay little DNA to be obsessed with a movie starring Judy Garland.

But as I got older, I began looking forward to the annual two-night showing of Gone with the Wind. Remember, all you young little beeyotches, this was before HBO and TCM - we had to wait a whole year to watch our favorite movies. And we walked uphill to school ... BOTH WAYS!

What movies did you like growing up?...


18 comments:

  1. OMG I am watching it right now too! I love this movie. We had the set on VHS (some of them probably taped off the annual tv showing, haha) along with My Fair Lady and Sound of Music, which was my favorite :)

    I loved running up and down the hills in my back yard twirling and singing "The Hills are Alive.." good memories

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your right at the part where Mammie scolds the hell out of Miss Scarlet for running around without her shawl and night cap.

    And you have to love Aunt Pitty-Pat!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Girl, I was 16 going on 17...
    Loved me some "Sound of Music" couldn't wait to see Ms. Julie twirling on that mountain.
    How you doin?

    ReplyDelete
  4. I always loved Gone with the Wind, but my favorite was always The Women. I also liked Willy Wonka,The Wizard of Oz , and Alice in Woderland.

    ReplyDelete
  5. so funny... i can remember lazy saturdays spent watching gone w/ the wind, LOL. my fam also had a thing for "to kill a mockingbird" ~ we watched it whenever it was on, as well as "the wizard of oz" of course. thanks for posting this b/c i am now watching gwtw, LOL. my most favorite part is the very beginning, but on the upside, i tuned in just in time for "i don't know nuthin bout birthin no babies" and the smack heard round the world! =)) thanks d!

    ReplyDelete
  6. The Wizard Of Oz
    ANYTHING with Bette Davis
    To Kill A Mockingbird

    Love the oldies

    Sunset Blvd
    All About Eve

    ReplyDelete
  7. There was a Saturday afternoon show that played old horror movies. I remember loving it when they would play The Abominable Dr. Phibes.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Easter Parade
    Breakfast at Tiffany's
    To Kill a Mockingbird
    Funny Face
    Roman Holiday
    Sabrina
    and a bunch of late 50s/early 60s horror

    ReplyDelete
  9. When we lived in northern Canada, we only got one TV channel and only if the pilot light at the repeater station was lit... Someone sent us Gone with the Wind, via barge. They played it in our small theatre and it was a big deal. But half way thru the movie they announced that the second reel missed the barge so come back next week and we'll see the rest. So we went home, dodged a couple bears on the way, and wondered what happened next. For a whole week!

    ReplyDelete
  10. To kill a Mockingbird. I saw it at our neighborhood movie theater. Then got the paperback at the corner drugstore. I was so in love with Jem. I definitely remember waiting and waiting for the annual showing of the wizard of Oz. It was an annual event.

    ReplyDelete
  11. GWTW is still one of my faves, too. Imagine how scandalous the Scarlet character was for the year it was made!

    ReplyDelete
  12. When I was just a child and yet to spread my gay-wings, I loved The Wizard of Oz, and adored watching the old Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers movies. God, I had such a crush on Fred. Gone With The Wind became a passion later, as did watching fabulous movies like the Topper series, as well as the Hepburn/Tracy movies.

    ReplyDelete
  13. You say that this was before HBO, but this is how much of a GWTW geek I am: I happen to know that Gone With The Wind's first television airing actually was on HBO, nearly half a year before its broadcast premiere on NBC's The Big Event. Not a lot of people had HBO in 1976, but some did- HBO started in 1972. I first saw GWTW at a local movie theatre- a faded scratchy print and very likely the notorious "widescreen" version which made the movie fit on a wide screen by cropping off the top and the bottom of the picture. I loved it so much that I started reading the book as soon as I was able to scratch together the money for a paperback copy. I would have been about 13 then. When I saw the movie on TV for the first time, when I was 14, I literally wept during the opening credits. There were several films I looked forward to seeing on a yearly basis- The Wizard of Oz, of course, The Sound of Music, White Christmas, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Easter Parade, Meet Me In St. Louis- that's three Judy Garland films, if you're counting. In a strange way I think we lost something now that we can watch any movie any time we want. No more sense of anticipation, no more sense that you are sharing the movie with a huge portion of the world- no more going to school the next day and talking about the James Bond movie that everybody watched last night.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Of course I loved GWTW!!! I'm from the South, so most of us have read the book and seen the movie at least once. We'd label men as an Ashley or Rhett and identify women as a Melanie or Scarlet. Fiddle-de-dee!

    ReplyDelete
  15. I've had a my own "god as my witness I will never go hunggry again" moments. even made a nice summer blouse out of my mom's curtains.
    How Green was My Valley with a very young roddy mcdowell is one of my all time favourites. Also anything with Barbara Stanwyck

    ReplyDelete
  16. This little closet case loved Shane and Boys Town- (0h how I wanted Sal Mineo to be my big brother) but I also recall collecting soda bottles in the neighborhood to walk a mile in the shoes of Ma and Pa Kettle. damn....moves cost 12 cents then.

    ReplyDelete
  17. I always loved The Sound of Music, but GWTW I never saw. I read the book and was so scared that the movie would not compare. As for other movies back in the day...Goonies anyone?

    ReplyDelete
  18. Oh yes, the Wizard of Oz. I would get to go over to my Dad's once a year and watch it on the COLOR tv!

    ReplyDelete