And so my year-long look at the films of Hollywood cinema’s annus mirabilis, 1939, ends the only way it possibly could have: with the massive, indescribable epic that ended the year with the mightiest bang ever committed to celluloid: four hours of luminous Technicolor, rampaging melodrama, historical revision, and one of the finest performances by any actress in the English language.
My review of David O. Selznick’s Gone with the Wind goes up on December 27.