Gone With the Wind

The story of Scarlett O'Hara, the narcissistic yet driven Southern belle who defies all convention to rise from the ashes of the Civil War as a steely, ruthless businesswoman, is as seductive as they come, and David O. Selznick's lavish super-production is as perfectly crafted as Hollywood epic entertainment gets. It's also a problematic classic that idealizes the antebellum South and relegates its black characters to comic relief roles, a sometimes embarrassing product of its era. British actress Vivien Leigh, then unknown in America, plays Scarlett like a jungle cat, purring and soft yet ferocious when she wants something, while Clark Gable is a dream Rhett Butler: insolent, rakish, charming, and even noble under his gambling-man exterior. How could she prefer that aristocratic fop Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard) to this red-blooded Southern wolf?

It looks magnificent in its Blu-ray debut, with color that glows as if lit from within, and the entire film is kept to a single disc. The rest of the set is packed with all the supplements from the previous DVD special edition (commentary by film historian Rudy Behlmer, the exhaustive 1989 documentary "The Making of a Legend: Gone With the Wind," documentaries on Gable and Leigh, and all manner of featurettes and archival shorts) plus the 1992 documentary "MGM: When the Lion Roars," the 1980 TV movie "The Scarlett O'Hara War," and the new 2009 TCM documentary "1939: Hollywood's Greatest Year." The box set (and it's a box, all right) also includes a booklet, miniature reproductions of art prints and the original theatrical program, and a CD soundtrack sampler.