Mean Girls Monday: Vivien Leigh is a priceless, timeless international treasure for ever and always

God, her expressions. It’s me and Vivien Leigh to the mortuary, I swar to gar.

Gone With the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939).

Not my favorite of my Vivs-ohs’ films, but it’s a movie that’s totally up there on my general list of greatness, because of Viven Leigh and Clark Gable, not those above two or their characters. I think I’ve mentioned before that my love of GWTW comes from a weirder place than the traditional romantic little girl with collector’s plate of the burning of Atlanta standpoint.

As for that scene, the original lines are dangerously close to the Mean Girls script enhancement. Scarlett calls her a “simp,” not a slut — but you know she was thinking it. Besides, Melly is a simp, and Ashley is her cousin. It’s like, Jesus Christ, Scarlett, can you move to Atlanta any faster? Gtfo of Clayton County. Bush league down there.

I was searching my drives for another GWTW screencap and stumbled over the above, which I used in the first Mean Girls Monday ever. Synchronicity! But my lack of a wider range of stills from this movie is a scandal. I got a phat sexy remastered collector’s edition for my dad last Christmas, and as far as I can tell he hasn’t watched it. Six months on makes it fair game, right? I might nick it and screencap it. Maybe give it its own category. Big job, but it’s food for thought.

Question for discussion: Would you move to Atlanta if the boy you liked married his cousin? Explain.

Extra credit: Without looking it up, what was Victor Fleming’s less commercially successful film of 1939 which has come to gain iconic status?

(Stop looking it up. You know this.)

Tags: 1939, a confession, advice, art, Ashley Wilkes, confession, David O. Selznick, Gone With the Wind, images, It happens, Leslie Howard, love, macro, Margaret Mitchell, mean girls, Mean Girls Monday, Melanie Wilkes, Melly Wilkes, meme, movie quotes, movies, Olivia de Havilland, Patron saints, Pictures, quotes, Scarlett O'Hara, screencaps, stills, Victor Fleming, vintage