Clark Gable, Gone with the Wind

as RHETT BUTLER

There's a moment in Babes in Arms where Mickey Rooney, trying to put on a show, attempts to coach a peer into playing "...a Clark Gable type, very modern and polished and full of suaveness," and when said peer doesn't do a very good job, Rooney instructs him to be more "virile". It's an on-point description. Gable is the type of star who effortlessly oozes a rugged yet clean and sexy suaveness. It's ironic then that Rooney would face Gable in 1939's Oscar race, with Gable personifying these adjectives to full effect in his legendary turn as Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind. There is a part of me that feels that this performance is more legendary not due to quality acting but due to the iconography associated with Rhett's image and Gone with the Wind as a whole. However, I can't deny that Gable owns the part and does the absolute best he possibly can with it.

I admit that I didn't see the significance in Gable's work when I first watched Gone with the Wind a long long time ago, and I'm still not completely crazy about his work. That's because Gone with the Wind is first and foremost about Scarlett O'Hara; it is she and only she who is central to the movie...everyone else exists merely to provide flourishes to her life. Rhett/Gable is only here to be the male foil to Scarlett/Leigh, kind of an interesting reverse gender swap as we typically just see thankless female foils to prominent male characters nominated at the Oscars. And for much of the film Gable isn't required to do a whole lot; he pops up here and there to offer a smirk and a smart aleck remark for a little over half of the picture (which is sort of significant seeing as half of Gone with the Wind is the same as an average picture). When he's around, he talks with that charming and cocky Gable self-assurance that we've seen time and time again by now, so there's not exactly a whole lot there to be impressed by. Once Rhett and Scarlett marry is when Gable has more to work with, and from there on out is where he improved with me. He does a great job at giving Rhett a wounded pride, showing shades of hurt underneath a hardened and jeering exterior. He's fascinating to watch in the scene where Rhett drunkenly harrasses Scarlett. And he's effectively tender in the scene following Scarlett's miscarriage. In fact, he pretty much owns much of Gone with the Wind's last act, and provides an honest vulnerability that Scarlett never really does. But much like Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn, his persona completely dominates his work. I always feel as though I'm watching "Clark Gable" and not "Rhett Butler, scandalous southern gentleman" (though he's got the charming gentleman act down to a tee). There's not much transformation here--you could line Rhett, Peter Warne, and Fletcher Christian up together and there'd be little difference between the characters aside from their wardrobes, but I do feel that Rhett is a more cohesive rendering of Gable's best qualities. In terms of other actors who were considered for Rhett, it's hard to envision Gary Cooper or Ronald Colman tackling Rhett's qualities as well as Gable did. He does a solid job, quite an accomplishment when up against a goliath performance by Leigh, but hardly one that floors me.