SO RED THE ROSE

US, 1935, 82 minutes, black-and-white.
Margaret Sullavan, Walter Connolly, Randolph Scott, Elizabeth Patterson, Dickie Moore, Robert Cummings.
Directed by King Vidor.

So Red the Rose was released four years before Gone with the Wind. There are many similarities but this is a comparatively small film.

It opens with the slaves in cotton fields, the singing of songs, the large plantation, the comfortable life of the owners. The film shows the outbreak of war, enthusiastic enlisting, the progress of the war and the gradual defeat of the South, the invasion Union soldiers, the ultimate burning of the plantation mansion.

The film is a star vehicle for Margaret Sullavan, a much more sympathetic character than Scarlet O’ Hara, spoilt, indulging in fashion, insulting her cousin, Duncan, Randolph Scott, with his initial union sympathies, but apologising. As the story progresses, she has to take charge of the plantation, quell an uprising of the slaves.

One of the features of the film in retrospect is its attitude towards the slaves, a more benign administration yet the desire of the slaves to be free, their uprising, some looting, the singing of Negro Spirituals.

The director is King Vidor, a veteran of the silent era, like The Big Parade, continuing well into the sound era, War and Peace being one of his last films.

1. Civil War? From the opening in 1861 to the end in 1865?

2. The perspective of the South? Life in the South, plantations, slavery? The challenge? The end of the way of life?

3. Black-and-white photography, the plantation, cotton fields? The interiors of the mansion? The musical score?

4. The credits, the cotton is, the slave’s singing? Spiritual is saddened throughout the film? The contrast with the Stephen Foster and other songs from the white people?

5. Malcolm, age and experience, the easy, Whisky, his good relationship with William, his house slave? His love to his wife? So, Valette, Middleton? The management of his house, the plantation? The character of his wife, Miss Mary and her prejudice?

6. Some of, the way of life dressing up, French fashions? Little boy and his games?

7. Duncan, the cousin, the buying the rules seeming to ignore some of? His sympathies for the North?

8. The sun coming home, studies, bringing his friends, the from Texas, the attraction to Valette, proposing?

9. The news of the war joining?

10. The title, the mother’s dream about blood and roses? Love…, The blackboard bulletins black ball is in the progress of the war? The mother hearing the voice of her son going to the battlefield, finding him dead?

11. The defeat of the South? The reputation of the? The slave uprising, Cato and his leadership? The reaction of the family? William the friendly house slave?

12. Malcolm his return, we, dying? Valette, confrontation as slaves urging them to work? The reactions? The appeal to the relationships in the past?

13. Duncan, his, the deaths, the attack by some of some of her apology? His return, as she will be the soldier, is vindictive attitude wanting to kill him?

14. The union soldiers taking her, confiscating the dress, wanting to hang the looters ? The occupation, the decision to burn the house?

15. The women moving out to a more simple life, Duncan returning home?