They wouldn’t let Bette Davis be Scarlett O’Hara, so Warners cooked up this 1938 antebellum epic for her—and her performance, as the fiery southern belle who marries a banker (George Brent) though her heart belongs to a dandy (Henry Fonda), was good enough to win her an Oscar. As usual with director William Wyler, the film is far more interesting for its actors than for its direction; but some of the set pieces—the ball where Davis appears in a scandalous red dress and the yellow-fever epidemic (shades of the burning of Atlanta)—are still impressive.