There is a limit to the amount of ballyhoo a motion picture can stand--a limit beyond which the returns are not only diminishing but negative in effect. Those who go to see "Gone With The Wind" expecting "the greatest motion picture ever produced," the "film of the century," and the "apotheosis of the photographic art" are going to be--and have been--disillusioned. But those who approach Loew's with their mental standards set at the usual level will have a rare treat.

For "Gone With The Wind" is a magnificent spectacle. Knowing well that they would have a critical audience on their hands, the producers have done a painstaking job from start to finish, and have not been sparing with the money (as you doubtless are aware by now). The result--four solid hours of Civil War South, negro mammies, hoop skirts, and Clark Gable, all in technicolor--is mighty impressive. Vivien Leigh is absolutely all that could be asked in the way of charm, and Clark Gable, as everyone has known since the book was first published, fits Rhett Butler to perfection.

But on other, less superficial criteria, "Gone With The Wind" is equally good. If Margaret Mitchell's book has a claim to be great literature, it is because of the wide variety of characters portrayed so skillfully and so vividly. Pre-and post-Civil War South has been discussed before, and will be many times again; but never has there been a Scarlett and a Rhett, an Ashley and a Melanic, an Ellen, a Gerald, a Mammie, a Belle Watling, and such a profusion of individual minor characters, all so real and so credible. Some are types, perhaps, and yet they all have the spark of life. In the movie they are reproduced with amazing fidelity; all the subtletics of their makeup can be found in individual performances. A possible exception is Leslie Howard's Ashley although he suffers from his British accent more than from his acting.

Not only are the characters well portrayed but all the technical jobs have been carefully done. The pace, a little too leisurely, perhaps, in the first half, quickens after the intermission, and Scarlett's visit to Rhett in the prison, and the Klan's revenge for the attack on her are overwhelmingly effective. The photography is often brilliant and the color is never in bad taste. The background music is well chosen. It is a movie to be discussed in superlatives, and from all indications, it will still be going strong (at 75e a seat) when our children graduate from Harvard.