Alexander Flood Seriously, IMDb..? "Half-breed"? Is it a film about a nice mongrel dog, then? ..a splendid horse with some donkey mixed in, perchance? I fully realize this is the original WWII era description talking, but are you similarly keeping all references to Negroes in out-dated descriptions, for example? Maybe Spic, Chink or Gook? Maybe Kike to get off "race" and onto religion? Or what about calling whole peoples Heathens, Barbarians or Savages? Or what about a child without married parents being a Bastard? Should perhaps a Retard reference be kept here and there, I wonder? And the list goes on. Thankfully, the civilized world has moved on and I suggest IMDb does the same.

Davalon-Davalon I have scanned the other reviews here of DITS and am flabbergasted as to how anyone in their right mind could vote this a "10." Although "gorgeously photographed," the best thing that can be said about this travesty is that all film students should study it to avoid its litany of mistakes. The first most obvious one is: You cannot remake "Gone With the Wind" -- which DITS producer (and screenwriter and occasional director and ultimate destroyer) David Selznick was obviously trying to do. In GWTW, Scarlett O'Hara had clear-cut goals: to get Ashley, yes, but more importantly, to survive. In DITS, poor "half-breed" Pearl (Jennifer Jones) has apparently nothing else to do but be sex bait for good brother/closeted homosexual Jesse (Joseph Cotten) and bad brother/moron POS Lewt (Gregory Peck). There is no one to root for in this movie because it is unclear what it is about. Is it about the sad life of Pearl, who has no one in her corner, except possibly Laura Belle (Lillian Gish), mother of Jesse and Lewt, and wife of the Senator (Lionel Barrymore)? Is it about the railways making progress across the United States and encroaching upon the self-made kingdom of the Senator? Is it about Jesse and Lewt as Cain and Abel? Is it a comedy with laughs provided by poor Butterfly McQueen as "Vashti" (and why on God's earth did they name her that?! Research it!!), who is phoning in her performance from GWTW? I didn't care about anyone for one second... except I did feel bad for Jennifer Jones. It is clear she was a very attractive woman. Why they felt compelled to cast her as a "half-breed," I don't know. In order to achieve her "look" they had to bathe in her a sort of cocoa powder and constantly light her to make her look like Lupe Velez after a harsh day in the sun. She was obviously directed to lower her voice and have an inner struggle of wanting to please any man who looked at her twice and to hold on to her virginity. But throughout the story, I kept asking myself: What does this woman do? What did she do before she arrived at the Senator's home, what did she do while she was there, and what could she possibly have hoped to have done if she left? Many reviews focus on her "awful" performance. But my take is: She was doing her job. She was treated like "trash" for the entire film, and, in this way, I felt for her. She also kept referring to herself as "trash" -- but... based on what? The idea that she "succumbed" to POS Lewt? Lewt -- what a fine character he was! He would kill anyone he wanted (Charles Bickford, the only person in the film who seemed to have any morals), and blow up trains in some sort of deluded dream that he was going to please his father. He had absolutely no redeeming qualities. He was NOT Rhett Butler, who may have been a gambler, but he was a man with feelings and some level of intelligence. We can see why Scarlett may have ultimately fallen for him. But for Pearl to "give in" to Lewt... it was all so pathetically sad and insulting and degrading. This movie made it crystal clear that women were either mothers (Lillian Gish), virgins (Joan Tetzel), slaves (Butterfly McQueen) or whores (Jennifer Jones). It was a man's world and women were just expected to figure it out on their own. It is really hard to watch this in 2017, for the above reasons, and also because this film is a big, meandering mess. Who cares about the cinematography when everything else is incomprehensible? Also, apparently Selznick argued with composer Dimitri Tiomkin that he wanted "real music"; no, what he wanted was the score to "GWTW" -- and, not to demean Mr. Tiomkin, his score is completely unmemorable, no doubt because he was trying to please Selznick. Finally, since it is impossible to believe for a nanosecond that Pearl could have ever possibly loved Lewt, the entire ending is ludicrous. Some people are lucky to strike gold ONCE; that's what Selznick did with GWTW. He was unable to come close with DITS (which perhaps should be known as DITZ), and was never able to again. All in all, an absolute mistake.

JelenaG890 I saw this movie on TCM a few months ago, and quite honestly find it very hard to believe that it was made by the same man who did "GWTW." I guess David O. Selznick had his eye set on topping "GWTW", and thought this film would do it. Well, he failed in a pretty epic way here. Everything in this movie is such an overblown mess, it's hard to even know where to start with this review. First, the opening overture goes on forever, so the movie itself takes forever to start, and it does not get much better from there. (In fact, I think the music is one of the few high points of the film.)Pearl Chavez is no Scarlett O'Hara, Jennifer Jones was certainly not Vivian Leigh, Lionel Barrymore is such a ham in this film he could have been served at a Christmas dinner, and Gregory Peck (who was so great in other roles) was horribly miscast in this film.To be perfectly honest, I am not a huge fan of Jennifer Jones in general. Although a pretty woman, the only film of hers that I have ever been able to sit through more than once is "Song of Bernadette." In my opinion that is the only film that worked for her whispering, little girl voice, because she was playing a innocent young saint of a girl. With the exception of that one performance, she was extremely limited as an actress.Selznick obviously wanted to change her saintly image from "Song of Bernadette" with this film, but in this case, her involvement with the mega-producer did her more harm than good. She overacts in every scene, trying way too hard to act sultry to the point where her performance just comes off as cringe-worthy. To be fair, though, I'm sure Selznick probably instructed her to act that way. I'm sure her Oscar nomination for this film was more based on studio politics and her then-current popularity than the strength of her actual performance. This film is not supposed to be a comedy, but the acting of Peck, Barrymore and Jones did make me want to laugh. The story itself is also laughable. While GWTW was about the civil war and the struggle to survive in the south, this story of this film really has no purpose other than to have Jones walk around like a sexpot. In my opinion, only Joseph Cotten, Lillian Gish, Butterfly McQueen (scene stealer every time), and the horse came out of this disaster unscathed. The only reason I gave this more than 1 star is the scenery, music, and the performances of those four actors. Yes, I thought even the horse fared better here than Jones or Peck!

dougdoepke No need to recap the plot.One thing about this overblown fandango— once seeing it, you won't forget it. How could anyone when everything is done to such tasteless excess. Poor Pearl (Jones). Apparently, Jones was told her part was that of a hot-blooded wench, which she unfortunately took to mean parboiled. It's hard not to laugh at the first hour when she acts like a nympho on steroids, tossing hair and leering wildly like pampas grass in a windstorm. Not far behind is that vintage ham Lionel Barrymore doing his usual blustery bit, like we won't get his hard-bitten patriarch unless he takes it into hyper speed. And who could have guessed that the usually constricted and constrained Gregory Peck could actually over-act. I think it was his first and last time—good thing, too.It's possible to go on about the unrelenting excess— the sunsets that appear to hemorrhage, a musical score that's as necessary as sugar on molasses, and a loony ending that defies parody. But you get the idea. Too bad so much money and effort went into such a generally overheated result. Only Cotten, Gish and the black stallion come through unscathed. I'm thinking RKO could have made a dozen worthwhile programmers on the same budget. As things turned out, Selznick did his beloved Jones no favors with this one. It's hard to believe the man responsible for Gone with the Wind (1939) is also responsible for this swollen mess.