Last night I watched Gone With the Wind. Contrary to belief (since I’m the go-to movie guy) I have never seen this movie. It wasn’t any reason in particular that I hadn’t seen it. I had wanted to see it for a long time, I just never had gotten around to it.

I can say Gone With the Wind is a really long movie, really long. Just a nip under four hours long, with that, I believe it’s the longest movie ever to win a best picture award (I may be wrong). That being said Gone With the Wind is a great movie. It was orchestrated and designed to be a great movie from the very beginning and the genius shined through.

On the other hand, we have Casablanca, the great Bogart/Berman romance movie that some people also hold in such high regard. Casablanca has been a love of mine for years and I’ve seen it dozens of times, noticing something new with each viewing. What most casual viewers don’t know is that Casablanca is a train wreck of a movie.

Casablanca, which was based on a play, was a movie that the Studio didn’t expect to be anything ordinary, just a vehicle to keep the stars in the public eye. Filming started before the script was finished and they were often giving the cast the next pages they were going to shoot the morning of the shooting. The editing was rushed with many issues, but beyond this, the acting and the stars shined through.

So in the end I leave it to you the reader, which type of masterpiece is better the accidental or the designed one?