There has yet to be made a comprehensive and definitive film biography of stage and screen actress Vivien Leigh but the 1990 documentary, Vivien Leigh: Scarlett and Beyond, written and directed by Gene Feldman and Suzette Winter, is worth seeing for some of the famous interviewees, many of whom were personal friends of Leigh, and occasionally rare glimpses of the actress in her private life, culled from home movie footage and newsreels. The combination of talking heads, film clips and host segments featuring Jessica Lange is distilled down to a galloping 47-minute running time.

For most moviegoers, Leigh's most famous role was playing Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939), but it was not her favorite film performance (1940's Waterloo Bridge has that honor), nor was it her crowning achievement as this documentary makes clear. Leigh was first and foremost a great stage actress, and once she became a partner with Laurence Olivier, both on the stage and in private life, she continued to refine her art, even if it was often overshadowed by Olivier's reputation and fame. For a time they were the most famous celebrity couple in the theatre world and then in motion pictures. And it was a great love story while it lasted.

This early effort from Turner Entertainment presents a brief and perfunctory overview of Leigh's childhood and early stage success before rushing into her romantic infatuation with Olivier, years before she actually worked with him. When the two actors finally married, after divorcing their respective spouses, the chemistry between them was potent, on-screen and off. Volatile, passionate, playful and sometimes doting, the relationship between them became strained once Leigh's mercurial nature displayed signs of mental illness, a condition that began to emerge in 1944. As her mental condition deteriorated so did her health and in the end it was tuberculosis that hastened her demise.

Vivien Leigh: Scarlett and Beyond touches on the high and low points of her career and marriage as well as her health problems fleetingly but it does pause here and there for intriguing observations by friends and peers of the Oliviers such as John Gielgud, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Claire Bloom, Lady Redgrave, Kim Hunter and Elizabeth Ashley. Gielgud even states at one point that he thinks Leigh's decision to star in the stage revival and film version of A Streetcar Named Desire only aggravated the actress's frail mental state and may have caused her to become worse due to the disturbing psychological state of the Blanche Dubois character, one that Leigh closely identified with.

The most fascinating aspects of this documentary, narrated by a beautiful but awkwardly self-conscious Jessica Lange, are rarely seen film clips and archival footage - a newsreel of Leigh addressing British troops during the war, Leigh and Olivier relaxing at their country estate, Notley Abbey, or a peek at Vivien and Olivier in the 1955 stage production of William Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus.

In some ways, it is actually refreshing that the makers of Vivien Leigh: Scarlett and Beyond, despite the title, don't spend too much time on Gone with the Wind but give equal attention to such earlier efforts as That Hamilton Woman (1941) as well as late period films such as The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961) and Ship of Fools (1965). Viewers who are much more interested in the back story of the 1939 David O. Selznick production should seek out the definitive 1988 documentary, The Making of a Legend: Gone with the Wind, directed by David Hinton and written by film scholar David Thomson.

Producer: Gene Feldman, Suzette Winter
Director: Gene Feldman, Suzette Winter
Screenplay: Gene Feldman, Suzette Winter
Cinematography: Eric Camiel, Steven Harris, Kevin McKnight, Jeremy Stavenhagen
Art Direction: John Wright Stevens
Music: Michael Bacon
Film Editing: Lisa Jackson
Cast: Vivien Leigh, Elizabeth Ashley, Claire Bloom, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Sir John Gielgud, Radie Harris, Kim Hunter, Garson Kanin, Lady Redgrave, Stanley Kramer
C-47m.

by Jeff Stafford