How about "Gone with the Wind?"

1) "Ten Hollywood Movies That Get Women Right" "Forget empowering, encouraging, affirming or celebrated -- here are ten movies that feature real women." - All About Eve (1950) - Adam's Rib (1949) - Auntie Mame (1958) - To Kill A Mockingbird (1962) Source and further information: http://www.alternet.org/movies/24026/?page=entire (I just kept those before 1965) 2) "Women tended to play larger roles in swashbucklers than Westerns. But even in the many versions of The Three Musketeers, which features several strong female characters including the terrifying Milady, these women are prizes to be won or harpies to be fought. They generally function pretty much in the same way that women do in one of the better James Bond films. Not horrible, but not all that empowering. There are exceptions, but in a lifetime of watching films from all eras and around the world, I don’t think I’ve ever seen women function in a more or less traditional action picture quite like they do in 1952’s Scaramouche. These women don’t take up arms, or even whips, but they still find a way to righteously beat their men into submission. The film’s two heroines — a tempestuous actress (Eleanor Parker) and a virtuous young noblewoman (Janet Leigh) in love with the same man — might fit Hollywood’s standard good girl/bad girl paradigm, but only superficially. Standard issue sexism aside, the “good girl” might be a sheltered virgin, but she’s emotionally strong and willing to risk her life for someone she cares about, and the “bad girl” is the film’s most heroic character." Source and further information: http://forwardtoyesterday.com/?s=nina+foch 3) "George Cukor (1899–1983), best-known for his strong female characters in musicals and romantic comedies, who directed the woman's pictures Gaslight (1944) and A Woman'sFace (1941). " Source and further information: http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Romantic-Comedy-Yugoslavia/Woman-s-Pictures-DEFINITION-AND-HISTORY.html 4) "Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo also appeared as strong female characters who frequently challenged the patriarchal status quo. In Morocco (1930) for example, Dietrich wears a tuxedo and seduces both men and women. In Queen Christina ( 1933), Garbo's character professes that she would rather "die a bachelor" than marry, and she ends the film alone." Source and further information: America on Film By Harry M. Benshoff, Sean Griffin http://books.google.com/books?id=Lz8VTqCy4RwC&pg=PA217&lpg=PA217&dq=strong+female+characters+in+classic+hollywood+movies&source=web&ots=9SIkkLf_Jh&sig=zmPf2sTzAOiOvjMQbg2Dm_sdKdI&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=10&ct=result 5) "Mulvey later wrote that her article was meant to be a provocation or a manifesto, rather than a reasoned academic article that took all objections into account. She addressed many of her critics, and changed some of her opinions, in a follow-up article, "Afterthoughts on 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema'" (which also appears in the Visual and Other Pleasures collection)." Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Mulvey Further information: "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" https://wiki.brown.edu/confluence/display/MarkTribe/Visual+Pleasure+and+Narrative+Cinema