Gone With the Wind- Behind the Scenes

GONE WITH THE WIND

Compiled & edited by Christopher Trela

Few books captured the imagination of our nation like Gone with the Wind. The only novel written by Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind is set during the American Civil War and Reconstruction. It follows the story of Scarlett O’Hara, the daughter of an Irish immigrant plantation owner, as she pursues romance and endures the hardships of war.

The novel won the 1937 Pulitzer Prize and was adapted into an Academy Award-winning 1939 film of the same name. It was also adapted during the 1970s into a stage musical called Scarlett, and a new musical stage adaptation (titled Gone With The Wind) played in London's West End in 2008.

It took Mitchell seven years to write the book and a further eight months to check the thousands of historical and social references. The title is taken from the first line of the third stanza of the poem Non Sum Qualis eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae by Ernest Dowson: "I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind." Scarlett O'Hara uses the title phrase when she wonders if her home, a plantation called Tara, is still standing, or if it was "also gone with the wind which had swept through Georgia." More generally, the title has been interpreted as referring to the entire way of life in the South as having "gone with the wind."

The novel was almost titled after the final line in the book, "Tomorrow is another day," but there were several books at that time close to the same title, so Mitchell selected a new title: Gone with the Wind.

Gone with the Wind is one of the most popular books of all time, selling more than 30 million copies. Time magazine included the novel in its 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.

FROM BOOK TO FILM

Directed by Victor Fleming (who replaced George Cukor), the epic movie version of Gone with the Wind stars Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Leslie Howard, and Olivia de Havilland.

Gone with the Wind received ten Academy Awards, a record that stood for twenty years. In the American Film Institute's inaugural Top 100 American Films of All Time list of 1998, it was ranked number four, although in the 10th Anniversary edition of that list in 2007, it dropped two places to number six. Rhett Butler’s (Clark Gable) farewell line to Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh), “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” was voted in a poll by the American Film Institute in 2005 as the most memorable line in cinema history.

The movie has sold more tickets in the U.S. than any other film in history, and is considered a prototype of a Hollywood blockbuster. It is undoubtedly one of the greatest and most popular films of all time and one of the most enduring symbols of the golden age of Hollywood.

BEHIND THE SCENES

Selznick replaced the film's director three weeks into filming and then had the script rewritten. He sought out director Victor Fleming, who, at the time, was directing The Wizard of Oz. Fleming was dissatisfied with the script, so Selznick brought in famed writer Ben Hecht (who was working on the Marx Brothers’ comedy At The Circus) to rewrite the entire screenplay within five days.Original Gone with the Wind screenplay writer Sidney Howard’s first submission was far too long and would have clocked in at six hours. Producer David O. Selznick wanted Howard to be on the set to make revisions, but Howard refused to leave New England. Revisions were instead handled by a host of writers, including Ben Hecht.

By the time of the film's release, there was some question as to who should receive screen credit, but despite the number of writers and changes, the final script was close to Howard's version. Howard's name alone appears on the credits, possibly a salute to his memory as well as his writing, because Howard died tragically at age 48 in a farm tractor accident prior to the movie's premiere.

The casting of the two lead roles became a complex, two-year endeavor. Many famous or soon-to-be-famous actresses were either screen-tested, auditioned, or considered for the role of Scarlett, including Jean Arthur, Lucille Ball, Tallulah Bankhead, Joan Bennett, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Frances Dee, Olivia de Havilland, Irene Dunne, Joan Fontaine, Greer Garson, Paulette Goddard, Susan Hayward, Katharine Hepburn, Miriam Hopkins, Carole Lombard, Ida Lupino, Merle Oberon, Norma Shearer, Barbara Stanwyck, Margaret Sullavan, Lana Turner and Loretta Young.

For the role of Rhett Butler, Clark Gable was an almost immediate favorite, although other actors under consideration were Gary Cooper and Errol Flynn.

Principal photography began January 26, 1939, and ended on June 27, 1939, with post-production work concluding on November 11, 1939. Director George Cukor, with whom Selznick had a long working relationship, and who had spent almost two years in preproduction on Gone with the Wind, was replaced after less than three weeks of shooting. Olivia de Havilland said that she learned of George Cukor's firing from Vivien Leigh on the day the Atlanta bazaar scene was filmed. The pair went to Selznick's office in full costume and begged him to change his mind. Selznick apologized, but refused. Victor Fleming was called in from MGM to complete the picture, although Cukor continued privately to coach Leigh and De Havilland. Another MGM director, Sam Wood, worked for two weeks in May when Fleming temporarily left the production due to exhaustion.

Cinematographer Lee Garmes began the production, but after a month of shooting what Selznick and his associates thought was "too dark" footage, was replaced with Ernest Haller, working with Technicolor cinematographer Ray Rennahan. Most of the filming was done on "the back forty" of Selznick International studio. The location scenes were photographed primarily in Los Angeles County or neighboring Ventura County. Estimated production costs were $3.9 million, a princely sum in those days.

OPENING NIGHT

On September 9, 1939, Selznick, his wife Irene Mayer Selznick, investor Jock Whitney, and film editor Hal Kern drove out to Riverside, California with all of the film reels to preview it before an audience. The film was still unfinished at this stage, missing many optical effects and most of Max Steiner's music score. After arriving at the Fox Theatre, Kern called for the manager and explained that they had selected his theatre for the first public screening of Gone with the Wind and that he could make an announcement of the preview, but was forbidden to say what the film was.

When the film began, there was a buzz in the audience when Selznick's name appeared, as audiences had been reading about the making of the film for the past two years. In an interview years later, Kern described the exact moment the audience realized what was happening by stating “when Margaret Mitchell's name came on the screen, you never heard such a sound in your life. They just yelled, they stood up on the seats...and when the title Gone with the Wind came on the screen, it was thunderous!”

The film premiered in Atlanta, Georgia, on December 15, 1939, as the climax of three days of festivities that included a parade of limousines featuring stars from the film, receptions, thousands of Confederate flags, false antebellum fronts on stores and homes, and a costume ball. Eurith D. Rivers, the governor of Georgia, declared December 15 a state holiday. The New York Times reported that thousands lined the streets as "the demonstration exceeded anything in Atlanta's history for noise, magnitude and excitement.’"

LEGACY

Gone with the Wind was given theatrical re-releases in 1947, 1954 (widescreen), 1961, 1967 (70 mm stereophonic), 1971, 1989, and 1998. The film made its television debut on the HBO cable network in June 1976, and its broadcast TV debut in November of that year in two parts on the NBC network, where it became at that time the highest-rated television program ever presented on a single network, watched by 47.5 percent of the households sampled in America, and 65 percent of television viewers. Ironically, it was surpassed the following year by the mini-series Roots, a saga about slavery in America.

In 1989, Gone with the Wind was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."