Gone With the Wind (1939)
The film version of Margaret
Mitchell’s novel was something that didn’t please me too well upon my first
viewing of it. But on the second viewing, perhaps I was merely delirious due to
its extraordinary length (231 minutes), but I actually got to enjoy it a bit.
It is a good movie; this I can recognize honestly. But I am not an avid fan
over it, as some are…I have never known one of these avid fans personally, but
I have heard stories…
The drama focuses on Vivien Leigh, who portrays the
southern belle Scarlett O’Hara. Clark Gable co-stars as Rhett Butler. The theme
of the film is survival—the survival of Scarlett O’Hara, and the survival that
cannot be; that of the Confederacy. The grand scale is shown through Scarlett,
using expensive cinematography (especially for 1939, using color film) as she
sees the fall of the Confederate Empire unfold before her eyes. Though the film
doesn’t quite qualify as a war film, it is an epic that takes place in the
Civil War era and takes us through the burning of Atlanta - we also see the
after effects of the Battle of Gettsyburg, as the casualty lists are read.
Music: Max Steiner.
Writer: Sidney Howard
Academy Awards ’39: Best Actress (Leigh), Best Color
Cinematography, Best Director (Fleming), Best Film Editing, Best Interior
Decoration, Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actress (McDaniel),
National Film Registry ’89; New York Film Critics Awards ’39: Best Actress
(Leigh); Nominations: Academy Awards ’39: Best Supporting Actor (Gable), Best
Sound, Best Special Effects, Best Supporting Actress (de Havilland), Best
Original Score.
Related Links:
Trivia about Gone
With the Wind:
- Margaret Mitchell wrote her novel between 1926 and 1929. In her
early drafts, the main character was named "Pansy O'Hara" and
the O'Hara plantation we know as Tara was called "Fountenoy
Hall."
- A few of Mitchell's working titles for the novel included
"Tomorrow is Another Day," "Not in Our Stars,"
"Bugles Sang True" and "Tote the Weary Load."
- One month after the book was published, film producer David O.
Selznick purchased the movie rights from Mitchell for an unprecedented
$50,000. At the time, this was the highest sum that had ever been paid for
an author's first novel.
- In 1939, the Hollywood Production Code dictated what could and
could not be shown or said on screen, and Rhett Butler's memorable last
line raised red flags. A few of the suggested alternatives were
"Frankly my dear... I just don't care," "...it makes my
gorge rise," "...my indifference is boundless," "...I
don't give a hoot," and "...nothing could interest me
less." Fortunately, producer Selznick elected to pay a $5,000 fine
and keep the original, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn."
- For the scene in which Scarlett escapes the fires of Atlanta, a
horse was needed to play Woebegone, and old nag on the verge of collapse.
A suitable candidate was finally found, but weeks later, when the horse
was brought to the set, it had gained weight and its ribs were no longer
visible. There was no time to find a replacement, so the makeup department
painted dark shadows on its ribs to give the appearance of malnourishment.
- 1,400 actresses were interviewed for the part of Scarlett
O'Hara. 400 were asked to do readings.
- In the scene where Scarlett searches for Dr. Meade, making her
way among 1600 suffering and dying Confederate soldiers, to cut costs -
and still comply with a union rule that dictated the use of a certain
percentage of extras in the cast - 800 dummies were scattered among 800
extras.
- The film sequence that is commonly referred to as "the
Burning of Atlanta" was not the actual burning of the city by General
Sherman in November 1864. Instead, the scene represents the night, two
months earlier, when the retreating Confederate army torched its
ammunition dumps to keep the Union army from capturing them.
- All seven of Hollywood's then-existing Technicolor cameras were
used to film the fires of Atlanta. Flames 500 feet high leaped from a set
that covered 40 acres. Ten pieces of fire equipment from the Los Angeles
police department, 50 studio fireman and 200 studio helpers stood ready
throughout the filming of this sequence in case the fire should get out of
hand. Three 5000-gallon water tanks were used to quench the flames after
shooting.
- In the scene where Rhett pours Mammy a drink after the birth of
Bonnie, for a joke during a take, Clark Gable actually poured alcohol
instead of the usual tea into the decanter without Hattie McDaniel knowing
it until she took a swig.
- First scene to be shot was the fires in Atlanta, filmed on
December 10 1938. If there was a major mistake during the filming, the
entire film might have been scrapped. What they actually burned were a
whole lot of old sets on the studio backlot, including the "Great
Gate" from King Kong (1933). 113 minutes of footage were shot, the
cost of the blaze coming to more than $25,000. The fire was so intense
that the unwarned public of Culver City jammed the telephones lines,
thinking MGM was burning down. Scarlett was doubled by Eileen Goodwin and
Dorothy Fargo, while Rhett was doubled by Yakima Canutt and Jay Wilsey.
- When filming began, the part of Scarlett O'Hara had not yet
been cast. Vivien Leigh was introduced to producer David O. Selznick by
his brother Myron Selznick during filming. (The actor in the long shots
during the fire scenes is a double.) Leigh wanted the role so much that
she read the novel and several volumes on the Civil War.
- Bette Davis turned down the role of Scarlett O'Hara, thinking
that her co-star would be Errol Flynn, with whom she refused to work.
- Selznick asked Alfred Hitchcock for help with the scene in
which the women wait for the men from the raid on Shantytown and Melanie
reads "David Copperfield". Hitchcock delivered a precise
treatment, complete with descriptions of shots and camera angles.
Hitchcock wanted to show Rhett, Ashley etc. outside the house, dodging the
Union soldiers. He also wanted an exchange of meaning glances between
Melanie and Rhett inside the house. Virtually nothing of this treatment
was used.
- Gable was so distressed over the requirement that he cry on
film (during the scene where Melanie is comforting Rhett after Scarlett's
miscarriage) that he almost quit. Olivia de Havilland convinced him to
stay on the film.
- Female costumes were made complete with petticoats, although
they wouldn't have been missed had they not been there.
- The scene where Scarlett digs up a turnip then retches and
gives her "As God is my witness" line, the vomiting sounds were
actually made by de Havilland since Leigh could not produce a convincing
enough retch.
- This film had three directors, George Cukor being the first.
Victor Fleming, (who had just finished The Wizard of Oz (1939)) was
brought in, and he was replaced by interim director Sam Wood for a few
weeks while recovering from exhaustion. Cukor filmed about 33 miuntes of
footage, 17 of which appear in the first half of the film, the remainder
were cut or re-shot.
- Leigh worked for 125 days and received about $25,000. Gable
worked for 71 days and received over $120,000.
- Hattie McDaniel wasn't allowed at the premiere in Atlanta
because she was colored.
- The final shooting script dated Jan. 24, 1939 now has a price
tag of $25,000 (late 1999).
- Boom mike visible: Shadow on the right hand white door when
Scarlett leaves the makeshift hospital.
- Continuity: Scarlett's necklace during the Twelve Oaks
barbecue.
- Revealing mistakes: When Scarlett and Melanie are
nursing the wounded soldier, their shadows don't fit their movements.
- Continuity: In the book Scarlett is described wearing
the "green sprigged dress" in the opening scenes with the
Tarleton twins. In the movie she is wearing a white dress with a red sash.
Later during the barbecue at the Wilkes where she actually does wear the
green dress, Scarlett says to the Tarleton twins, "but I wore this
old thing because I thought you liked it", referring to the novel,
not earlier in the movie.
- Continuity: Big Sam saves Scarlett from hooligans
outside Atlanta and gets in buggy with Scarlett. The film cuts to buggy
driving away. Big Sam should be in the buggy, but is not.
- Continuity: Scarlett's hairnet during scene in which she
kills the Yankee intruder.
- Anachronisms: After Ashley Wiles is carried into his
room, Melanie picks up a lamp, which has an electric cord attached.
- Revealing mistakes: Obvious stunt player driving the
buggy through the burning Atlanta.
- Anachronisms: When trying to get Doc Meade, Scarlett
runs past an lamp post containing an electric bulb.
- Continuity: Scarlett's collar broach when in mourning
for Bonnie.
- Slavery as practiced in the American South was, with some
exceptions, a brutal and heartless system of unrelenting oppression and
exploitation. Slaves were whipped and murdered. Slave women were sexually
appropriated by their masters and overseers. If they resisted they were
raped and beaten. Slave families were often divided. It was forbidden to
teach slaves to read or write. Scarlett's threat to sell one of her slaves
"south" meant transportation to plantations of ceaseless toil
and unremitting brutality.
- There were several types of slaves. In Gone With the Wind, we
are shown house servants and field hands. The house servants had much more
status than field hands and were not expected to do the type of chores
assigned to field hands.
- Running a large plantation was a difficult and time consuming
job. The obligations of the mistress of a plantation could include, as in
the case of Scarlett's mother, managing the farm operations, caring for
the ill, ministering to neighbors and enforcing moral standards. Some
women abandoned this rigorous job altogether, reverting to fainting and
smelling salts. After the war, many former plantation belles faced lives
without their former wealth and without their men. Many women, after the
war, were forced into different occupations and marriages they would have
once scorned. Scarlett's dilemmas, if not her success in becoming rich,
are very true to life.
- During the Civil War the U.S. Navy blockaded Southern ports.
Fortunes were made by the blockade runners who would risk their lives to
bring supplies from England and other parts of the world to the South. The
character of Rhett Butler made his fortune as a blockade runner.
- General William Tecumseh Sherman (1820 - 1891) was a Union
General in the Civil War. The army he commanded invaded Georgia in 1864
and marched on Savannah, destroying everything in its path. His purpose
was to destroy Confederate supplies and communications and to break
civilian morale. He was a hero in the North. The South called him
"The Great Invader" and considered him a war criminal.
- Scarlet's first husband joined the Confederate Army but died of
disease before he could participate in a campaign. Many soldiers on both
sides in the Civil War died of diseases such as yellow fever. Many
Southern moderates, like Rhett Butler, realized early on that the South
would lose the war. As Butler put it, "the Yankees are better equipped
than we. They've got factories, shipyards, coal mines, and a fleet to
bottle up our harbors and starve us to death." However, once the
decision to go to war was made most supported their region and their
states in a misguided effort to save a way of life based on a criminal
economic institution, slavery.
- After the War, during the Reconstruction period, state
governments by governments in the South were dominated by Northerners.
Blacks were encouraged to vote and some black candidates were elected to
public offices and even to the U.S. Senate. Northerners came to the South
to provide administration during Reconstruction, to help the former
slaves, or to make money. These "Carpetbaggers," as they were
called, were given preference by Reconstruction governments and resented
by White native born Southerners. In an effort to oppress the former
slaves organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan were formed by former
Confederates to murder and terrorize black people.
Quotes from Gone With the Wind:
Prissy: Mammy, here's Miss Scarlet's vittles.
Scarlett: You can take it all back to the kitchen; I won't eat a
bite.
Mammy: Yessam you is, you's gonna eat every mouthful of this.
Scarlett: No...I'm...NOT!
Scarlett: Atlanta!
Mammy: Savannah would be better for ya. You just get in trouble
in Atlanta.
Scarlett: What trouble you talkin' 'bout?
Mammy: You know what trouble I's talkin' 'bout. Mr. Ashley be
comin' to Atlanta when he get's his leave, and you sattin' there waitin' for
him, just like a spider!
Scarlett: You go pack my things like Mother said!
Rhett
Butler: With enough courage, you can do
without a reputation.
Rhett
Butler: How fickle is woman.
Rhett Butler: I'm very drunk and I intend on getting still drunker
before this evening's over.
Scarlett
O'Hara: Great balls of fire! Don't bother
me anymore, and don't call me sugar!
Scarlett: I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go
crazy. I'll think about that tommorrow.
Rhett: Now that you've got your lumber mill and Frank's money,
you won't come to me as you did to the jail, so I see I shall have to marry
you.
Scarlett:
I never heard of such bad taste.
Pa: It will come to you, this love of the land.
Rhett: No, I don't think I will kiss you, although you need
kissing, badly. That's what's wrong with you! You should be kissed and often,
and by someone who knows how.
Scarlett: War, war, war! This war talk's spoiling all the fun
at every party this spring. I get so bored I could scream! Besides, there isn't
going to be any war.
Brent Tarleton: Not
going to be any war?
Stuart Tarleton: Why,
honey, of course there's going to be a war!
Scarlett: If either of
you says war just once again I'll go in the house and slam the door!
Prissy: Lawzy, we got to have a doctor! I don't know nothin' 'bout
birthin' babies!
Rhett: A cat's a better mother than you.
Scarlett
O'Hara: I can shoot straight, if I don't
have to shoot too far.
Rhett
Butler: What a woman.
[Upon
being widowed.]
Scarlett: My life is over. Nothing will ever happen to me again!
Rhett: Did you ever think of marrying just for fun?
Scarlett:
Marriage, fun? Fiddle-dee-dee! Fun for men you mean.
Rhett
Butler: I can't go all my life waiting to
catch you between husbands.
Scarlett: You'd rather live with that silly little fool who can't
open her mouth except to say "yes" or "no" and raise a
passel of mealy-mouthed brats just like her!
Ashley: You mustn't say unkind things about Melanie.
Scarlett: Who are you to tell me I mustn't? You led me on... you
made me believe you wanted to marry me!
Ashley: Now Scarlett, be fair. I never at any time--
Scarlett: You did, it's true, you did!
Scarlett
O'Hara: Rhett... If you go ... where shall
I go? What shall I do?
Scarlett
O'Hara: Sir, you are no gentleman.
Rhett
Butler: And you, Miss, are no lady!
Scarlett: Oh Ashley, Ashley, I love you.
Ashley: Scarlett.
Scarlett: I love you, I
do.
Scarlett
O'Hara: As God is my witness, as God is my
witness they're not going to lick me! I'm going to live through this and when
it's all over, I'll never be hungry again! No, nor any of my folk. If I have to
lie, steal, cheat or kill! As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again!
Mammy: Oh no you ain't! If you don't care what folks says about
this family, I does. And I done told you and told you, you can always tell a
lady by the way she eats in front of people like a bird. And I ain't aimin' to
have you go over to Mista John Wilkes' house and eat like a field hand and
gobble like a hog.
Scarlett
O'Hara: Ashley Wilkes says he likes to see
a girl with a healthy appetite.
Mammy: Well I ain't see Mista Ashley asked for to marry you.
Rhett
Butler: You're like the thief who isn't
the least bit sorry he stole, but is terribly, terribly sorry he's going to
jail.
Rhett
Butler: You still think you're the cutest
trick in shoe leather!
Scarlett: Now isn't this better than sitting at a table? A girl
hasn't got but two sides to her at the table.
Scarlett
O'Hara: Oh, if I
just wasn't a lady, WHAT wouldn't I tell that varmint?
Rhett
Butler: Take a good look my dear. It's an
historic moment you can tell your grandchildren about how you watched the Old
South fall one night.
Scarlett: But you are a blockade-runner!
Rhett
Butler: For profit, and profit only.
Scarlett: Are you tryin' to tell me you don't believe in the cause?
Rhett
Butler: I believe in Rhett Butler, he's
the only cause I know.
Rhett
Butler: And those pantalettes, I don't
know a woman in Paris who wears pantalettes!
Scarlett: Oh Rhett, what do they -- you shouldn't talk about such
things!
Rhett
Butler: You little hypocrite! You don't
mind my knowing about them, just my talking about it!
Scarlett:
But really Rhett, I can't go on accepting
these gifts although you are AWFULLY kind.
Rhett
Butler: I'm not kind, I'm just tempting
you.
Scarlett: Well if you think I'll marry you just to pay for the
bonnet I won't!
Rhett
Butler: Don't flatter yourself. I'm not a
marrying man.
Scarlett: Cathleen, who's that man staring at us? The nasty dog.
Cathleen
Calvert: Why that's Rhett Butler, he's
from Charleston.
Scarlett: He looks as if he knows what I look like without my
shimmy!
Rhett Butler: Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.
[Last
line]
Scarlett O'Hara: After all ... tomorrow is another day.
Cast
overview, first billed only:
Clark Gable .... Rhett
Butler
Vivien Leigh .... Scarlett
O'Hara
Leslie Howard .... Ashley Wilkes
Olivia de Havilland .... Melanie Hamilton Wilkes
Hattie McDaniel .... Mammy
Thomas Mitchell .... Gerald O'Hara
Barbara O'Neil .... Ellen O'Hara
Evelyn Keyes .... Suellen O'Hara
Ann Rutherford .... Carreen O'Hara
George Reeves .... Stuart Tarleton
Fred Crane .... Brent Tarleton
Oscar Polk .... Pork
Butterfly McQueen .... Prissy
Victor Jory .... Jonas Wilkerson, the overseer
Everett Brown .... Big Sam, the foreman
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