The plantation Tara, with Scarlett and her father, in Gone With the Wind (1939)Today, it’s hard to fathom that Margaret Mitchell’s best-selling fictional novel, Gone With the Wind, was practically an unwanted property in Hollywood. No studio head would get near a Civil War story, let alone adapt one for the silver screen.
For years Tinsel Town touted the widely-held notion (perpetuated by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s head of production, the “boy genius” Irving Thalberg) that “no Civil War picture ever made a nickel!” This was only partially true, of course: in its day, D.W. Griffith’s three-hour 1915 silent epic, Birth of a Nation, not only set box-office records whenever and wherever it was shown, but revolutionized the way motion pictures would be marketed and made for all time.
Still, Thalberg’s boast would forever be put to rest when producer David O. Selznick, who was a son-in-law to Louis B. Mayer (one of the M’s in M-G-M), purchased the rights to Atlanta native Mitchell’s thousand-page tome. The result was a box-office juggernaut, the likes of which went on to break all-existing records for decades to come. As heavy as Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary but not nearly as densely worded, the book GWTW (as it is customarily abbreviated) can be described as the American version of Leo Tolstoy’s massive historical epic War and Peace, but without the Russian author’s literary acumen and extraordinary insight into the human condition.
The comparison is not at all a stretch, for both works take place during intensely turbulent times of immensely significant change for their respective eras. For starters, Ms. Mitchell concentrated on the character of Katie Scarlett (originally Pansy) O’Hara, a lively spitfire of a Southern belle who uses large dollops of charm, guile and willful behavior (along with a ruthless capacity for survival at any cost) to overcome any number of obstacles, both to her person and to her beloved Tara, the land her father, Gerald O’Hara, insisted was “the only thing worth fightin’ for, worth dyin’ for!” But what relation does Scarlett have to Natasha Rostova, the youthful heroine of Tolstoy’s novel? Quite a lot and more than meets the eye!
First of all, there are several pairs of individuals intimately detailed and observed in both works — Scarlett with Rhett Butler and Ashley Wilkes with his cousin, Melanie Hamilton — juxtaposed against Natasha and Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, and Pierre Bezukhov and his wife, Helene Kuragina, along with numerous others. It was as if GSTW’s author had merged the personalities of Natasha and her cousin, the mild-mannered Sonya (and a mirror image of the sweetness-and-light personified by Melanie), with that of Scarlett herself; then had her pine away for the cerebral Pierre (standing in for the poetic dreamer Ashley), while spending the bulk of the story’s plot on the sordid lives of the buxom Helene (another side of Scarlett’s capricious persona) and her dashing lover Dolukhov, who safely incorporates multiple facets of that lovable rogue, Rhett. We may add another viable if all-too obvious connection: the invading Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte with that of Union general, William Tecumseh Sherman.
These contrasts may one day serve as the basis for a more extensive study along the same academic lines as I’ve outlined above. But for now, let it suffice that the three-hour-and forty-minute screen adaptation of Gone With the Wind is itself a masterpiece of narrative filmmaking. Overlooking the dramatic merits and literary deficits of its screenplay (credited to Sidney Howard, who died before the film was released) or the cavalier treatment of slavery, as well as its muddled political views and skirting of the larger race issue, GWTW represents the highpoint of Hollywood storytelling at its starriest.
One major reason for its popularity at the time of its release was the coincidental element of a country (the U.S., in this instance) on the verge of war sending its men off to do battle while the women folk stayed put, waging their own fight to keep home and hearth intact. Scarlett O’Hara epitomized that daily struggle in her feisty determination to hold on to her memories of the past, along with what remained of her family and property. That the women of 1930s America related to Scarlett’s predicament and saw themselves in her heroic defense of the home front rightly bolstered box-office receipts to unheard-of levels. They loved the fact that Scarlett was a smart and sometimes cold-hearted small-business owner: a real-life Rosie the Riveter in every respect.
Contrary to common wisdom, wise-cracking Clark Gable, in the role of a lifetime, was not exactly a shoe-in for Rhett Butler. Also considered were such marquee names as Ronald Colman, Gary Cooper, Basil Rathbone and Errol Flynn. Selznick knew that Gable was right for the part, but he was loath to haggle with his wily father-in-law over his employment. Mayer drove a hard bargain in allowing Gable, then under contract to M-G-M, the opportunity to star in Selznick International’s mammoth production. A deal was finally struck between the two moguls whereby Selznick would secure Gable’s services in exchange for M-G-M’s obtaining the distribution rights —a win-win for both studios.
Replete with double entendres and humorous asides for all occasions, as Captain Butler, Gable delivers his lines with easy affability and abundant charm and finesse, even though his Southern drawl comes and goes with equal ease.
With literally a cast of thousands at its disposal, some of the other key players involved in GWTW were two British subjects, Leslie Howard as Ashley and Olivia de Havilland as Melanie, in addition to Laura Hope Crews as Aunt Pittypat, Hattie McDaniel (the first African-American to win an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress) as Mammy, Butterfly McQueen as whiny housemaid Prissy, Thomas Mitchell as Gerald O’Hara, Harry Davenport as Dr. Meade, Ona Munson as Belle Watling, and Victor Jory, Isabel Jewell, Rand Brooks, Carroll Nye, Oscar Polk, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, Ward Bond, Paul Hurst, Cammie King Conlon, Ann Rutherford, Evelyn Keyes, Barbara O’Neil, George Reeves, Fred Crane, Everett Brown, Howard Hickman, Leona Roberts, Jane Darwell, J.M. Kerrigan, William Bakewell, Irving Bacon, Louis Jean Heydt, and many other walk-ons, cameos and bit participants, including stuntman Yakima Canutt.
Directed initially by George Cukor, who was fired and replaced by Victor Fleming (The Wizard of Oz), with some scenes, quite possibly, helmed by director Sam Wood and even Selznick himself, all focus and attention belong to Vivien Leigh as Miss Scarlett. The celebrated and well-publicized search for the elusive Scarlett is the stuff of movie legend, leading up to Selznick and his brother, Myron’s, unique choice of Ms. Leigh (born in Darjeeling, British-India) for the challenging assignment.
Among the vast field of contenders and aspirants vying for the same part were Bette Davis, Paulette Goddard, Susan Hayward, Miriam Hopkins, Jean Arthur, Joan Bennett, Lana Turner, Tallulah Bankhead, Alicia Rhett (who appeared in the picture as Ashley’s sister, India) and Lucille Ball. In hindsight, of those mentioned Leigh was the only actress who measured up to Mitchell’s vivid description of the green-eyed, sweet-faced, yet “lusty with life” protagonist, copping an Academy Award (the first of two for the unstable star) as Best Actress for her extraordinary efforts. With few exceptions, from start to finish Scarlett is on-screen for roughly the entire length of the picture.
In fact, the only thing that wasn’t transferred to the screen from the novel was the war itself. Look again at the restored Blu-ray Disc/DVD editions of the movie: you will search in vain for any of the most famous battles being depicted. What there is involves the citizens of Atlanta running for their lives to escape the advancing Union Army. There’s plenty of shelling and noise, and runaway carriages with galloping horses and men, as well as pandemonium and voluntary evacuations (for example, the hustle and bustle of Aunt Pittypat); and, of course, that impressionable scene at the “hospital” where Scarlett witnesses a Confederate soldier’s leg being amputated.
Beyond that, about the only sequence where viewers actually experience the consequences of the war-ravaged South takes place near the Atlanta train depot, i.e., that spectacular crane shot of thousands upon thousands of the dead and dying, lying wounded and waiting for assistance, while the camera slowly pulls back to reveal the tattered flag of Dixie flapping helplessly in the breeze — a visual metaphor for the movie’s title.
The score by Austrian-born composer Max Steiner, one of the longest to that time, is a certifiable classic among movie-music buffs. His instantly recognizable main Tara theme practically screams Hollywood to any and all corners. The production was designed by William Cameron Menzies, with art direction by Lyle Wheeler and costume designs by Walter Plunkett. If this isn’t the greatest epic Hollywood’s Dream Factory has ever produced (in the final analysis, it’s all a matter of personal taste), then Gone With the Wind absolutely lives up to its reputation as a certifiable crowd-pleaser without equal.
Copyright © 2015 by Josmar F. Lopes
