On the night of December 10th 1938, the low clouds covering Los Angeles were suddenly illuminated by a huge fire with flames 100ft high. Fire appliances from Los Angeles, Culver City and Santa Monica were at the scene and telephone switchboards were jammed by anxious callers seeking information. Many thought that MGM Studios had gone up in flames. But was it really all because of a horse?
Back in 1926 a young journalist called Margaret Mitchell suffered a horse riding accident in Georgia. She had been raised on stories of the American Civil War and the gallantry of the South, so during her period of convalescence she decided to write a novel of the period. Ten years and 1037 pages later her book was published. It was called Gone With The Wind. Her heroine was Patsy O'Hara; it was the publishers who suggested that Scarlett O'Hara would be a better name.
In 1936 David O. Selznick (he added the 'O' for effect) had recently acquired the old RKO/Pathe Studios as a production centre. He had always wanted to own his own studio, unlike his brother Myron who settled for a career as an agent. When GWTW was brought to Selznick's attention he decided it would be far too difficult to film and turned it down. But when the book was on its way to become a runaway best seller he quickly changed his mind and offered $50,000 for the screen rights. The deal was closed within a week. Selznick chose his close friend George Cukor as director and Sidney Howard as script writer (who insisted on working 3000 miles away at his Massachusetts farm). However in spite of this very difficult assignment Sidney managed to produce a 50 page draft by Christmas 1936.
Casting for GWTW had become a national pastime with radio producers and magazine editors joining in. Well over one hundred actresses were suggested for Scarlett including Mae West, but it was Tallulah Bankhead who was the first of thirty two actresses to be given screen tests, together with Lana Turner, Susan Hayward and Katherine Hepburn. Rhett Butler, the male lead, proved less of a problem as it was a straight race between Ronald Coleman, Gary Cooper and Clark Gable. But Gable was under contract to LB Meyer, Selznick's father-in-law, and MGM's hottest property. Warners' offered a financial package which included Bette Davis and Errol Flynn, but the nation demanded Clark Gable.
By February 1937 Sidney Howard had produced his first shooting script - five and a half hours long - so Selznick engaged William Cameron Menzies as production designer. Menzies set to work and produced a storyboard showing every scene and camera angle in picture form, which was seldom done in those days, and the picture immediately came to life. An all important decision was made at this time - shoot it all on the back lot!
A whole year had passed; $400,000 had already been spent from the budget of $1,250,000; not one principal part had been cast; and there was still no final script in spite of having engaged an army of writers. At this stage MGM showed an interest in buying GWTW but Selznick refused to sell. Finally Metro agreed to loan Gable and put up $1,500,000 in exchange for the world distribution rights and 50% of the profits for seven years. This proved to be Selznick's lifeline, but he was suddenly faced with an alarming deadline - shooting had to start by January 1939! Selznick took off for a holiday (?) in Bermuda accompanied by four packing cases of script revisions with the intention of sorting something out. He soon realised that he had not one huge picture but enough material for two. In spite of his pleas, both Sidney Howard and Margaret Mitchell refused to come and help.
Meanwhile in England, a young Vivien Leigh was avidly reading GWTW and rapidly identifying herself as Scarlett O'Hara. So much so that, in spite of being under contract to Alexander Korda, she sailed to New York on the Queen Mary, flew to Los Angles, and secretly persuaded Myron Selznick to become her agent. But after a two year search a final O'Hara was now emerging in the form of Paulette Goddard, who was in fact Selznick's next door neighbour. After Cukor had screen tested Goddard it was announced that she would be signed up for the role within two weeks.
A few days later Vivien received a telephone call from Myron asking "How would you like to go to a fire?"
The forty acre back lot of the Selznick studios was crowded with sets from old pictures such as King Kong, King of Kings and Garden of Allah. The area had to be cleared to make way for GWTW set construction, so Menzies had the idea of putting a torch to the old sets and filming the fire as the burning of Atlanta in the picture. Selznick agreed and special effects teams piped oil and water through the sets so that the flames could be raised or lowered at will. Only seven Technicolor three-strip cameras were in existence at that time and all were commandeered. Stunt doubles were used for Rhett and Scarlett driving through the flames, and the sets were pulled down by wire cables attached to tractors. It was a Fourth of July party masterminded by William Menzies, with director George Cukor being merely a spectator.
Other spectators were Myron Selznick and Vivien Leigh. After a while Myron went up to Selznick and said "Hey, genius! Meet your Scarlett O'Hara!" Selznick was immediately captivated and after the screen tests Vivien was awarded the part on Christmas Day 1938.
1939 was certainly not a happy New Year for David Selznick, as his problems escalated all through January. First, Gable decided that he did not want to do the picture after all. He felt that since all America had already read the book he could not live up to everybody's preconceived ideas of Rhett Butler. Selznick saw his investment in GWTW disappearing fast, until Louis B Meyer came up with a solution. He agreed to help Gable by financing a divorce from his wife so that he could marry Carole Lombard, provided he played Rhett Butler. At the eleventh hour Gable agreed.
Selznick desperately wanted Leslie Howard to play Ashley, but rather than continue as an actor Howard said he would prefer to realise a life long ambition to become a producer. So Selznick offered him the job of assistant producer on Intermezzo, which was being set up with the new Swedish star Ingrid Bergman, providing he would play Ashley first. Howard agreed and reported for screen tests. He was 46 at the time, and experiments with makeup and hair dye were necessary to make him look younger. Howard never read Margaret Mitchell's book and only learnt his own lines - nobody else's
Vivien Leigh was Selznick's next problem, especially when he found out that she was living openly with Laurence Olivier. Selznick insisted that to avoid any scandal they could not live together during the shooting of GWTW. Vivien was extremely upset at this intrusion into her private life, and the situation was only resolved when Laurence Olivier was mysteriously offered a part in a New York play for the next few months called No Time For Comedy. Meanwhile Vivien's pure English accent was proving difficult to eliminate, and although she was receiving daily coaching in the mannerisms of the South she never did achieve more than a mid-Atlantic accent.
Olivia de Havilland was Selznick's first choice for the part of Melanie, but she was under contract to Warner's who did not like to lend out their stars. It was only after her personal plea to Jack Warner's wife that she was released for the picture.
On January 13th, Selznick announced his final cast list to a waiting press. A short while later he saw on his desk a clipping by Hedda Hopper, the renowned Hollywood columnist, saying that it was a reflection on American womanhood for an English actress to play Scarlett O'Hara and thousands of Americans would stay away from the film in protest. But the citizens of Atlanta were undismayed, and said that they would actually prefer an English actress to a Yankee!
On January 21st, Gable arrived for screen tests, offering a cool friendliness towards Vivien. Gable hated all costume pictures, and immediately upset Cukor by refusing to adopt a Southern accent. With only a few days left before shooting was scheduled to begin there was still no sign of a shooting script! Several new writers have been drafted in to try and tidy things up, including the novelist Scott Fitzgerald to oversee the dialogue, who was fired after only a few days. The truth was that only one man was actually writing the script - David Selznick!. So after two and a half years of preparation, principal photography finally commenced on January 26th, 1939.
The first scene to be shot was Scarlett's introduction at the beginning of the film, footage which was eventually left on the cutting room floor. Selznick was such a perfectionist that he had the scene re-shot five times over the next few months before hewas satisfied. In fact after the first ten days shooting there were only twenty three minutes of screen time, and ten minutes of these were scheduled for retakes. Although Cukor was in his element when directing ladies in gentle drawing room scenes with plenty of dialogue, he was rather out of his depth with large crowds and heavy action sequences. It was ironic that after working together for two years setting up the picture, Cukor and Selznick could not now agree about anything. Selznick said that the pace of the picture was too slow, whilst Cukor argued that he could not direct without a proper script. So after less than one month's work Cukor quit by mutual agreement, effectively shutting down the picture!
Selznick was left wondering just how long he could afford to finance a unit without the cameras rolling, at a cost of $10,000 per day, when Louis B Meyer came to the rescue. He offered Victor Fleming, one of MGM's top directors and Gable's buddy, as a replacement. Fleming was a much stronger director than the gentle Cukor, and had a reputation for getting the job done. Meyer took him off The Wizard Of Oz which was near completion in order to attend to GWTW. After seeing the rough cut of Cukor's footage and reading the few pages of script, his reaction was that the fault lay fair and square with the script. Ben Hecht was called in to do a rewrite but he could not follow Selznick's interpretation of the storyline at all, calling it 'as long as a whore's dream'! He asked to see Sidney Howard's original script, the one Selznick took to Bermuda, pronounced it superb and suggested that he use it as a basis for his rewrite. But after two weeks of long hours with Fleming and Selznick breathing down his neck, Ben Hecht became a nervous wreck and left without completing the project.
Shooting recommenced on March 2nd, but this time it was the photography that caught Selznick's eye. He did not like some of the darkly lit interiors where you could not see the lavish costumes clearly. So nine days later the cameraman Lee Garmes was fired and Ernest Haller brought in to replace him. By this time it was becoming obvious that the picture was going way over budget, and that there was only enough money left for another three week's shooting. MGM refused to inject any more cash, so Selznick's partner, Jock Whitney put up another $1,000,000 and obtained the promise of a further loan of $1,250,000 as a completion guarantee from the Bank of America. Selznick was saved, as this was enough to not only finish GWTW but Intermezzo as well!
Although Selznick was busy writing every night, there was still no final script. It was when hand written pages began to appear on a daily basis that Sidney Howard had to be recalled to assist. As if that was not enough, Victor Fleming walked off the picture at the end of April saying that he could no longer work with Vivien Leigh (who secretly missed Cukor). The official version was the Victor Fleming had had a nervous breakdown, but the truth was that Fleming was emotionally and physically exhausted by trying to please Selznick. Once again MGM provided a new director, Sam Wood, who had just finished Goodbye Mr Chips in England at Denham Studios (the film eventually won an Oscar for sound).
The script still kept changing every day, but with Sam Wood in charge the cameras kept rolling. Then, after two weeks, Fleming reappeared, apparently fully recovered, and offering to continue working. He was re-engaged, Sam Wood stayed on, and the shooting was divided between two units. Life at the Selznick studios became chaotic with Selznick everywhere at once and sending more memos than ever, driving everyone to the limit and beyond. It was not long before there were six units shooting in order to finish the picture on schedule. Then after 125 days of principal shooting came the usual end of picture party, except that with GWTW it was merely an excuse for a few drinks as retakes were scheduled for the following day!
Editing the film proved to be a problem because there had never been a final script. The complete story only existed in Selznick's head, and without hindrance from directors he was able to to get down to the task of reducing 500,000ft of film to around 20,000ft. One session lasted 50 hours with half the editing crew on pep pills and the other half reporting sick. Then there were hundreds of special effects shots to be completed by photographer Jack Cosgrove, but even he was overworked and quite a few scenes were farmed out to MGM's special effects team. Then on September 1st Hitler's army smashed their way into Poland, and by September 3rd World War II had begun. This news caused but a ripple in the Selznick studios who were far more concerned with editing GWTW, and the accidental death of Sidney Howard in a tractor mishap on his farm.
Selznick wanted to have a preview without the press knowing about it, and on September 9th left the studio and headed south with 54 cans of picture and sound. In those days previews were run double-headed, the projectors being modified by engineers with a preview attachment to accommodate the separate photographic sound track. The Fox Theater in Riverside was the chosen venue, with a full house looking forward to seeing Beau Geste. The manager appeared on stage and announced that an important new film was to be screened instead, and when the title Gone With The Wind appeared on the screen it caused such thunderous applause and shouting (much to Selznick's delight) that nobody could hear the temporary music from The Prisoner Of Zenda which had been mixed in. When the house lights came up at the end of the picture you could have heard a pin drop. All the audience review slips showed an enthusiastic response, and implored that nothing be cut out of the film. Gable was applauded as Rhett Butler and Vivien Leigh captivated everybody's hearts as she had done with David Selznick when he first met her on the night of the fire.
Now the pressure was on to produce a music score and arrange orchestral recordings. Selznick wanted only Max Steiner, but he had to wait for him to become free. Since Selznick wished for music over most of the film, he engaged two other composers in case Steiner could not deliver on time. When Steiner heard this he was furious, delivering half the score the following day and working day and night to complete the rest. Even after the final track was mixed, Selznick was reluctant to let go of the film,and it literally had to be prised out of his hands in order to get it to the laboratory for negative cutting and printing.
One final battle remained - getting the picture past the Hays Office (the Hollywood censor) for public exhibition. The sticking point was the word 'damn' uttered by Rhett Butler when he leaves Scarlett as in "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!". After a long and bitter struggle, and pressure from the whole Hollywood production industry saying that the word was in the book, Will Hays backed down and allowed the word to remain. There was nothing more Selznick could do but sit back and wait for the premiere which was set for December 15th, 1939 in Atlanta.
The sun shone brightly and Southern hospitality was at fever pitch as the two DC3s charted from TWA landed at Atlanta airport bringing in Selznick and his entourage. A smiling Clark Gable arrived later, showing off his new bride Carole Lombard. In the evening all Atlanta turned out at the start of three days of celebration, commencing with a parade down main street with balloons, banners and stars in open convertibles. The many searchlights stabbing the skies reflected the joyful occasion, unlike the searchlights over London which carried a much more sinister message. It was not just the people of Atlanta. the crowds lining the streets had come from far and wide. As Clark Gable remarked on the steps of City Hall, "Your Mayor has told me that the population of Atlanta is 300,000. Coming from the airport I myself have seen 3,000,000 people!". But if Selznick thought that GWTW was his film, tonight Atlanta claimed it as theirs.
Before leaving his hotel to attend the premiere, Selznick received a telegram from George Cukor saying 'I really send you all my love', for in spite of all their earlier differences they had remained firm friends. Searchlights illuminated the Loews Grand Cinema which had been dressed up with a replica of the portico entrance to the O'Hara home, Tara. Amongst the 2,000 privileged guests were Atlanta's few remaining Civil War veterans, the 'Boys in Grey', as guests of honour. Three years of effort and $3,000,000 had led to this moment, and as the house lights dimmed it was to be the people of Atlanta who were to be the final judge.
The main titles appeared on the screen to rapturous applause, and when the intermission came there was complete hush - nobody breathed or moved as they were so overcome with emotion. Then at the end of the picture there was a standing ovation for David Selznick, and he knew that all his labours had not been in vain. Authoress Margaret Mitchell was not the only one with a dripping wet handkerchief, as Irene Selznick was in tears as well. On the following morning the entire edition of The Atlanta Constitution contained only one story under the banner headlines 'Gone With The Wind Enthralls Audience'.
Christmas 1940 passed by in a blur, with premieres in New York and Los Angeles and parties almost every night. Critics were lavish in their praise for what they considered to be a masterpiece, but questioned the wisdom of spending $3,000,000 - give or take a few - on a single picture. They calculated that it would have to play in every major city and town in the world if it was ever to recoup its cost. Selznick was praised for his courage, obstinacy and determination, in what for him was the most difficult year of his career. Louis B Meyer was relieved as well.
1940 turned out to be a far happier New Year than 1939 for David O. Selznick. As was expected GWTW was nominated for several Oscars, and the awards ceremony took place on January 29th at the Coconut Grove in the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles. The film was fast becoming a smash hit by then, and this was to be Selznick's last great party. Walter Wagner, President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, got up on the stage and announced no less than six technical awards. To William Cameron Menzies the Production Designer for his outstanding use of colour; to Howard Hern and James Newcome for best editing; to Ernest Haller and Ray Rennahan for best photography; to Lyle Wheeler for best art direction; to Sidney Howard for best screenplay; and to Victor Fleming for best direction. The Best Actress award went to Vivien Leigh, and the best Supporting Actress award went to Hattie McDaniel - Scarlett O'Hara's coloured maid in the film. Selznick received two Oscars, one for Best Picture and the other, the Irving Thalberg Award for consistent achievement. Bob Hope remarked what a wonderful idea it was to have such a benefit night for David O. Selznick! Rather surprisingly Ray Cosgrove did not win an award for his stunning special effects which included hundreds of matte shots, nor did the film win an award for sound which, as mentioned earlier, went to Goodbye, Mr Chips.
No picture had ever won so many Oscars before, or done so well at the box office. All over the world, including its major rereleases, Selznick's Folly has today earned around $840,000,000 which means over $2,000,000,000 in ticket sales. It has had by far the largest audience of any film ever made, and it is said that the picture is still showing every day somewhere in the world. It is doubtful if there will ever be another success story like Gone With The Wind. The book sold 28,000,000 copies in 30 languages and is second only to the Bible in sales. Nevertheless it was banned in Germany for some years, and all the available copies were burnt by the Nazis!
On a late summer evening in 1949, Margaret Mitchell was out for walk when she was knocked down and killed by a drunken cab driver. She was just forty nine.