On Wednesday, October 18, 1939, producer David O. Selznick held a second preview of Gone With the Wind. This time the location was the Arlington Theatre in Santa Barbara, California. That audience was just as wild with excitement as the September 9 Riverside audience...
A book to celebrate GWTW’s 75th Anniversary!In honor of Gone With the Wind’s 75th anniversary, I’m gifting fans with a special offer: Those purchasing The Complete GONE WITH THE WIND Trivia Book (2nd edition) can obtain from me a personally inscribed...
A book to celebrate GWTW’s 75th Anniversary! On October 13, 1939 Victor Fleming directed the fifth and final version of the opening porch scene. Vivien Leigh, fresh from a vacation, was well-rested and once again the beautiful image of sixteen-year-old Scarlett...
As I watched Gone With the Wind’s 75th anniversary theatrical release on September 28, I was struck by the gossip scene: Mrs. Meade tattling to Mrs. Merriwether about Scarlett selling lumber to the Yankees; Aunt Pittypat whispering to India Wilkes about Scarlett...
On Saturday, September 23, 1939, producer David O. Selznick wrote a long letter to Nicholas Schenck, president of MGM and Loew’s, Inc., the soon-to-be distributor of Gone With the Wind. Selznick shared his thoughts about the film’s theatrical release. He encouraged...
Encouraged by the positive reviews from the Riverside preview audience, producer David O. Selznick and supervising film editor Hal Kern went back to the cutting room to snip more excess footage from Gone With the Wind. Scenes subsequently deleted in September 1939...
Following the Riverside Theater sneak peek, producer David O. Selznick had a fistful of preview cards that audience members had completed. He was thrilled with overall comments that were written on more than two-thirds of the cards: “Greatest picture ever made,”...
A book to celebrate GWTW’s 75th Anniversary!By September, producer David O. Selznick was ready to preview Gone With the Wind. Because the film was not completely finished, he didn’t want to attract the attention of the press, so plans for the preview were super...
In addition to using matte paintings, special-photographic-effects artist Jack Cosgrove also relied on miniature models for creating the virtual reality of Gone With the Wind. Cosgrove sweated the small stuff in these sequences: Ellen O’Hara’s Return to Tara: The long...
On Wednesday, August 30, 1939, producer David O. Selznick updated Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s Director of Publicity Howard Strickling about the ongoing issue of Gone With the Wind’s running time. In his letter, Selznick reported having shown a four hour and twenty-seven...
