Stormy Beginning for Gone With the Wind

Then within the first two weeks of production Selznick’s partner MGM began pushing him to pick up the pace. And while he didn’t want to admit it, he had to agree with them, the production pace was moving along at a crawl.

Director George Cukor was taking his time in rehearsals and setups and was resentful of Selznick’s hands on producer’s methods regarding script changes as well as his on-set presence.

David Selznick sensed a catastrophe in the making and decided to take drastic measures – call a temporary halt to production and change directors.

In a memo dated February 13, 1939 to Jock Whitney Selznick made this statement: ‘The following is being released immediately: George Cukor and David Selznick last night jointly issued the following statement: “As a result of a series of disagreements between us over many of the individual scenes of Gone With the Wind, we have mutually decided that the only solution is for a new director to be selected at as early a date as is practical.”
 
There is no paper trail to give us a time line on Selznick’s decision-making process as to when he resolved to remove Cukor. Of course Selznick had known for months that the situation was going to be testy at best. But exactly when he started his search for a new director we just don’t know. However, the fact that within two or three days after announcing Cukor’s departure Selznick was fully engaged and talking over GWTW problems with Victor Fleming.

Fleming was a top MGM director and was just finishing work on ‘The Wizard of Oz’ when he was tapped for the GWTW assignment.

Something that might have played a part in the change of director’s and the Fleming choice might have been Clark Gable. With out a doubt Gable wanted a man’s director and likely touted Victor Fleming to Selznick.

‘Gone With the Wind’ resumed filming on Monday February 27th with the scene between the Tarleton twins and Scarlett on the front porch of Tara, and contains Scarlett’s memorable line ‘Fiddle le dee. War, War, War. This war talk is spoiling all the fun at every party…’   

Then they went on to reshoot every scene Cukor had filmed during his tenure.

A minor problem, while Cukor was still working on the film, grew along with the pace demanded by Victor Fleming. Cinematographer Lee Garmes was having problems with   the Technicolor staff in the area of shadowing dark scenes. Several scenes that demanded dark tones came out too dark and would have to be reshot.

Selznick decided to make another change, but this time there would be no halt in production to accommodate the change.

Ten days after resuming production under the direction of Victor Fleming, Selznick decided to hire Oscar nominee Ernest (Ernie) Haller to replace Lee Garmes as cinematographer and not a shot was delayed or missed as Haller took his position behind the camera and continued the filming of ‘Gone With the Wind.
 (To be continued)
 
Gone With the Wind and Doc Holliday Connection
Continued

I picked up a copy of Gone With the Wind and spent the weekend reading it from cover to cover. By the time I finished the book I had marked a dozen or more scenes of interest, most of which had a Savannah, Georgia location. Mattie Holliday had attended St. Vincent’s Academy in Savannah and that was where she eventually entered the nunnery and took the name Sister Mary Melanie.

In GWTW Ellen Robillard, later to become Ellen O’Hara, was part of a prominent Savannah family.

Referring to my notes I began reading where Pork tells Gerald O'Hara that he needs a wife. The little Irishmen seemed to agree and they travel from Tara to Savannah on a mission to remedy that need. I expect I had read less than a page of that scene when it all began to come back to me. And once I finished reading it the connection was perfectly clear. There was no questi! on in my mind that John Henry Holliday was Margaret Mitchell’s “wild buck” Philippe Robillard. And using Ellen Robillard as the real character and Ashley’s Melanie to carry the name was absolutely brilliant. It’s obvious that Sister Melanie told cousin Margaret the whole story about her relationship with John Henry. (Doc Holliday)
(Continued next week)       
 
Writers Notebook:
A piece of dialogue between Josh Logan and Maxwell Anderson from Logan’s out of print ‘My Up and Down, In and Out Life.’

‘It was working closely with Max Anderson – a man dedicated to the craft of playwriting – that taught me something that has been useful to me all my professional life. One day he casually mentioned that he had arrived at a theory for making a play a hit.’

My ears perked up. “You mean any play?”

“Any literate play, yes. I’ve made a study of what kind of story an audience accepts and what kind it rejects. I set out to discover if there is a single element in success that isn’t in failures. I started by examining my own plays. They were after all conceived by the same talent, yet some survived and the rest died quickly. Why? I searched for my answers in Aristotle and I reread Shakespeare, the great Greek masters and hit plays of the present. Eventually, I arrived at my little personal rule. I’m going to write about it some day and I’ll send it to you.”

“Max, you’re going to tell me now! What is it?”
 
Now this is called a cliffhanger – I’ll tell you Max’s rule next week.
 

Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter.
Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
www.tombarnes39.com
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