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Let’s Go to the Movies
Part 10
Quiet on the set – Roll Camera -- Action

January 26, 1939
Lowell V. Calvert
Selznick International Pictures
New York, NY
‘Started shooting “Gone With the Wind” today.’
David O. Selznick

Technicolor was still in its infancy in 1939. All the technical people cinematographers, camera operators, lighting, costume designers, set designers were all making the transition from black and white film to color. David Selznick was a tough taskmaster and didn’t make it easy for anyone working on GWTW. From the time he saw the first rushes and heard grumbling coming from the set Selznick was displeased with the color coordination of sets costumes and lighting. And on the third day of shooting he issued a memo to all concerned that the final word about color coordination would come from Bill Menzies.
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 question 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
www.RocktheTower.com

Let’s go to the Movies
Part 11
Cast in order of appearance:
Gerald O’Hara – Thomas Mitchell
Ellen O’Hara – Barbara O’Neil
Scarlett O’Hara – Vivien Leigh
Suellen O’Hara – Evelyn Keyes
Careen O’Hara – Ann Rutherford
Brent Tarleton – George Reeves
Stuart Tarleton – Fred Crane
Mammy – Hattie McDaniel
Pork – Oscar Polk
Prissy – Butterfly McQueen
Jonas Wilkerson – Victor Jory
Big Sam – Everett Brown
John Wilkes – Howard Hickman
India Wilkes – Alicia Rhett
Ashley Wilkes – Leslie Howard
Melanie Hamilton – Olivia de Havilland
Charles Hamilton – Rand Brooks
Frank Kennedy – Carroll Nye
Rhett Butler – Clark Gable
Aunt ‘Pittypat’ Hamilton – Laura Hope Crews
Dr. Meade – Harry Davenport
Uncle Peter – Eddie ‘Rochester’ Anderson
Mrs. Meade – Leona Roberts
Mrs. Dolly Merriwether – Jane Darwell
Belle Watling – Ona Munson
Yankee Deserter – Paul Hurst
Emmy Slattery – Isabel Jewell
Bonnie Blue Butler – Cammie King
Amputation Case – Eric Linden
Johnny Gallagher – J.M. Kerrigan
Tom – Yankee Captain -- Ward Bond
Phil Meade – Jackie Moran
Reminiscent Soldier – Cliff Edwards
Bonnie’s London Nurse L.Kemble-Cooper
Renegade -- Yakima Canutt
Cathleen Calvert – Marcella Martin
Beau Wilkes – Mickey Kuhn
Soldier Holding Beau Wilkes – Louis J. Heydt
A Carpetbagger – Olin Howland
Corporal – Irving Bacon
Yankee Major – Robert Elliott
Mounted Officer – William Bakewell
Maybell Merriwether – Mary Anderson

Stars, feature players, bits and extras were all carefully chosen for their parts in Gone With the Wind. It goes without saying that the stars and features had to meet the physical and emotional requirements laid out by Margaret Mitchell in her book. But Selznick took his strict casting model a bit further and included bits and extras.
He voiced some of his thoughts on the subject to production manager Ray Klune in one of his famous memos…’I’ve always felt that it is a false kind of economy to save on bit actors. The time that cheap and inexperienced actors cost through the director’s inability to get performances out of them alone more than makes up the difference between the salaries and the salaries of good actors…nothing is as important on the screen as the actor. To save money on actors and spend it on sets is silly – the audiences are looking at the actors, not at the sets, if our action means anything. And while a bit actor is on the screen, if it is only for two seconds, he is as important as the star…’

Small roles – Large talents
Some of the small, but memorable roles, among the credited actors were Everett Brown who played the loyal Big Sam. ‘Quitten’ time is when I say it’s quitten’ time.’-- ‘Quitten’ time.’ And later when Yakima Canutt the renegade stopped Scarlett’s carriage at the bridge Big Sam comes to her rescue. Canutt was typecast for his renegade role – he had dozens of credits playing heavies in the old Hollywood westerns. Yakima Canutt was a director as well, he was also one of Hollywood’s premiere stuntmen. Canutt contributed to GWTW as a second unit director and directed all those great chariot races in Ben Hur. He made movie history when he did the famous stagecoach stunt in John Ford’s Classic ‘Stagecoach.’
Aunt Pittypat’s coachman, Uncle Peter was none other than Jack Benny’s sidekick Eddie ‘Rochester’ Anderson.
Paul Hurst, the Yankee deserter shot by Scarlett had scores of acting credits in supporting roles that included ‘The Ox Bow Incident’ with Henry Fonda and Harry Davenport (Dr. Meade in GWTW) and ‘The Westerner’ with Gary Cooper, Dana Andrews and Walter Brennan.
Next week I’ll talk about some of the characters on the UNCREDITED roster of bits and extras that contains more than seventy names.

Gone With the Wind and Doc Holliday Connection

In the novel Philippe Robillard is killed off during a barroom brawl in New Orleans, and a priest returned the locket and letters to Ellen in Savannah. When in fact a minister at Glenwood Springs, Colorado, where Doc Holliday died of tuberculosis, actually sent them to Sister Melanie at St. Vincent’s Academy in that same city.
What a savvy storyteller she was. Peggy Mitchell knew how to shut down controversy and illustrated that technique by killing off Philippe in a New Orleans barroom. It was
an absolutely brilliant piece of writing. She left no loose ends, nothing that could point toward Doc Holliday’s life west of the Mississippi.
There is no doubt that Peggy Mitchell was bright, and not to leave anything out, there is one final scene relative to the Robillard story in chapter twenty-four that makes the case even more convincing. Scarlett was a lot like her mother, but the daughter never came to realize just how much like Ellen she really was -- even after she was told.
In one of the late scenes it comes out that Mammy was the only one that knew the full extent of Ellen’s undying love for Philippe. When Scarlett returned to Tara and was mourning her mother's death the half-breed Dilcey told Scarlett her mother’s dying words. Feeleep! Feeleep! Scarlett assumed the name was Philippe and she asked the question, 'Who was he and what had he been to Mother that she died calling his name?' But Scarlett got no answers because Mammy kept her silence and Dilcey didn’t know.
So according to the words in “Gone With the Wind, Ellen never lost her love for Philippe Robillard. Which means, at least in Margaret Mitchell's mind, Sister Mary Melanie never got over John Henry.
And to find the rest of the story you have to look no further than Margaret Mitchell’s world of the Old South with its plantations, cotton fields and magnolias.

Writers Notebook:

Maxwell Anderson’s rule for making a hit play:
‘What is the rule, Max?’ Josh demanded.
‘Well it turns out it was Aristotle all the time. It’s also in all the great Shakespeare plays, and any strong play that takes the protagonist through a series of experiences that leads to a moment toward the end of the play where he discovers something about himself that he could have known all along, but didn’t. This discovery changes the entire course of his life – and that change must be for the better. If the change is for the worse the audience will reject the play. The audience must see and feel the leading man or woman become wiser and that doesn’t mean a happy ending. If the hero is to die, the revelation must come before the death.
People then leave the theatre feeling better. They’ve had an exciting and uplifting experience and that excitement gives life to the play.’
Josh Logan goes on to say ‘I’ve used this golden rule to some extent on every play and film I’ve done. It has strengthened the strong ones and quite often saved the weak ones from disaster.’

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
www.RocktheTower.com