Tom Barnes's Blog: Tom's 'RocktheTower' Blog - Posts Tagged "wind"

Let’s Go to the Movies: Part 8
Atlanta Burning

A back lot face-lift, under the direction of William Cameron Menzies, was moving at a rapid pace putting new facades on old sets in order to simulate Atlanta buildings during the period of the Civil War.
All this activity was aimed at one short scene to be shot by seven Technicolor cameras photographing doubles for the characters of Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara in medium and long shots against the background of Atlanta burning. The timing of the burn was necessitated in order to clear the area and allow for construction of Tara, the Wilkes mansion and other necessary sets to be used when shooting the film.
The fire sequence was shot on December 10, 1938.
Here are a few things David Selznick had to say about the fire sequence. Just hours after the fire was out he sent a memo to Jock Whitney. ‘You have missed a great thrill. Gone With the Wind has been started. Shot key fire scenes at 8:20 tonight, and judging by how they looked to the eye they are going to be sensational.’
Selznick wrote to his wife Irene in New York and said, ‘Saturday night I was greatly exhilarated by the fire sequence. It was one of the biggest thrills I have had out of making pictures…’
A day or two after the fires scene Selznick wrote a general information memo: ‘Before my brother, Myron, Hollywood’s leading agent, brought Laurence Olivier and Miss Leigh over to the set to see the shooting of the burning of Atlanta I had never seen her. When he introduced her to me the flames were lighting up her face and Myron said: I want you to meet Scarlett O’Hara. I took one look and knew that she was right, at least right as far as her appearance at least right as far as my conception as how Scarlett O’Hara looked…’
The surprising arrival of Vivian Leigh on the fire set that night, and meeting David Selznick gave her not only the proper lighting but also immediate dark horse status in the race for Scarlett. At that point in time that huge number of Scarlett contenders had been winnowed down to four Paulette Goddard, Jean Arthur, Joan Bennett and Vivian Leigh.
George Cukor was then given one full day for each of the final candidates to test in three different scenes taken from the GWTW script.
(To be continued)

Another Take on Atlanta Burning.

McDonough Road, Jonesboro and the night Atlanta burned were all part of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind. They also had a place in a story I was researching and writing, “The Life and Times of John Henry Holliday.” The scene I was working on took place at Jonesboro on the night Atlanta burned and one of the characters involved was Philip Fitzgerald, a great uncle of Mattie Holliday John Henry’s romantic interest in the story.
The longer I worked on the Jonesboro scenes, with their foreboding sense of war, the more I was convinced that there was a connection between the Holliday story and Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind. However, that conviction was based on rumor, hearsay and my own intuition rather than fact. Rumor had it that the Melanie character in Gone With the Wind was named after Sister Mary Melanie a real live character in my Holliday Story.
But I needed some facts if I ever expected to nail down the rumor. I had an idea the film or the making of the film GWTW might shed some light on the subject. I had read David Selznick’s Memo, a book that consisted of memos written during the best years of Selznick's motion picture producing career. Maybe it was there in Memo and I had just missed it. So I reread that 110-page section dealing with the making of the film, which included everything from purchase, to casting and production, to the gala premier in Atlanta. And while I didn’t find a connection I did notice something during that second reading that I hadn’t seen earlier. It turned out to be a negative; and in fact it was what wasn’t there that got my attention. There wasn’t a thing in those pages that indicated that Selznick had included Margaret Mitchell in the loop of his memo recipients. I am quite sure that the producer’s natural instinct would have been a desire to discuss, with the original writer, some of his problems of putting the story onto the screen. But there was nothing there to indicate any direct contact, an omission I could not ignore. I questioned several people that might have known, but got no answers. A day or two later I heard from a third party source that Selznick did contact Ms. Mitchell by way of his New York representative Kay Brown. The story I got was that Ms. Mitchell had simply and firmly declined most of' his efforts by justly saying, ‘I’ve sold it and want nothing to do with the making of the film.’ But that wasn’t entirely true because there were certain things she did not hesitate to talk about while others set up an immediate barrier. The most telling example of this can be found in Richard Harwell’s book about the writing of the screenplay for GWTW.
On page 22 he relates a telephone conversation between Kay Brown in New York and Ms. Mitchell in Atlanta. During that talk, Ms. Mitchell quite freely talks about a scene with Belle Watling and Rhett Butler. They talk about why the scene would not be true to the book or the era as reflected by copy they were discussing. They also talk about other characters in the book and screenplay. However, the following page gives us a far different picture of openness when Mr. Selznick asked for a bit of help with the introduction of Melanie. At that point there was total silence on the part of the authoress.
I was troubled by the situation though and kept asking myself, why would a writer refuse to talk about an extension of her work? I began to think, was it possible that she didn’t write certain parts of the story and as a consequence was afraid to have Selznick asking questions?
That wasn’t likely I thought, but it had to be something. And that rumor floating around Griffin about the Doc Holliday story connection to Gone With the Wind was persistent.
(To be continued)

Writers Notebook
Last week we talked about fiction vs. nonfiction and used Truman Capote’s ‘In Cold Blood’ as an illustration. I looked back in my files and discovered the genesis of his nonfiction style used ‘In Cold Blood.’ It came from Capote’s observations and his natural inclination to write down, as would a reporter or journalist, what he saw. It was a kind of ‘… reporting – style of seeing and hearing that would later seriously influence me, though I was unaware of it then…’
So it appears that it was all a natural progression of Truman Capote’s writing style.

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

Final Four: Clark Gable, Vivian Leigh, Leslie Howard, Olivia de Havilland
Let’s Go to the Movies
Part 9
Final tests for Scarlett
Never letting an opportunity go to waste Selznick instructed that the characters playing opposite Scarlett in all the tests be cast in a way that would highlight and help to narrow the search for Ashley and Mammy.
Of course Leslie Howard was still the likely choice for Ashley but as a backup Selznick instructed his casting people to use Melvyn Douglas, Ray Milland, Richard Carlson and Shepard Strudwick to alternate working opposite Scarlett in the four tests.
There were at least three people vying for the Mammy role that would do the same in her scenes with Hattie McDaniel, Hattie Noel and Louise Beavers.
During late December and early January the Selznick Casting department probably put out more calls for lead and feature players than did Central Casting for extras during that same period.
And while negotiations were going on behind the scenes for several leads and feature players the only ones mentioned by Selznick during the period was in a note to Kay Brown in New York about the casting of Scarlett’s mother Ellen. The candidates for that role were Lillian Gish And Cornelia Otis Skinner in New York and Barbara O’Neil in California.
The clock was running out on an arbitrary date set by David Selznick for general photography to begin on GWTW. As I said earlier negotiations were ongoing, but the only principals assigned to the picture at that time were Clark Gable, George Cukor, the director who was on shaky grounds and Bill Menzies, the art director putting in long days and turning out beautiful sets.
Following Sidney Howard’s refusal to accompany Selznick to Bermuda and work on the GWTW screenplay Selznick turned to Oliver Garrett for help. Within a week Selznick commissioned Garrett to do a complete rewrite of the Howard work. In several respects it turned out to be a good move since Garrett was a good storyteller and his continuity was excellent. Howard’s script was strong on individual scene development and with Selznick’s input, in the end; they essentially merged the two screenplays into one.
During the first week of January 1939 the selection of the four major cast members had been made. However press releases announcing the cast had not gone out pending final contract agreements and signings. The decision had been made that Clark Gable, Vivian Leigh, Leslie Howard and Olivia de Havilland would be the marquee headliners and stars of Gone With the Wind.
David Selznick was not only one of Hollywood’s top producers he was great in another field, public relations and showmanship. What PT Barnham was to ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’ David Selznick was to Hollywood movies. During the year of 1938 Selznick used the whole country as one giant pool of talent aimed at a casting call for Gone With the Wind. Of course the characters drawing the most attention was Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler. Selznick’s well-publicized casting calls were an ongoing campaign to promote a motion picture that was already being talked about as the greatest picture of the century.
All that being said, the first two weeks in January 1939 casting for Gone With the Wind was virtually complete. The only two characters of any consequence not cast were Belle Watling, Rhett’s friend the madam, and Frank Kennedy, Scarlett’s second husband.
On Friday January 13, 1939 the David Selznick International Pictures publicity department began churning out press releases reflecting members of the cast and crew that would be involved in the making of Gone With the Wind.
(To be continued)

Gone With the Wind and Doc Holliday Connection:
(Continued)
Perhaps Margaret Mitchell’s papers could shed some light on the subject, so the next day I drove over to the Atlanta Historical Society. I said to the lady behind the counter, “I understand Margaret Mitchell’s papers are here. Is there any way that I could take a look at them?” The lady smiled. “They were here, but recently they were moved to The University of Georgia and at the present time they can’t be seen.”
That wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but I figured they might have something so I asked hopefully, “Do you have anything at all on Ms. Mitchell?”
“Very little, but we do have one small folder. Would you like to see it?”
I nodded. The lady produced a folder with three or four pieces of paper inside. There was one full page that was in Margaret Mitchell’s own hand, and it was dated April 6, 1937.
Misc. details of interest:
Maternal great grandfather - Philip Fitzgerald born 1798 at Lagistown Parish of Nagraphin, Tipperary Co. Ireland.
Died 1880 Clayton Co. Georgia. Married near Columbus Ga.
Fraternal great grandmother - Eleanor McGhan, born Locust Grove, Taliaferro Co. Ga. in 1818, died Clayton Co. Ga. in 1893.
Call it fate or whatever you like, I could not have asked for better luck. That scrap of paper was the key to what I had been looking for. Why Margaret Mitchell didn't wish to discuss her characters with David Selznick. Autobiographical! She simply had not wanted it known how close her story came to true life and her own family heritage.
The name Philip Fitzgerald jumped off the page and into its proper place, he was Margaret Mitchell’s great grandfather and Sister Mary Melanie’s great uncle. My cast of characters taken from research began to merge with “Gone With the Wind’s” fictional characters. Of course Sister Mary Melanie was not a fictional character she was, in fact, Margaret Mitchell’s cousin.
It was common knowledge in Atlanta that Ms. Mitchell paid regular visits to Sister Melanie, at St Joseph’s Infirmary located on Peachtree Street, most every Saturday afternoon.
Margaret Mitchell’s research abilities and dedication to the subject led her to interview just about every living Civil War Veteran in the state of Georgia. She spent countless weeks at Atlanta’s Carnegie Library and many hours listening to and making notes as Sister Melanie tells about life during those early years.
No one in the Atlanta literary community called her Margaret it was always Peggy Mitchell. And from what I had heard about that petite lady the name Peggy seemed to fit very nicely.
(To be continued.)

Writers Notebook:

From Hemingway’s ‘A Moveable Feast.’

‘My Old Man’ and ‘Up in Michigan’ were the only two manuscripts he had left …’when everything I had written was stolen in Hadley’s suitcase that time at the Gare de Lyon when she was bringing the manuscripts down to me at Lausanne as a surprise…’
Hemingway was devastated by the loss of that material, but in his effort to recapture some of his spirit and begin writing again, he started with …’a very simple story called ‘Out of Season’ and I had omitted the real end of it which was that the old man hanged himself. This was omitted on my new theory that you could omit anything if you knew that you omitted it and the omitted part would strengthen the story and make the people feel something more than they understood.’

Now whether Hemingway pursued that exact theory or not, I don’t know. Nonetheless he did believe in leaving out anything that didn’t move the story line forward. For example, he once talked about that subject and said that in his short story ‘The Killers’ he left out the whole city of Chicago. Now there was a good reason for that omission and I suspect there are others.

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 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

Let’s go to the Movies

I grew up watching dozens of nameless faces on that giant silver screen. Saturday at the Bijou or in my case the Princess Theatre in Jackson, Georgia you’d likely see two features a western, Bulldog Drummond, a thriller serial with a cliffhanger ending, a newsreel and a couple of cartoons all for a dime. Wow – what a bargain.
Saturday was the day when we became familiar with many of those nameless faces. There was a lot of typecasting with the expected bad guys almost always playing their regular heavies roles and likewise the good folks that would eventually form a posse and go chasing the heavies.
Many of those nameless faces were among the UNCREDITED cast members that worked on ‘Gone With the Wind.’
Of the 72 players listed on the uncredited roster about two thirds could be called professional extras. Today they’re known as background performers. In 1939 most of those people were proud of their work and it showed on the set, the AD (assistant director) or the director gave them instructions as to what their action would be during the scene and they did their job without question. Some of those players owned extensive wardrobes and came to work dressed in the period the movie was depicting and they got extra pay for those costumes. There is also extra pay for special business or silent bit assignments given out on the set. And once in a while someone will be given a piece of dialogue to perform, which automatically makes that person a day player with a substantial increase in pay.
The other third of that group was made up of one-time feature players in silent films or sound that were simply past their prime while some of the younger players among them were on their way up. These people listed below will give you an idea of how the casting department followed Selznick’s guidelines and put those faces on the screen to compliment an almost perfect main cast.
Ralph Brooks was featured in ‘Smash Up’ an Oscar nominated film with Susan Hayward for best actress and Dorothy Parker for best original story. Brooks was in ‘Tulsa’ another Susan Hayward film that won an Oscar for best effects and special effects.
Eddy Chandler pops up in many films and he is prominent in Charlie Chan ‘In the Secret Service.’
Wallis Clark, Frank Coghlan Jr, Gino Corrado and Lester Dorr all had long bits and extra résumé’s.
Tommy Kelly had a brief but good run as a child actor while Si Jenks padded his long resume playing old men in westerns.
Dirk Wayne Summers had a long resume and did several episodes on ‘Golden Girls.’
Emerson Treacy, Philip Trent, Julie Ann Tuck, Ernest Whitman, Guy Wilkerson and John Ray all had long résumé’s listing small roles in feature films and TV.
George Meeker was featured in a string of movies playing disagreeable characters, the guy you loved to hate.
Charles Middleton was outstanding in the very popular Flash Gordon serial playing Ming the Merciless. Middleton played dozens of feature roles but Ming might have been the highlight of his film career.
Alberto Morin had an amazing career doing features and small parts in both movies and TV. Morin Played General Le Claire in ‘Two Mules for Sister Sara’ starring Clint Eastwood and Shirley MacLaine. Morin worked in Hellfighters with John Wayne and played scores of roles in TV including multiple episodes on ‘Dallas’ and ‘I Love Lucy.’
David Newell had an extensive background in movies and TV. Newell is best known for his role as the postman in ‘Mr. Rogers Neighborhood.’
Marjorie Reynolds came up through the ranks and at the top of her career was cast in a leading role alongside Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire in the film ‘Holiday Inn.’
The three remaining names on my list all went on to have stellar acting careers and deserve TOP BILLING:
Frank Faylen, Tom Tyler and Richard Farnsworth.
Frank Faylen played the average guy in more than 200 movies and TV films. The most memorable might have been the likeable cab driver working with James Stewart in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’
Tom Tyler had a long and profitable career beginning in the silent film era. He starred in the ‘Captain Marvel’ serial and played leads in numerous B westerns and scores of feature roles in major films.
Richard Farnsworth: Farnsworth began working in film in 1937 as stuntman and actor. He achieved stardom in the 1982 film ‘The Grey Fox’ for which he won the Genie award. Then in 1999 Richard Farnsworth was nominated for an academy award as best actor for the film ‘The Straight Story.’
David Selznick demanded and got the best talent available for GWTW from stars to the minor roles and the class of those actors’ shows today when you watch the film on TV or your DVD.

Now let’s go from make-believe to one mans story -- living with Multiple Sclerosis.
The Gang’s All Here
By Chris Tatevosian

“The Monster and His Friends"
My marriage of ten years began dissolving when the “Monster” invited his friends to live in my house. If you have MS, you’ve probably met the gang. There was the kingpin, Stress, his best friend Anger and his twin, Misdirected. Of course a feeling of worthlessness was always there along with inadequacy, low self-esteem and depression. You can also add worry, anxiety and lack of communications to the mix. And all of those characters hung around and never left -- but my wife did.
Sounds like the cast of a real nightmare. At that point of my life it literally was a nightmare, and I couldn’t see myself ever waking up. MS can destroy relationships between spouses, family members and friends. Eventually I turned on a more positive attitude and wrote the book, “Life Interrupted, It’s Not All About Me,” a self-help memoir, my real life story of marriage interrupted by multiple sclerosis. It could have been any chronic illness or disability and it could have been anyone’s relationship. Still, this book is intended to help others going through a similar situation deal with the stress and hardship put on one’s relationships as a result of a chronic illness or disability.
My story is not always pretty, but it’s real. I have written this book to help others in similar situations avoid making the same mistakes that I did. You’re not alone, and there is hope when facing and dealing with the stress put on a relationship as a result of life being interrupted, as in my case by -- MS.
I got remarried last April. My new bride, Jane, is fantastic. And even though my disease is worse than during my first marriage I could not ask for more. So what’s changed? We truly have a wonderful relationship. Why is my marriage working so well now, even though my MS has continued to progress over the past eight years? I can attribute this to two factors. First, Jane is truly a special person, and second. I have written this book, which has afforded me the opportunity to slow down and examine my life. The obvious fact is, we have the choice to go through life dealing with whatever trials and tribulations we must, and deal with either a smile or a frown. Yes, we have an affliction, but that doesn’t mean we have to go through the rest of our lives ticked off at everything and everyone, and as a consequence live life in complete misery.
My wife Jane and I laugh and laugh together and at one another all the time. Sure, I have slip ups, get frustrated and angry. It happened just the other night. I became so frustrated with Jane during the middle of the morning. Actually it was 3:17 am; I have one of those giant digital alarm clocks for the legally blind. When I can’t sleep, believe me I know what time it is. You see, Jane suffers from restless leg syndrome and the other night she was kicking me in the shin, and other places all night long. BAD! Of course I have to deal with nocturnia, which means every time I wake up I have to empty my bladder. I take prescription Flomax so normally I can sleep through the night without having to get up to visit the bathroom. Needless to say, it was a long night and I was ready to yell at my wife, which I would have done in my previous marriage. So what’s the difference, what’s changed? The difference is that I have written, re-written, read and re-read my book so many times that when I do begin to slip-up it’s so obvious that I usually catch myself. Of course Jane has read the book too, so when I slip up she’s quick to point out, “Chris, I think you need to revisit page 76 “and we have a good chuckle. I never thought I would get married again. After all, who would marry damaged goods? At one point prior to my marriage I said to my wife to be, why would you marry someone with MS it’s like buying a vase with a hole in the bottom. Her response was, maybe I want it to hold dried flowers. So these dried flowers are happily married and loving every minute of it.
If you’d like to learn more about the dissolving of my first marriage and strengthen your own, please visit my web site www.lifeInterrupted-nolonger.com

Writers Notebook:
Samuel Langhorne Clemons
Mark Twain worked with words most of his life. At the age of twelve he took a job in a print shop as an apprentice. His storytelling jargon came from newspaper headlines and stories, not from the editorial pages. Twain wrote for the masses and he wrote in their vernacular, and always inserting a healthy dose of his unique sense of humor.
Mark Twain has shared a special writing tip with us, his approach to writing an autobiography. ‘Start it at no particular time in your life; talk only about the things which interest you for the moment; drop it the moment its interest threatens to pale; and turn your talk upon the new and more interesting theme that has intruded itself into your mind.’
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

David Selznick had some sleepless nights mulling over his vision for the final cut of his Gone With the Wind film. Not only did it involve the length of the picture it involved the grand scope of every frame. Could they make a larger than life picture within the confines of their back lot? The answer was a resounding NO.
Selznick tackled the problem and alluded to a partial answer in a memo dated March 9, 1939 directed to Ray Klune, his production manager,
Selznick complained about the exteriors being shot outside Tara and compared them to other films such as ‘Robin Hood’ and ‘The Great Waltz,’ and he wasn’t pleased with what he saw…’Frankly, I’m now terribly sorry we didn’t build Tara on location…I’d like you and Mr. Menzies to get together immediately to make sure that out remaining exteriors, such as the exterior of Twelve Oaks, and the shot in which Gerald talks about the land being the only thing that matters, have real beauty instead of looking like B picture film…This is quite apart from the photography – I don’t see how the greatest cameraman in the world could get much beauty out of what we have given him for the exterior of Tara. (I am not speaking now of the set itself but of the landscaping, the line of trees etc…Incidentally, I would also like you to consider whether your second unit should go immediately to Georgia, or any other place, to pick up some shots for the opening sequence…’
Well, that memo sparked an increase in location scouting and eventually second unit film crews moved off the Selznick Studio back lot and began shooting GWTW’s exterior scenes in the great outdoors.
James Fitzpatrick (‘Travel Talks’ short subject producer) was hired as a second unit director and dispatched to Georgia to get an authentic sense of the land and the Georgia environment.
Second unit camera’s cast and crew’s traveled from Culver City to locations at Agoura Hills, Big Bear, Calabasas, Chico, Malibu Lake, Pasadena, San Bernardino National Forest, Simi Valley, and probably several other locations.
Some of the directors involve in that location filming were Sam Wood, Yakima Canutt, Chester Franklin, and the aforementioned James Fitzpatrick filmed Georgia scenes, some of which were used in the title sequence of the film.
The second unit work on those exterior scenes was well worth the effort as they gave the film an openness that would otherwise have been missing had Selznick not had that great vision.
Some of the outdoor scenes that added real life and continuity to the film include Big Sam’s ‘Quittin’ time’ scene with men coming home from the fields.
Gerald O’Hara’s horse riding and jumping sequences, Gerald and Scarlett’s walk and his talk about the land.
Scarlett’s ‘As God is my witness’ scene in the open field gives us a few moments of true movie magic.
The cotton field scene with sisters Suellen and Careen as well as the returning veterans and the long shot sequence of Ashley coming home from the war are all effective.
And when you consider that this film was made long before modern special effects became a part of moviemaking is hard to believe they actually pulled it off. But the test of time alone proves that their hard work was rewarded and that Selznick’s vision had been right on target.
The industry recognized the quality of the film immediately and gave awards to Lyle Wheeler for best interior decoration and William Cameron Menzies for outstanding achievement in the use of color. (Those are just a couple of awards; Gone With the Wind almost swept the Academy Awards in 1939 – a year of great films. More later on 1939 films and awards.)

Hitler’s Stolen Art Still in the News
The irony is in the timing. While America was waiting for the opening of ‘Gone With the Wind’ Europe was preparing for World War II. .

BERLIN (AP) — Two paintings that the Nazis forced a Jewish art dealer to sell off in the 1930s have been returned to his estate, and its heirs said Wednesday they were working hard to recover hundreds more.

‘Tom Barnes has tapped the headlines into Nazis stolen art and crafted a spellbinding mystery.’ Julie Burton, playwright and author of “Consider the Tulips.”
‘The Goring Collection.’
Jacob Meyers is stunned to see his father’s Pissarro – taken by the Nazi’s in 1945 – among the paintings up for sale at the Old World Auction House in Manhattan. He questions management and while he reads a phony provenance, the Pissarro is withdrawn from sale and mysteriously disappears. Jacob, head of an intelligence group, alerts Interpol and joins their ongoing investigation into the underground world of stolen art.
Two suspect paintings, a Manet and a Cézanne sold by an international cartel in Berlin as copies, are tracked to the Berghoff Gallery in Chicago where they are auctioned off as originals. An accidental shooting at the gallery exposes the cartel’s shell game and leads to blackmail of a Las Vegas odds maker, murder of a San Francisco politician, and the assassination of a former matinee idol in West Virginia.
Link to stolen art display: Click Here
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/20/art...

Writers Notebook:
On Internet Blogging:
Think of blogging as a community bulletin board.
Simply put you blog to share information with others and you can blog about anything Aunt Suzie’s favorite recipes, politics, pop art, gardening or fly-fishing.
The political classes are having a field day in the blog world.
My ‘RocktheTower’ blog reflects many of my personal experiences as writer, actor and hurricane hunter.
Most writers have files filled with stuff (and some is just that – stuff) we’ve written in the past articles, essays etc. If you’ve written a book you’re in good shape because you have lots of material to fall back on. Use excerpts to promote your book or make a point.
You set your own schedule and deadline to post. My idea is to work with consistency in order to make that deadline. One of the incentives I use is that at the end of the day I will have accumulated enough material to edit into a book about storytelling on the blog.
Twitter is something you might look into, it will give you another way to generate new ideas and feed your blog: something to think about.

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 14

Exhausted!
Victor Fleming never got a break between his work on ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and his assignment to ‘Gone With the Wind.’
Under normal circumstances, with only a couple of days rest it would have been enough for a routine transition. However, his assignment to ‘Gone With the Wind,’ was anything but routine. The general public had already formed opinions and had high expectations of what they wanted from reading the 1034 page novel. And David Selznick had every intention of satisfying those expectations.
In a sense Fleming’s first hurdle was in the area of public relations. He was replacing George Cukor, a very popular director; through no fault of his own, nonetheless it was a touchy situation, as some members of the GWTW cast didn’t like the change at all.
Second and probably more important was that the script was still in pieces and had to be assembled, one script written by Sidney Howard and the other by Oliver Garrett. David Selznick picked and chose from, not unlike a Chinese Restaurant menu, scenes by selecting from Side A or Side B. Now this is just an educated guess, but I suspect that Ben Hecht was the go to guy to write, when necessary, transitions and any other slight modifications that Selznick came up with. For the most part those changes within the scenes came from the book. You see Selznick, continued to sift through Margaret Mitchell’s novel and, when he found a fit, he transferred dialogue or a phrase or two straight out of the book to the shooting script. Sounds insane, but you have to admit that when all the pieces were assembled – it worked.
The trouble was that Victor Fleming didn’t have a clue about the eventual outcome. To him at that moment it probably looked like a train wreck in the making.
That was in mid February of 1939 and it took about two months before the shooting schedule and other duties began to take a physical tole on the director.
The first indication of a problem was a hush, hush memo dated April 14, 1939 from Selznick to his Vice President Henry Ginsberg and first assistant Daniel O’Shea.
The memo posed the possibilities of again having to halt production. ‘…I have for some time been worried that Fleming would not be able to finish the picture because of his physical condition….’
Fleming’s doctor thought he was in good enough shape to continue work, but from Selznick’s personal observation he said ‘…he is so near the breaking point both physically and mentally from shear exhaustion that it would be a miracle, in my opinion, if he’s able to shoot for another seven or eight weeks.’
Selznick certainly didn’t want his opinion to get back to Fleming, but during the course of the memo he mentioned a couple of possible replacement directors Bob Leonard from the MGM staff and Bill Wellman at Paramount.
Selznick’s intuition regarding Fleming’s physical condition likely came from his knowledge about what brought him to GWTW in the first place. Fleming had been working in a pressure cooker situation over at MGM on ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ the directors position had been like playing the game of musical chairs. Some of the directors that had been assigned and later replaced were Norman Taurog, Richard Thorpe, George Cukor, and Victor Fleming, sound familiar? When Fleming was pulled off Oz to replace Cukor on ‘Gone With the Wind’ he was replaced by King Vidor.
And although Victor Fleming wasn’t there for the final takes of ‘The Wizard of Oz’ he got sole credit for directing the film. Screen Credits are part of the inside Hollywood politics and while several directors might work on and contribute to a film, usually only one gets the screen credit while the others go Unaccredited.

On April 26, Fleming collapsed on the set from exhaustion and was out for a two-week rest. Sam Wood took over for the ailing Fleming. Wood came over from MGM and was not without credentials, he had directed Ginger Rogers in her Oscar winning performance in Kitty Foyle.
(To be continued)

More about Nazi Stolen art and ‘The Goring Collection.’

When Jacob asked why the painting was withdrawn from the auction a tight-lipped manager was trotted out and asserted, “Due to confidentiality agreements with the seller we can offer no reason why the painting has been withdrawn.”
“Is there any possibility that it will be offered at a later time?” Jacob asked.
“We have no way of knowing that,” the manager said in a tone that dismissed any further questions.
‘Jacob knew the man was lying and was frustrated by his own actions that had allowed the painting to be snatched right out from under his nose. Suddenly he felt pangs of guilt, not for his present thoughts, but what he hadn’t recognized in the past. For soon after the Nazi’s took the painting he had simply dismissed Papa’s Pissarro as just another relic that could easily be replaced. Of course, looking back at the situation he could only attribute that callous dismissal to his youth. But when the painting turned up, at the Auction House, he saw everything in a different light and suddenly realized just how much the painting had meant to him and his sister during the war years. And at that moment he made a solemn promise, in the memory of his parents, to use every resource at his disposal to find Papa’s cherished painting. Jacob furrowed his brow as he thought about the daunting task ahead.’

Even today Nazi stolen art still grabs headlines.

U.S. Customs Seizes Old Master Lost in Nazi-Era Forced Sale
By Catherine Hickley
For Old Master story Click Here
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pi...

Writers Notebook:
F. Scott Fitzgerald
In a long ago April, 1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald and his editor Maxwell Perkins were bantering about who should get credit for the structure of ‘The Great Gatsby.’ As the release date approached everyone at Scribner’s along with the author believed they had a best seller on their hands. As it turned out the critic’s had other ideas.
Two days after publication The New York World described F. Scott Fitzgerald’s latest A Dud. And unfortunately most of those early critics’s arrived at that same conclusion.
The book didn’t sell and Scribner’s warehouse had several thousand copies of the unsold books to prove it. But to find a reason why later generations gave ‘Gatsby’ a new life, one might look back at H.L. Mencken’s remarks at the time of publishing. Mencken said he found the form ‘No more than a glorified anecdote and a far inferior story at bottom.’ But he did recognize ‘the novel as plainly the product of a sound stable talent, conjured into being by hard work. And he appreciated the craft of revision that accounted for so much, and it shows on every page.’
Mencken also credited Fitzgerald with ‘depicting the rattle and hullabaloo of society with great gusto and sharp accuracy.’ (The flapper, Speakeasies and Bathtub gin)
Of course there were some good reviews at the time that were drowned out by the other side. However, even today with its rebirth and popularity when talk gets around to ‘The Great Gatsby’ you can still find good arguments on both sides of the debate.

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

Mine That Bird Rail to Wire Win

Dream up all the cliché’s in the book and you’ll find several that will fit into Saturday’s Kentucky Derby.
When Calvin Borel looked at Mine that Bird’s past performance chart he saw a mixed bag. Two-year-old champion in Canada and then some unmentionable races in the States. But as he studied the form some things became apparent. Mine that Bird’s losses came with consistency when he got caught wide on the turns.
I suspect a wry grin crossed Calvin’s face as he thought, ‘Well, we can fix that,’
The handicappers looking at the Kentucky Derby form saw that awful race Mine that Bird ran at Santa Anita last October, and at that point most of them probably crossed him off their list of contenders.
However, had they thrown that race out (and by the way Santa Anita’s racing surface is a synthetic material, which might have made a difference) it could have made a world of difference but then he wouldn’t have gone off at 50-1 and there would have been no big story.
Heavy overnight rains came to Churchill Downs and that seemed to favor the Louisiana Derby winner Friesan Fire, he had won his race over a sloppy track.
The 3-1 favorite I want Revenge was an early morning scratch.

For those of us that watched on TV you could sense a typical Kentucky Derby day kind of excitement in the crowd. Wide brimmed ladies hats, celebrities and mint juleps were all in evidence and while there was plenty of betting going on there were no wide swings in the odds.
During the saddling process, the post parade and as the 19-horse field loaded into the gate the horses maintained a calm.
Out of the gate Dunkirk stumbled and Mine that Bird was pinched in between horses.
Borel gently took a hold on the Bird, got him out of trouble and went about his business of moving to the rail – dead last.
Join the Dance and Regal Ransom led the field up front and kept the horses moving at a good pace.
Borel got Mine that Bird to the rail and they went almost unnoticed to the public and track announcer as they passed horses on the inside. They had no traffic problems along the way, and moving into the stretch That Bird kicked into another gear with only a sliver of a hole in front of him, the space was paper thin, but he accelerated through it and burst into the clear. By the time the announcer realized what was happening Borel had that Bird three lengths in front of the field and extending his lead as they pulled away to an easy 5 and ½ length win.
Now on to the Preakness and quest for the Triple Crown:

One of my daily updates on Twitter:
‘Calvin Borel pilots Mine that Bird to the rail and they fly inside the field to nab second longest price in Kentucky Derby history.’
Read more tweets at www.Twitter.com/tombarnes39


Let’s Go to the Movies Part 16
It’s a Wrap
June 27, 1939
Mr. John Hay Whitney
630 5th Avenue
New York, N.Y.
‘Sound the siren. Scarlett O’Hara completed her performance at noon today. Gable finishes tonight or in the morning…’
That left only a week of pickup shots and Gone With the Wind filming would be complete.
During the next several months David Selznick would be overseeing the editing process while at the same time conducting a low key PR campaign. During that same period Selznick had to use diplomacy to calm the mayor of Atlanta. It seems that Atlanta Mayor William B. Hartsfield had heard a rumor that Atlanta was out of the running for the World Premier of Gone With the Wind and communicated his concern to David Selznick.
On July 17, 1939 Selznick sent this reassuring letter to the mayor, and it reads in part: ‘Dear Mayor Hartsfield:
I am in receipt of your telegram concerning the premier of Gone With the Wind. The rumors, which you have heard, have no foundation. Neither we, nor Loew’s, Incorporated have ever given any thought to opening any place but Atlanta, as I have repeatedly assured Governor Rivers, yourself, Miss Mitchell, and other important Georgians…’

And just to give you a sense of what went on behind the scenes between the film’s completion and the premier in Atlanta of Gone With the Wind here is an excerpt from a memo sent to Kay Brown in New York October 7, 1939.
‘…we have our main title all laid out on the basis of having Gone With the Wind come first, and in a unique manner; but if MGM for some strange reason thinks that Clark Gable is more important than Gone With the Wind, and should come first, and wants to bitch up our main title layout, I suppose there’s nothing I can do but get up a new main title, since under out contract with MGM Gable’s name must precede Gone With the Wind.’
A footnote following that memo: The names of the four stars, in a size fifty percent of the films title, followed the films title on the screen and in all advertising.’
One of Selznick’s final battles was that the language censors, at the time, demanded a change from the words in the book, Rhett Butler’s punch line to Scarlett as he turns to walk away – ‘Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,’ was being questioned by the Hays office.
Fortunately Selznick won that battle and shortly after the film’s release ‘Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn’ became a catch phrase and part of Hollywood and Movie lore.
(To be continued)

Writers Notebook.
There can be no honor without a foundation of integrity. That may seem old-fashioned, but – it is a fact.
Honor your character’s integrity.
To paraphrase Sherwood Anderson: Your characters should be as real as living people. You should be no more willing to sell them out than you would to sell out your friends or the woman you love. To take the lives of those people and bend or twist them to suit the needs of some cleverly thought out plot to give your readers a false emotion is as mean and ignoble as it is to sell out living men or women… And that is the truth.

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 17
The flap with the Hays office over ‘Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn’ was just one of dozens of problems that David Selznick had to resolve between the time filming was complete in early July 1939 to the Atlanta Premier on December 15th.
If there were a problem it would eventually land on Selznick’s desk. But of course that’s the task you assume as motion picture producer.
Just to name a few items; editing the long film down to a reasonable time, hiring someone to write the onscreen titles, a kind of narration that sets up coming scenes. Ben Hecht took the assignment and did an excellent job, even with Selznick looking over his shoulder.
Writing the music and recording the score onto the film is a huge undertaking and is extremely important to the finished film. Max Steiner, a great talent, was hired for the job and as was Selznick’s practice he hired a back-up composer to write a second score just in case Steiner didn’t come through on time. Fortunately Steiner’s worked tirelessly and got it out on time.
His score for Gone With the Wind was much acclaimed and was nominated for an Oscar, but lost to The Wizard of Oz.
Distribution and ticket prices were an issue, remember box office tickets at the time were about a quarter but a special price structure had to be worked out for Gone With the Wind, general admission prices we seventy five cents for morning and afternoon showings, a dollar at night and a dollar fifty for preferred seating.
There was a protracted discussion with the Screen Directors Guild regarding the onscreen credit for director. Remember, several men worked on the film and were contenders for the screen credit. George Cukor, Victor Fleming and Sam Wood all contributed to the film and at one time it was thought all three might share in the credit, however in the end Victor Fleming was given the sole credit.
The film was officially completed on December the 11th with the World Premier scheduled for Atlanta, Georgia on December 15th.
Here’s a typical report of the event at the time:
The focus was on Atlanta last week when David Selznick brought his film version of Gone With the Wind to that Southern city. And he brought Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable with their spouses Lawrence Olivier and Carol Lombard along with a host of others.
I won’t try to name all the celebrities attending that great opening because I’d probably leave your favorite off the list and you’d be ticked off at me.
But I will say that Kay Brown, Selznick’s New York Representative, without whom there might not have been a movie version of Gone With the Wind, was in Atlanta.
This writer was also there. I lived with my family at 1424 South Gordon Street in West End Atlanta. And from the mind of that little boy I can still see those giant Klieg lights hurling those beams of light, crisscrossing the Atlanta skyline and into the sky. They looked so close I felt I could reach out and touch them. Of course I couldn’t because they were about five miles away. I felt the excitement though and was fully aware that they were lighting up the sky for a movie about the South called Gone With the Wind.
Something else, and I didn’t know the significance at the time but at the Cascade Theatre located just around the corner from our house, the current movie playing there was ‘The Wizard of Oz.’
Victor Fleming directed both ‘Oz’ and ‘Wind’ and years later I had the opportunity to work on stage opposite Bert Lahr (the Cowardly Lion) in the Pulitzer Prize winning play ‘Harvey.’
(To be continued)

Golf and Horse Racing – an Unlikely Paring

Honor and integrity seem to have vanished from the lexicon of the sports world save Golf and Horse Racing.
Are there ever any suspect moments in those two sports, of course there are, but they are rare compared to other sports.
My personal example of lost integrity is in baseball’s home run derby. I personally have put a mental asterisk after every name in the record book since Hank Aaron.
Of course that’s just my personal opinion about steroids and I expect it runs against the tide – but then I always was a rebel.
My point is jockey Calvin Borel who rode Mine that Bird to a whopping upset in the 2009 Kentucky Derby was aboard Rachel Alexandra the day before for the Kentucky Oaks Grade 1 race winning by 20 lengths.
Rachel Alexandra has won 7 out of 10 races and during the last five stakes wins Calvin Borel was the jockey. He made a commitment earlier in the year to ride the filly and he sticks by his word.
Hall of Fame and Eclipse award winning jockey Mike Smith gets the call to replace Borel on Mine that Bird – and from where I sit, not a bad call.
Bennie Woolley’s choice of veteran Mike Smith to pilot the Bird is backed up by past performance. Mike won the Kentucky Derby aboard Giacomo in 2005, and the Preakness aboard Prairie Bayou in 1993.
Excerpt from the Baltimore Sun tells what happened during the running of the 2005 Preakness:
‘At the time, Prairie Bayou, ridden by, Mike Smith was starting his move along the inside rail about 14 lengths off the pace and was moving up from 10th place to his eventual victory.’
Mike said, "I was lucky enough to miss him; he broke down right in front of me," Smith said of Union City. "When horses break down and fall, they usually fall right or left. But he stayed straight and I ducked around him at the last second."
Smith still had nearly half a mile to go, and a lot of traffic to negotiate in order to catch Personal Hope, who held the lead along the rail. But Smith made his move at the head of the stretch when he took Prairie Bayou outside, angling five-wide and circling the pack. He drew into the clear and ran straight down the track to eventually beat the favorite

Writers Notebook:
Here’s a plea for political writers and humorist to look back at a few examples of true humor and wit without malice.

Here are three by Will Rogers.
‘Be a politician, no training necessary.’
‘We’ve got the best politicians in this country that money can buy.’
‘With congress, every time they make a joke it’s a law; and every time they make a law it’s a joke.’
Now who would argue with that logic? Politicians of course.

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 18

Hollywood Grows Up.
Hollywood came of age during the 1930’s and movie fans lined up in droves to watch the latest film. The industry grew in every aspect of filmmaking, silents to sound, black and white to color, and a thousand other film techniques the public was not aware of.
With every passing year during that decade writers and directors were delivering a better product.
Suddenly a funny thing happened, it was like the whole Hollywood colony took aim at and built to a crescendo, saving their very best for that last and final year of the decade -- 1939. And what a film year it was. Members of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science had a wonderful and at the same time the terrible task of weeding out the good from the good.
During most years any one of 1939’s top 20 or 25 films could have won an Oscar
The nominating committee did a masterful job just to pare it down some, but not much, as they finally nominated ten films for best picture. When you read the list of films in the group that were not nominated you might have a fleeting moment and think – why they must have thrown a bunch of titles into a hat and drew out the first ten. I’m sure that didn’t happen, but what a delicious dilemma.
Here are some of the films that didn’t make the cut Gunga Din – Cary Grant, The Little Princess – Shirley Temple, Intermezzo – Ingrid Bergman’s American debut, Story of Vernon and Irene Castle – Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, The Roaring Twenties – Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney, Drums along the Mohawk – Claudette Colbert and Henry Fonda, The Hunchback of Notre Dame – Charles Laughton and Young Mr. Lincoln with Henry Fonda.
America was digging its way out of the malaise and misery of those depression years and it was Hollywood that provided an all-star celebration, marking an end to the thirties.
‘Turn on your radios America.’
On the night of February 29, 1940 there's going to be a party at the Ambassador Hotel’s Cocoanut Grove.
Bob Hope was the MC for the evening and said, ‘Hello this is Bob, coming to you from the Ambassador Hotel, and the Academy Award Ceremony, Hope -- saying good evening all you, sitting on pins and needles, hopefuls.’
That was Oscar night and what a wonderful night it was as they passed out awards for great and talented work in front of and behind the camera.
Then came the announcement for the grand prize. ‘And here are the nominees for best picture.
Dark Victory
Good Bye, Mr. Chips
Gone With the Wind
Love Affair
Mr. Smith Goes To Washington
Ninotchka
Of Mice And Men
Stagecoach
The Wizzard Of Oz
Wuthering Heights.

Now open the envelope please. ‘The best picture of 1939 is;

GONE WITH THE WIND.’

Think ahead to the Belmont Stakes.
There will be no Triple Crown in 2009, but the drama continues.
Blocked at the top of the stretch -- the lost momentum doomed the chances of a clean late run for Mine that Bird’s win. However, when he got back in stride, he gave a stretch run for the ages only to come up ¾’s of a length short to finish second.
Rachel Alexandra got the win, but her owners are unsure about the Belmont.

There’s a long tradition in horse racing that directs the horses from the saddling barn to begin the post parade. The horses are led out of the barn to a walking area where they make a brief stop and one of the racing officials gives the call, ‘Riders up,’ and the jockey is given a leg up and into the saddle.
Question now is who’s the jockey that will climb aboard Mine that Bird on June 6th for the Belmont Stakes?
Last Monday morning trainer Chip Woolly announced that his choice for the Belmont was Mike Smith who rode Mine that Bird to a second place win in the Preakness. But later in the day Smith’s agent called Woolly and explained that a prior commitment to ride Madeo in the Charles Whittingham Memorial Handicap at Hollywood Park that day had to be honored.
So there you have it – for now.
Back at Churchill Downs, trainer Chip Woolly’s first priority is keeping Mine that Bird fit and ready for the Belmont. Second is the jockey situation. He said, ‘We’re going to make a decision pretty quick, so we’ll see what happens.’ Then he added, ‘Patience is probably the number one concern; is somebody patient and will they wait and see how things develop.’
And here’s my two cents for what they’re worth. I’d be looking for someone based at Belmont with patients and a jockey that knows every inch of ground on that big oval like the back of his or her hand. A jockey that knows how to win at a mile and one half on that two turn monster.
To keep up with the saga read my daily twitter reports in the sidebar of this blog or go to www.twitter.com/tombarnes39

Writers Notebook:
Writing a book is just part of the chain that eventually gets your book into the hands of the reader. Publishing and marketing are a large part of that process and to give you some ideas about marketing and sales during the next few weeks I plan to introduce you to some of those subjects by using my own reviews of the books.
Make Friends and Sell Books
John Kremer seems to live and breathe book marketing. One of his mottos is that selling is all about making friends and the more you work with 1001 Ways to Market your Book the sooner you recognize the truth in that statement. Connecting with people and networking is all about making friends.
The first time you thumb through the 700-page book you are almost overwhelmed by the daunting task ahead. Just turn a couple of pages and you’ll find the dedication. It’s only a few lines but near the bottom is a line filled with hope. John says, ‘Take your time. Do it right. And enjoy.’
Keep that in mind and do one task at a time. Then before you know it, you’ll be highlighting sections and marking page numbers for points of reference.
The book contains everything from Internet sales, websites, blogs and newsletters to bookstores and book fairs. And a whole lot more.

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