Aristotle, Shakespear and Gone With the Wind

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