Let’s Go to the MoviesPart 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
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
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
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
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Seven Technicolor Cameras Film Atlanta Burning
Let’s Go to the Movies: Part 8
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
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
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Clark Gable to Gone With the Wind in Technicolor
Let’s Go to the Movies
Part 7
The summer of ‘38
From late March, when the deal for Gary Cooper fell through, until mid August when MGM signed an agreement for Clark Gable to play Rhett Butler, much of Selznick International’s pre production work on Gone With the Wind was slowed to a crawl. Of course that didn’t relieve any of the pressure on Selznick himself because other pictures took much of his time. He also had a couple of worrisome problems that required his attention, one was the GWTW script and the other was the film’s director George Cukor.
Cukor had apparently gone over the line refusing assignments to one picture after another. And it was that particular annoyance that caused Selznick to begin looking at Cukor as expendable to the production of Gone With the Wind. Considering long term and big money agreements with directors Selznick expected some loyalty and flexibility regarding picture assignments and he wasn’t getting that from Cukor.
With that in mind Selznick began to look around at possible replacements. MGM directors Jack Conway and Victor Fleming were both mentioned, but no preference was given at that time.
In the early planning stages of GWTW there was some talk of using black and white film, however, by mid summer of 1938 everyone was focused on Technicolor and who would be the best cameraman to shoot the picture. There were many top cameramen to draw from but not all of them had knowledge and experience in Technicolor. Several men under consideration were Hal Rosson, Oliver Marsh, and Ray June at MGM and Charlie Lang at Paramount. However, the possible front-runner for that position might have been Tony Gaudio mentioned in one of Selznick’s memos when he said, ‘Tony Gaudio’s work on Robin Hood was, in my opinion the best photographic job in color that has yet been done.’
And while those were major parts to the production of GWTW, getting a workable shooting script in place before cameras rolled was still the number one priority. Selznick needed some rest and decided to take a short working vacation in Bermuda. He hoped to be joined there by Sidney Howard, whose screenplay they were working from, along with Margaret Mitchell as a kind of on scene consultant. As it turned out they both declined his offer to join him and at the last minute Selznick chose Jo Swerling to work with him in Bermuda.
When the short working vacation was over Selznick returned to New York, still not satisfied with the script. At that time he put out a call for writers, he wanted Oliver Garrett to work on continuity and mentioned several writers he thought might be good for dialogue Robert Sherwood, Stark Young, James Boyd and F. Scott Fitzgerald were among them.
At that point in time as regards to casting -- of the four major players only Clark Gable was set for the film. There were too many candidates for Scarlett to even try to organize a list; in fact you might come just as close to a Scarlett by throwing darts at the pages of a Hollywood phone book.
Selznick ran hot and cold on Leslie Howard for the Ashley role, although some of that negativity was likely posturing for the benefit of Howard’s agent in order to get a better price.
The role of Melanie would be simple if Warner Brothers would play ball. Selznick wanted Olivia de Havilland but Warner Brothers was reluctant to loan out one of their stars for a secondary role.
(To be continued)
Before the film ‘Gone With the Wind ‘ there was the book:
And before the book there were lives and legends. Lenora Smalley makes the connection in her review of ‘Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone.’“Who would have ever thought the legend of Doc Holliday could be connected in any way to Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind.
When Doc Holliday went west after he discovered he had tuberculosis… He left behind a sweetheart who thought he would return after he was cured…
During his incredible research into the life of Doc Holliday, Tom Barnes discovered that this sweetheart, besides being a cousin of Doc Holliday was a distant cousin of Margaret (Peggy) Mitchell. This beautiful girl, Mattie Holliday, wrote letters to Doc for a number of years before giving up and becoming a nun in the order of Sisters of Mercy. If you read the letters, which appear in this book, you will know almost immediately which of the main characters of Gone With the Wind was inspired by Mattie Holliday.”
Writers Notebook:
Fiction and nonfiction:
Nonfiction is a term loosely used to describe a factual happening or event. But is it all fact? No. During the recreation of actual events fiction techniques are often employed, and when those techniques are used today they are called creative non-fiction. For example – one of the most famous nonfiction books in the English language is Truman Capote’s ‘In Cold Blood,’ a book filled with passages of pure fiction. There are no clear-cut rules that state how far writers of nonfiction may legitimately go into the area of fiction. And while the ivory tower crowd mull over the changing rules of the English language, non fiction writers that feel a need to stray too far into fiction might keep Television’s famous cop Joe Friday’s admonition in mind – ‘Just the facts, ma’am.’
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
Part 7
The summer of ‘38
From late March, when the deal for Gary Cooper fell through, until mid August when MGM signed an agreement for Clark Gable to play Rhett Butler, much of Selznick International’s pre production work on Gone With the Wind was slowed to a crawl. Of course that didn’t relieve any of the pressure on Selznick himself because other pictures took much of his time. He also had a couple of worrisome problems that required his attention, one was the GWTW script and the other was the film’s director George Cukor.
Cukor had apparently gone over the line refusing assignments to one picture after another. And it was that particular annoyance that caused Selznick to begin looking at Cukor as expendable to the production of Gone With the Wind. Considering long term and big money agreements with directors Selznick expected some loyalty and flexibility regarding picture assignments and he wasn’t getting that from Cukor.
With that in mind Selznick began to look around at possible replacements. MGM directors Jack Conway and Victor Fleming were both mentioned, but no preference was given at that time.
In the early planning stages of GWTW there was some talk of using black and white film, however, by mid summer of 1938 everyone was focused on Technicolor and who would be the best cameraman to shoot the picture. There were many top cameramen to draw from but not all of them had knowledge and experience in Technicolor. Several men under consideration were Hal Rosson, Oliver Marsh, and Ray June at MGM and Charlie Lang at Paramount. However, the possible front-runner for that position might have been Tony Gaudio mentioned in one of Selznick’s memos when he said, ‘Tony Gaudio’s work on Robin Hood was, in my opinion the best photographic job in color that has yet been done.’
And while those were major parts to the production of GWTW, getting a workable shooting script in place before cameras rolled was still the number one priority. Selznick needed some rest and decided to take a short working vacation in Bermuda. He hoped to be joined there by Sidney Howard, whose screenplay they were working from, along with Margaret Mitchell as a kind of on scene consultant. As it turned out they both declined his offer to join him and at the last minute Selznick chose Jo Swerling to work with him in Bermuda.
When the short working vacation was over Selznick returned to New York, still not satisfied with the script. At that time he put out a call for writers, he wanted Oliver Garrett to work on continuity and mentioned several writers he thought might be good for dialogue Robert Sherwood, Stark Young, James Boyd and F. Scott Fitzgerald were among them.
At that point in time as regards to casting -- of the four major players only Clark Gable was set for the film. There were too many candidates for Scarlett to even try to organize a list; in fact you might come just as close to a Scarlett by throwing darts at the pages of a Hollywood phone book.
Selznick ran hot and cold on Leslie Howard for the Ashley role, although some of that negativity was likely posturing for the benefit of Howard’s agent in order to get a better price.
The role of Melanie would be simple if Warner Brothers would play ball. Selznick wanted Olivia de Havilland but Warner Brothers was reluctant to loan out one of their stars for a secondary role.
(To be continued)
Before the film ‘Gone With the Wind ‘ there was the book:
And before the book there were lives and legends. Lenora Smalley makes the connection in her review of ‘Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone.’“Who would have ever thought the legend of Doc Holliday could be connected in any way to Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind.
When Doc Holliday went west after he discovered he had tuberculosis… He left behind a sweetheart who thought he would return after he was cured…
During his incredible research into the life of Doc Holliday, Tom Barnes discovered that this sweetheart, besides being a cousin of Doc Holliday was a distant cousin of Margaret (Peggy) Mitchell. This beautiful girl, Mattie Holliday, wrote letters to Doc for a number of years before giving up and becoming a nun in the order of Sisters of Mercy. If you read the letters, which appear in this book, you will know almost immediately which of the main characters of Gone With the Wind was inspired by Mattie Holliday.”
Writers Notebook:
Fiction and nonfiction:
Nonfiction is a term loosely used to describe a factual happening or event. But is it all fact? No. During the recreation of actual events fiction techniques are often employed, and when those techniques are used today they are called creative non-fiction. For example – one of the most famous nonfiction books in the English language is Truman Capote’s ‘In Cold Blood,’ a book filled with passages of pure fiction. There are no clear-cut rules that state how far writers of nonfiction may legitimately go into the area of fiction. And while the ivory tower crowd mull over the changing rules of the English language, non fiction writers that feel a need to stray too far into fiction might keep Television’s famous cop Joe Friday’s admonition in mind – ‘Just the facts, ma’am.’
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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