Book Review-The Making of Gone with the Wind

The University of Texas at Austin's Harry Ransom Center is running an exhibit on The Making of Gone with the Wind through January 4th, 2015.  Although I would love to visit this exhibit, it is not possible for me, so I did the next best thing.  I purchased the exhibition catalog, The Making of Gone with the Wind by Steve Wilson.   The University of Texas press has it marked down from $50.00 to $33.50, plus shipping.  Which is a great deal for the book.  It arrived fairly quickly via UPS.

The Making of Gone with the Wind is a "coffee table" book.  Too big to fit on a proper bookshelf, it is large-sized, and full of photographs, memos, and other GWTW filming trivia to make a Windie's heart sing.  I have only skimmed it, but the best part of the book are the color, and black and white photographs of memos, telegrams, and other documents relating to the production of the film.  There are also plenty of photos of the cast, crew, and sets.   There is a detailed Appendix (Document Transcripts) which provides transcripts for most of the documents shown.  A nice touch, since the old typewriter fonts and smeared ink of teletypes make the print in some pictures difficult to read.  The book ends with Acknowledgements and an Index.

I have a few other titles on the making of the film, Scarlett Fever: The Ultimate Pictorial Treasury of Gone with the Wind: Featuring the Collection of Herb Bridges by William Pratt, and Scarlett, Rhett, and a Cast of Thousands: The Filming of Gone with the Wind by Roland Flamini.  The Making of Gone with the Wind has more production details and photographs featuring costumes and set design sketches.  Including concept watercolors and paintings for scenes in the film that were never used, or changed as the script continued to be written and edited.  I am looking forward to a thorough read of this book.  Overall, if you have the money to spare and are a huge Gone with the Wind film fan, it is a good book to own or add to any Gone with the Wind collection.