Gone with the Wind Trivia

Just some fun book and movie trivia links for your perusal.

"20 Things You Might Not Have Known About Gone With The Wind" is a short, but interesting article with photographs.   Mental Floss.


"A Home for Ashley Wilkes" from Deep South Magazine  has a brief article on how Margaret Mitchell noted she liked Covington House, and sent a picture of it on to David O. Selznick.  Then chronicles the current owners efforts to acquire and restore the house, which is now a Bed and Breakfast.  This article is followed by "Travel the Gone With The Wind Trail" a visitors guide of sites and there locations for Windies able to sojourn to Georgia.


"Gone With The Wind Film Locations" on The World Wide Guide To Film Locations.  Busch Gardens served as Twelve Oaks grounds for the barbecue scenes, and the Shanty Town attack was at Big Bear Lake in San Bernardino are just some of the locations listed.


"Trivia and Fun Facts About Gone With The Wind" on TCM.com has some old and new facts, and a long list of the best quotes from the movie.

                                             What Margaret Mitchell sent to David O. Selznick

How the house in Covington, Georgia looks currently.  

Of Sequels, the Mitchell Estate, Copyright, and Such. . . .

Give Us Tommorrow: Searching for a Sequel to "Gone With The Wind" is a wonderful blog article about various attempted sequels, screenplays, and estate approved books. Full of facts and trivia, it makes one wish they could read many of the screen plays and sequels not released, and got me thinking about the authorized sequels.

I was so excited for Scarlett to be released as a book.  Finally, Rhett and Scarlett back together.  I had read Alexander Ripley's other historical fiction books and enjoyed them.   Scarlett was a disappointment.  I didn't even bother with the mini-series when it was on TV.  Then Rhett Butler's People came out, and the thought of perhaps learning more about the enigma that is Rhett intrigued me.  Short on reading time and with a long commute, I checked it out from the library as an audio book, and nearly rear-ended the car in front of me, as Rhett mused about magnolias and whippoorwills on his way to the duel with the silly girl's brother.  I suffered through the entire book, rallying against McCaig's complete and utter ignorance of details in Gone With The Wind, that he either changed or left-out completely.  It was annoying to say the least.  I did not even bother with Ruth's Journey, the prequel from Mammy's perspective.  Pat Conroy was originally approached to write Rhett Butler's story.  Which seemed to be a great match and was written up in New York Times. Pat clashed too much with the estate, who he felt was censoring his work, so quit.  One suspects his Rhett would've been more interesting and like the actual character.  Pat grew up on Gone With The Wind, and wrote a great essay about it's influence on his mother's life that is the preface of the 75th Anniversary edition of the novel.  NPR interviewed him about the book and his essay.  A brief excerpt of the preface is included.

There have been numerous other attempts to write screenplays and novels for Gone With The Wind, but the conservators of the Mitchell Estate are notoriously conservative, and have successfully blocked most "unauthorized" sequels.  The exception being The Wind Done Gone by Alice Randall.  The Mitchell estate sued to stop the publication of the book.   An appeals court overturned a lower courts injunction saying The Wind Done Gone was a parody and therefore protected by free speech.


The Mitchell Estate is only one of many estates, and corporations who take an interest in copyright. Previously, a book, film, or other copyrighted work entered the Public Domain 50 years after the author's death, but in 1998 the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act was passed by congress (yes, that Sonny, Cher's ex) and signed by former President Clinton which extended copyright to 70 years after the authors death.  The Copyright Extension Act was challenged in Eldred vs. Ashcroft,  a case that went to the Supreme Court, and was decided 7 to 2 in favor of Congress having the constitutional ability to change copyright retroactively.   The Washington Post 2013 article "15 years ago Congress kept Mickey Mouse out of Public domain.  Will they do it again?"  discusses the impact this bill had on businesses, individuals, and concepts such as fair use. The Copyright Extension Act ends in 2019, which means there is a slim chance Gone With The Wind will finally enter the public domain.

Despite the questionable estate approved sequels, there are many good sequels, prequels, and alternate universe stories on fanfiction.net Too bad the estate won't let any of these be published.

 

Cheer up, maybe you'll have a miscarriage . . . .

Famous last words before the fall down the staircase that leads to Scarlett's miscarriage and further estrangement from Rhett.  The medical reality is most miscarriages in the first trimester, are due to genetic issues, or autoimmune disorders.  The article Can Fall During Pregnancy Cause a Miscarriage  helps dispel the myths of falls and trips causing miscarriages as perpetuated by authors and film-makers.  In this case, the miscarriage was a plot device, and since Margaret Mitchell was writing during the 1930's, when the real causes of miscarriages were not known, it makes sense that she and other early writers didn't know any better.   If the fall took place further along in the pregnancy, such as the 2nd or 3rd trimester, it could lead to a miscarriage or stillbirth.

Now Scarlett's drinking, if heavy enough could, contribute to a miscarriage, but her drinking after Rhett flees Atlanta with Bonnie is not mentioned in Gone With The Wind, though her drinking when pregnant with Ella was.  This leads the reader to presume she probably wasn't drinking, or not more than she did when expecting Ella after Rhett deserted.

Here's an extra tidbit.  I came across this great little blog post, The Role of Staircases in "Gone With The Wind", which is based on the film, but still makes some interesting points.  Enjoy.

Saving Scarlett's Barbaque Dress. . . .

An interesting article from LA Weekly on "The Painstaking Process of Restoring a Scarlett O'Hara Dress", on efforts to conserve and display the famous BBQ dress.  I must confess it is my favorite dress in the film, followed by the red velvet birthday dress, and the famous curtain dress.
What is your favorite dress from the Gone With The Wind movie?