Picture this: a moment so intense it didn't make the final cut of the 1939 classic Gone With the Wind. Rhett Butler, the dashing rogue we all love, is in his bedroom, drowning his sorrows in drink and toying with a gun. A knock at the door jolts him from his dark thoughts. He gets up and finds Melanie Hamilton standing there, a scene that reveals so much about the characters but never made it to the silver screen.
Now, let's rewind 85 years to when Gone With the Wind first graced the theaters. It wasn't just any movie; it was a Technicolor masterpiece that brought the tragic love story of Rhett and Scarlett O’Hara to life, set against the backdrop of the Civil War and the Reconstruction era. Critics were blown away. John C. Flinn Sr. of Variety raved on December 19, 1939, calling it "one of the truly great films, destined for record-breaking box office business everywhere." Despite its epic runtime of three hours and 37 minutes, it proved that quality entertainment always finds an audience.
Fast forward to 2020, and Gone With the Wind still holds the title of the highest-grossing film of all time when adjusted for inflation. Much of this success is thanks to the iconic performances by Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable. The movie's NBC debut in 1976 drew in a staggering 47 percent of all American TV viewers. But as times have changed, so has the conversation around this film.
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In recent years, the film has faced a growing backlash for its overly sweetened portrayal of slavery and its reliance on racist stereotypes. HBO even took the bold step of removing it from its streaming library in 2020, adding a new introduction to provide historical context. What might surprise modern audiences and even long-time fans, affectionately called "Windies," is that the filmmakers grappled with these issues right from the start.
Rethinking the Glorified Old South
During the same period HBO pulled the film, Yale graduate student David Vincent Kimel made an intriguing discovery. He purchased an original Gone With the Wind shooting script and found it contained several scenes that never made it into the movie. These scenes offered a more honest and unflinching view of slavery. "In earlier drafts, the producer considered showing a much more brutal depiction of slavery, more violent and cruel than what we see in the book," Kimel, a historian currently writing Lie, Steal, Cheat, or Kill about the making of Gone With the Wind, tells Closer. "Producer David O. Selznick wrestled with the idea of not creating a monument of hate" toward Black people.
As early as 1936, a representative from the NAACP reached out to Selznick, urging him to steer clear of the most offensive elements of the novel. It seems that the producer took this feedback to heart by removing the n-word, which appears in Mitchell’s novel and early drafts of the script. "Selznick took the word out as well as explicit references to the KKK," Kimel explains.
He also included a few subtle moments that appear to condemn slavery. "For instance, enslaved workers forced to dig ditches for the South sing 'Go Down Moses' with the refrain 'Let my people go,'" says Kimel.
Gone With the Wind credits only one writer, Sidney Howard, but it was an open secret that many other writers worked on the project, including the legendary F. Scott Fitzgerald, who was brought in to add some humor to the role of Scarlett's Aunt Pittypat. Other writers came and went. "The version of the script that portrayed slavery at its most brutal was written by a passionate but clumsy writer," Kimel explains. "Ultimately, the filmmakers leaned into a more romanticized view of the Old South, appealing to white audiences and making Scarlett less unsympathetic."
Vivien Leigh's Stellar Performance
Would Gone With the Wind have been as successful without audiences rooting for Scarlett? Probably not. Vivien Leigh shines brightest in the film when she embodies Scarlett's grit, courage, and determination against all odds. Similarly, if Clark Gable's Rhett weren't a man whose charming exterior hid a good heart, generations of women wouldn't have swooned over him. Selznick crafted a timeless love story with flawed yet relatable characters, even if other choices reflected a sanitized version of the antebellum South that never truly existed.
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Mickey Kuhn, who played Beau Wilkes in the film and passed away in 2022 at age 90, managed to reconcile the film's artistry with its inaccuracies. "Yes, it's probably prejudiced," he told Closer, "but it was one of the first truly great movies that came out of Hollywood. No other studio had the guts to attempt it."
Even if you don't agree with the filmmakers' choices, Gone With the Wind may still hold value nearly a century after its debut. "Sometimes the most important art to revisit is art that infuriates and challenges us," says Kimel, "not just art that confirms what we already believe."
