Taken by the Wind

The film was produced by David O. Set in the American South against the backdrop of the American Civil War and the Reconstruction era , the film tells the story of Scarlett O'Hara , the strong-willed daughter of a Georgia plantation owner. It follows her romantic pursuit of Ashley Wilkes , who is married to his cousin, Melanie Hamilton , and her subsequent marriage to Rhett Butler. Production was difficult from the start. Filming was delayed for two years because of Selznick's determination to secure Gable for the role of Rhett Butler, and the "search for Scarlett" led to 1, women being interviewed for the part.

The original screenplay was written by Sidney Howard and underwent many revisions by several writers in an attempt to get it down to a suitable length. The original director, George Cukor , was fired shortly after filming began and was replaced by Fleming, who in turn was briefly replaced by Sam Wood while Fleming took some time off due to exhaustion. The film received positive reviews upon its release in December , although some reviewers found it overlong. The casting was widely praised, and many reviewers found Leigh especially suited to her role as Scarlett.

It set records for the total number of wins and nominations at the time. The film has been criticized as historical revisionism glorifying slavery, and it has been credited with triggering changes in the way in which African Americans are depicted cinematically. Gone with the Wind was immensely popular when first released. It became the highest-earning film made up to that point , and held the record for over a quarter of a century. When adjusted for monetary inflation , it is still the most successful film in box-office history.

It was re-released periodically throughout the 20th century and became ingrained in popular culture. The film is regarded as one of the greatest films of all time ; it has placed in the top ten of the American Film Institute 's list of the top American films since the list's inception in ; and, in , the United States Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. On the eve of the American Civil War in , Scarlett O'Hara lives at Tara , her family's cotton plantation in Georgia , with her parents and two sisters.

Scarlett learns that Ashley Wilkes —whom she secretly loves—is to be married to his cousin , Melanie Hamilton , and the engagement is to be announced the next day at a barbecue at Ashley's home, the nearby plantation Twelve Oaks. At the Twelve Oaks party, Scarlett privately declares her feelings to Ashley, but he rebuffs her by responding that he and Melanie are more compatible. Scarlett is incensed when she discovers another guest, Rhett Butler , has overheard their conversation.

The barbecue is disrupted by the declaration of war and the men rush to enlist. Although she does not love him, Scarlett consents and they are married before he leaves to fight. Scarlett is widowed when Charles dies from a bout of pneumonia and measles while serving in the Confederate Army. Scarlett's mother sends her to the Hamilton home in Atlanta to cheer her up, although the O'Haras' outspoken house slave Mammy tells Scarlett she knows she is going there only to wait for Ashley's return. Scarlett, who should not attend a party while in mourning, attends a charity bazaar in Atlanta with Melanie where she meets Rhett again, now a blockade runner for the Confederacy.

Celebrating a Confederate victory and to raise money for the Confederate war effort, gentlemen are invited to bid for ladies to dance with them. Rhett makes an inordinately large bid for Scarlett and, to the disapproval of the guests, she agrees to dance with him. The tide of war turns against the Confederacy after the Battle of Gettysburg in which many of the men of Scarlett's town are killed. Scarlett makes another unsuccessful appeal to Ashley while he is visiting on Christmas furlough , although they do share a private and passionate kiss in the parlor on Christmas Day, just before he returns to war.

Eight months later, as the city is besieged by the Union Army in the Atlanta Campaign , Scarlett and her young house slave Prissy must deliver Melanie's baby without medical assistance after she goes into premature labor. Afterwards, Scarlett calls upon Rhett to take her home to Tara with Melanie, her baby, and Prissy; he collects them in a horse and wagon, but once out of the city chooses to go off to fight, leaving Scarlett and the group to make their own way back to Tara. Upon her return home, Scarlett finds Tara deserted, except for her father, her sisters, and two former slaves: Scarlett learns that her mother has just died of typhoid fever and her father has become incompetent.

With Tara pillaged by Union troops and the fields untended, Scarlett vows she will do anything for the survival of her family and herself. As the O'Haras work in the cotton fields, Scarlett's father is killed after he is thrown from his horse in an attempt to chase away a scalawag from his land. With the defeat of the Confederacy, Ashley also returns, but finds he is of little help at Tara. When Scarlett begs him to run away with her, he confesses his desire for her and kisses her passionately, but says he cannot leave Melanie. Frank, Ashley, Rhett and several other accomplices make a night raid on a shanty town after Scarlett is attacked while driving through it alone, resulting in Frank's death.

With Frank's funeral barely over, Rhett proposes to Scarlett and she accepts. They have a daughter whom Rhett names Bonnie Blue, but Scarlett, still pining for Ashley and chagrined at the perceived ruin of her figure, lets Rhett know that she wants no more children and that they will no longer share a bed.

One day at Frank's mill, Scarlett and Ashley are seen embracing by Ashley's sister, India, and harboring an intense dislike of Scarlett she eagerly spreads rumors.

Later that evening, Rhett, having heard the rumors, forces Scarlett to attend a birthday party for Ashley. Incapable of believing anything bad of her, Melanie stands by Scarlett's side so that all know that she believes the gossip to be false. After returning home from the party, Scarlett finds Rhett downstairs drunk, and they argue about Ashley. Rhett kisses Scarlett against her will, stating his intent to have sex with her that night, and carries the struggling Scarlett to the bedroom.

The next day, Rhett apologizes for his behavior and offers Scarlett a divorce, which she rejects, saying that it would be a disgrace. When Rhett returns from an extended trip to London, Scarlett informs him that she is pregnant, but an argument ensues which results in her falling down a flight of stairs and suffering a miscarriage. As she is recovering, tragedy strikes when Bonnie dies while attempting to jump a fence with her pony. Scarlett and Rhett visit Melanie, who has suffered complications arising from a new pregnancy, on her deathbed. As Scarlett consoles Ashley, Rhett prepares to return to their home in Atlanta.

Having realized that it was he she truly loved all along, and not Ashley, Scarlett pleads with Rhett to stay, but Rhett rebuffs her and storms off into the morning fog, leaving her weeping on the staircase and vowing to one day win back his love. Despite receiving top- billing in the opening credits , Gable—along with Leigh, Howard, and de Havilland who receive second, third, and fourth billing respectively—has a relatively low placing in the cast list , due to its unusual structure. Rather than ordered by conventional billing, the cast is broken down into three sections: The cast's names are ordered according to the social rank of the characters; therefore Thomas Mitchell, who plays Gerald O'Hara, leads the cast list as the head of the O'Hara family, while Barbara O'Neil as his wife receives the second credit and Vivien Leigh as the eldest daughter the third credit, despite having the most screen time.

Hickman as John Wilkes is credited over Leslie Howard who plays his son, and Clark Gable, who plays only a visitor at Twelve Oaks, receives a relatively low credit in the cast list, despite being presented as the " star " of the film in all the promotional literature. Before publication of the novel, several Hollywood executives and studios declined to create a film based on it, including Louis B.

Selznick of Selznick International Pictures. Warner liked the story, but Warner Bros. Selznick changed his mind after his story editor Kay Brown and business partner John Hay Whitney urged him to buy the film rights. The casting of the two lead roles became a complex, two-year endeavor. The arrangement to release through MGM meant delaying the start of production until the end of , when Selznick's distribution deal with United Artists concluded. Selznick began a nationwide casting call that interviewed 1, unknowns. Katharine Hepburn lobbied hard for the role with the support of her friend, George Cukor, who had been hired to direct, but she was vetoed by Selznick who felt she was not right for the part.

However, Hopkins was in her mid-thirties at the time and was considered too old for the part. Leigh's American agent was the London representative of the Myron Selznick talent agency headed by David Selznick's brother, one of the owners of Selznick International , and she had requested in February that her name be submitted for consideration as Scarlett. By the summer of the Selznicks were negotiating with Alexander Korda , to whom Leigh was under contract, for her services later that year.

In a letter to his wife two days later, Selznick admitted that Leigh was "the Scarlett dark horse", and after a series of screen tests, her casting was announced on January 13, Identically, Miss Leigh's parents are French and Irish. Of original screenplay writer Sidney Howard , film historian Joanne Yeck writes, "reducing the intricacies of Gone with the Wind' s epic dimensions was a herculean task Fleming was dissatisfied with the script, so Selznick brought in famed writer Ben Hecht to rewrite the entire screenplay within five days.

Hecht returned to Howard's original draft and by the end of the week had succeeded in revising the entire first half of the script. Selznick undertook rewriting the second half himself but fell behind schedule, so Howard returned to work on the script for one week, reworking several key scenes in part two. The fact that Howard's name alone appears on the credits may have been as much a gesture to his memory as to his writing, for in Sidney Howard died at age 48 in a farm-tractor accident, and before the movie's premiere. Offhand I doubt that there are ten original words of [Oliver] Garrett's in the whole script.

As to construction, this is about eighty per cent my own, and the rest divided between Jo Swerling and Sidney Howard, with Hecht having contributed materially to the construction of one sequence. Hecht was in the middle of working on the film At the Circus for the Marx Brothers. Recalling the episode in a letter to screenwriter friend Gene Fowler , he said he hadn't read the novel but Selznick and director Fleming could not wait for him to read it.

They acted scenes based on Sidney Howard's original script which needed to be rewritten in a hurry. Hecht wrote, "After each scene had been performed and discussed, I sat down at the typewriter and wrote it out. Selznick and Fleming, eager to continue with their acting, kept hurrying me. We worked in this fashion for seven days, putting in eighteen to twenty hours a day. Selznick refused to let us eat lunch, arguing that food would slow us up. He provided bananas and salted peanuts MacAdams writes, "It is impossible to determine exactly how much Hecht scripted In the official credits filed with the Screen Writers Guild , Sidney Howard was of course awarded the sole screen credit, but four other writers were appended Jo Swerling for contributing to the treatment, Oliver H.

Garrett and Barbara Keon to screenplay construction, and Hecht, to dialogue Principal photography began January 26, , and ended on July 1, with post-production work continuing until November 11, Director George Cukor , with whom Selznick had a long working relationship, and who had spent almost two years in pre-production on Gone with the Wind , was replaced after less than three weeks of shooting.

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Emanuel Levy , Cukor's biographer, claimed that Clark Gable had worked Hollywood's gay circuit as a hustler and that Cukor knew of his past, so Gable used his influence to have him discharged. Although some of Cukor's scenes were later reshot, Selznick estimated that "three solid reels" of his work remained in the picture. As of the end of principal photography, Cukor had undertaken eighteen days of filming, Fleming ninety-three, and Wood twenty-four. Cinematographer Lee Garmes began the production, but on March 11, —after a month of shooting footage that Selznick and his associates regarded as "too dark"—was replaced with Ernest Haller , working with Technicolor cinematographer Ray Rennahan.

Garmes completed the first third of the film—mostly everything prior to Melanie having the baby—but did not receive a credit. With that amendment, the Production Code Administration had no further objection to Rhett's closing line. Steiner spent twelve weeks working on the score, the longest period that he had ever spent writing one, and at two hours and thirty-six minutes long it was also the longest that he had ever written.

The score is characterized by two love themes, one for Ashley's and Melanie's sweet love and another that evokes Scarlett's passion for Ashley, though notably there is no Scarlett and Rhett love theme.

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The theme that is most associated with the film today is the melody that accompanies Tara, the O'Hara plantation; in the early s, "Tara's Theme" formed the musical basis of the song "My Own True Love" by Mack David. In all, there are ninety-nine separate pieces of music featured in the score. Due to the pressure of completing on time, Steiner received some assistance in composing from Friedhofer, Deutsch and Heinz Roemheld , and in addition, two short cues—by Franz Waxman and William Axt —were taken from scores in the MGM library.

The film was still a rough cut at this stage, missing completed titles and lacking special optical effects. It ran for four hours and twenty-five minutes, but later was cut to under four hours for its proper release. A double bill of Hawaiian Nights and Beau Geste was playing, and after the first feature it was announced that the theater would be screening a preview; the audience were informed they could leave but would not be readmitted once the film had begun, nor would phone calls be allowed once the theater had been sealed.

When the title appeared on the screen the audience cheered, and after it had finished it received a standing ovation. Sometimes I think it's the greatest picture ever made. But if it's only a great picture, I'll still be satisfied. About , people came out in Atlanta for the film's premiere at the Loew's Grand Theatre on December 15, It was the climax of three days of festivities hosted by Mayor William B. Hartsfield , which included a parade of limousines featuring stars from the film, receptions, thousands of Confederate flags and a costume ball.

Rivers , the governor of Georgia, declared December 15 a state holiday. An estimated three hundred thousand residents and visitors to Atlanta lined the streets for up to seven miles to watch a procession of limousines bring the stars from the airport. Only Leslie Howard and Victor Fleming chose not to attend: Howard had returned to England due to the outbreak of World War II , and Fleming had fallen out with Selznick and declined to attend any of the premieres. Upon learning that McDaniel had been barred from the premiere, Clark Gable threatened to boycott the event, but McDaniel convinced him to attend.

After reaching saturation as a roadshow, MGM revised its terms to a 50 percent cut and halved the prices, before it finally entered general release in at "popular" prices. In doing so, a number of shots were optically re-framed and cut into the three-strip camera negatives, forever altering five shots in the film. It was attended by Selznick and many other stars of the film, including Vivien Leigh and Olivia de Havilland; [37] Clark Gable had died the previous year.

It was released theatrically one more time in the United States, in The film received its world television premiere on the HBO cable network on June 11, , and played on the channel for a total of fourteen times throughout the rest of the month. It made its network television debut in November later that year: It became at that time the highest-rated television program ever presented on a single network, watched by Upon its release, consumer magazines and newspapers generally gave Gone with the Wind excellent reviews; [8] however, while its production values, technical achievements, and scale of ambition were universally recognized, some reviewers of the time found the film to be too long and dramatically unconvincing.

Nugent for The New York Times best summed up the general sentiment by acknowledging that while it was the most ambitious film production made up to that point, it probably was not the greatest film ever made, but he nevertheless found it to be an "interesting story beautifully told". There are moments when the two categories meet on good terms, but the long stretches between are filled with mere spectacular efficiency.

While the film was praised for its fidelity to the novel, [45] this aspect was also singled out as the main factor in contributing to the lengthy running time. Flinn wrote for Variety that Selznick had "left too much in", and that as entertainment, the film would have benefited if repetitious scenes and dialog from the latter part of the story had been trimmed. The Guardian believed that if "the story had been cut short and tidied up at the point marked by the interval, and if the personal drama had been made subservient to a cinematic treatment of the central theme—the collapse and devastation of the Old South—then Gone With the Wind might have been a really great film".

Despite many excellent scenes, he considered the drama to be unconvincing and that the "psychological development" had been neglected. Much of the praise was reserved for the casting, with Vivien Leigh in particular being singled out for her performance as Scarlett. Nugent described her as the "pivot of the picture" and believed her to be "so perfectly designed for the part by art and nature that any other actress in the role would be inconceivable".

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Nugent believed she gave the best performance in the film after Vivien Leigh, [45] with Flinn placing it third after Leigh's and Gable's performances. At the 12th Academy Awards , Gone with the Wind set a record for Academy Award wins and nominations, winning in eight of the competitive categories it was nominated in, from a total of thirteen nominations. Hattie McDaniel became the first African-American to win an Academy Award—beating out her co-star Olivia de Havilland who was also nominated in the same category—but was racially segregated from her co-stars at the awards ceremony at the Coconut Grove ; she and her escort were made to sit at a separate table at the back of the room.

Thalberg Memorial Award for his career achievements. Black commentators criticised the film for its depiction of black people and as a glorification of slavery. Carlton Moss , a black dramatist, complained in an open letter that whereas The Birth of a Nation was a "frontal attack on American history and the Negro people", Gone with the Wind was a "rear attack on the same". He went on to dismiss it as a "nostalgic plea for sympathy for a still living cause of Southern reaction". Moss further criticized the stereotypical black characterizations, such as the "shiftless and dull-witted Pork", the "indolent and thoroughly irresponsible Prissy", Big Sam's "radiant acceptance of slavery", and Mammy with her "constant haranguing and doting on every wish of Scarlett".

McDaniel responded that she would "rather make seven hundred dollars a week playing a maid than seven dollars being one"; she further questioned White's qualification to speak on behalf of blacks, since he was light-skinned and only one-eighth black. Opinion in the black community was generally divided upon release, with the film being called by some a "weapon of terror against black America" and an insult to black audiences, and demonstrations were held in various cities.

A Journal of Negro Life used the film as reminder of the "limit" put on black aspiration by old prejudices. Upon its release, Gone with the Wind broke attendance records everywhere. At the Capitol Theatre in New York alone, it was averaging eleven thousand admissions per day in late December, [34] and within four years of its release had sold an estimated sixty million tickets across the United States—sales equivalent to just under half the population at the time. Even though it earned its investors roughly twice as much as the previous record-holder, The Birth of a Nation , [62] [63] the box-office performances of the two films were likely much closer.

The bulk of the earnings from Gone with the Wind came from its roadshow and first-run engagements, which represented 70 percent and 50 percent of the box-office gross respectively, before entering general release which at the time typically saw the distributor's share set at 30—35 percent of the gross.

Milliken , secretary of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association , estimated that The Birth of a Nation had been seen by fifty million people by Across all releases, it is estimated that Gone with the Wind has sold over million tickets in the United States and Canada , [59] generating more theater admissions in that territory than any other film. The film remains immensely popular with audiences into the 21st century, having been voted the most popular film in two nationwide polls of Americans undertaken by Harris Interactive in , and again in The market research firm surveyed over two thousand U.

American Film Institute [80]. In revisiting the film in the s, Arthur Schlesinger noted that Hollywood films generally age well, revealing an unexpected depth or integrity, but in the case of Gone with the Wind time has not treated it kindly. Sarris concedes that despite its artistic failings, the film does hold a mandate around the world as the "single most beloved entertainment ever produced". The film has featured in several high-profile industry polls: Gone with the Wind has been criticized as having perpetuated Civil War myths and black stereotypes. And, in the background, the black slaves are mostly dutiful and content, clearly incapable of an independent existence.

Gone with the Wind and Southern Myths". Bryan Rommel Ruiz has argued that despite factual inaccuracies in its depiction of the Reconstruction period, Gone with the Wind nevertheless reflects contemporary interpretations that were common in the early 20th century. One such viewpoint is reflected in a brief scene in which Mammy fends off a leering freedman: The inference is taken to be that freedmen are ignorant about politics and unprepared for freedom, unwittingly becoming the tools of corrupt Reconstruction officials.

While perpetuating some Lost Cause myths, the film makes concessions in regard to others. After the attack on Scarlett in the shanty town, a group of men including Scarlett's husband Frank, Rhett Butler and Ashley raid the town; in the novel they belong to the Ku Klux Klan, representing the common trope of protecting the white woman's virtue, but the filmmakers consciously neutralize the presence of the Klan in the film by referring to it only as a "political meeting".

Thomas Cripps reasons that the film in some respects undercuts racial stereotypes; [98] in particular, the film created greater engagement between Hollywood and black audiences, [98] with dozens of movies making small gestures in recognition of the emerging trend. More than any film since The Birth of a Nation , it unleashed a variety of social forces that foreshadowed an alliance of white liberals and blacks who encouraged the expectation that blacks would one day achieve equality. According to Cripps, the film eventually became a template for measuring social change.

In , Gone with the Wind was pulled from the schedule at the Orpheum Theatre in Memphis, Tennessee after a year run of annual showings due to its perceived racially insensitive content. One of the most notorious and widely condemned scenes in Gone with the Wind depicts what is now legally defined as " marital rape ".

Taken By The Wind by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

I think I was just disappointed that it was so easy to guess what was going on and let down that the end was so quickly resolved. But if you're in the mood to read about a serial killer chasing a heroine across the country but you don't want to commit yourself to long story, then here you go. Jun 01, Summer rated it really liked it Shelves: A tense thriller which I read in one sitting. It grips you from the start and the build up continues till the end.

The ending is Creepy and revealing! Feb 21, HJ rated it really liked it Shelves: As always, Charlotte Boyette-Compo writes a very compelling, tense tale. This is no exception. Despite the fact that the book had already been 'spoiled' for me, I still couldn't put it down or wait to get to the end. I particularly love how, as a reader, I kept trying to figure 'it' out, with surprising difficulty. May 31, Della Amor rated it liked it Shelves: I was honestly expecting more from this book but since it was a fast read and managed to hold my interest to the very end I'm giving it 3 stars.

The twist was pretty predictable and the epilogue was so anticlimactic I had to drop one star from the original 4. We have a serial killer who's obsessed with a witness that piqued his interest and he proceeds to follow her all across the country leaving a trail of bodies and To my relief, apart from two? May 04, Maya rated it liked it Shelves: This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Someone needs to explain the ending here? May 23, Linda rated it it was amazing. Brenna Collins knew that she was getting a migraine and she rubbed her throbbing temple as she sat at her desk crunching numbers at her job.

It was late and she thought that she was alone just what Brenna needed she thought, but then she heard a thump and then another.

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Finally she heard William Jenner pleading for his life, the next sound she heard was a soft popping that repeated three times. They sounded like muffled shots and Brenna wasted no time clicking off her lights. Brenna waited until Brenna Collins knew that she was getting a migraine and she rubbed her throbbing temple as she sat at her desk crunching numbers at her job. Brenna waited until she heard the elevator door closing to walk as silently as she could. Brenna turned the door knob then opened the door to see William Jenner's body slouched against the wall outside her office door.

He looked as if he was taking a nap if you did not noticed the bullet hole between his eyes and his brains running slowly down the wall.

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Brenna curbed her urge to scream, she had to get out of there knowing that the killer could still be hiding some where she headed for the elevator and just as the doors started to close she heard a loud thump against the doors that had her heart pounding. Detective Kylan Cree knew that Brenna knew more about the murder of William Jenner but he knew that she was so upset that she wouldn't talk and since she had a migraine he sent her to the hospital to get some relief. Kylan would let her sleep tonight but first thing in the morning he would find out what she was hiding!

Charolotte has done it again where she kept me on the edge of my seat as I traveled with Brenna running from Des Moines Iowa to Milton Florida to Wateron New York from the Gemini Killer who had some how let her see his face and always managed to find her. The Gemini Killer only killed one of a pair of twins and he was wanted by the FBI but since he never left a witness or any clues to his identity the law enforcement were clueless as to where to turn next.

So far he had killed eleven people and he had to be stopped now! This is an excellent read for all suspense lovers with just enough sex to keep you squirming. This was a nice suspenseful read. I wanted to rate it 3 stars, but the twist definitely deserved an extra star. Because of the reviews I knew I had to watch out for something.

So I was on edge the whole time, prepared and suspecting anything and everything. Brenna 29 hears a murder take place at her work place. She gets caught by the infamous Gemini-killer he always kills twins well one of the twins anyway , tries to defend herself and then readdies herself to be offed. But the killer lets her g This was a nice suspenseful read.

But the killer lets her go, because she's piqued his interest. What I liked was his obsession with the heroine. What happened to him? Is he just crazy-crazy? He of course gave a vague reason towards the end, but it still doesn't explain why he took things so far. The story jumps from one scene to the other.

Not much details are given, unfortunately. I loved the overall idea, but it definitely could have been written better. Because there was no one else to root for okay! This gripping thriller has more turns than a chain-link fence.