For 75 days, the Harry Ransom Center is raising funds for its 2014 exhibition The Making of Gone With The Wind. Opening on September 9, 2014, The Making of Gone With The Wind will reveal stories about the making of this quintessential film from Hollywood’s Golden Age and illustrate why it remains influential and controversial 75 years after it was released.
Items from film producer David O. Selznick’s archive provide a behind-the-scenes look into the making of the film. Donations will help support outreach, additional exhibition tours, a published exhibition catalog, and complimentary programming and presentations.
Film producer David O. Selznick’s 1939 epic film Gone With The Wind was embroiled in controversy before a single frame was shot. There were a range of issues on and off the set, including Selznick’s battle with the Hays Office, which was the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America’s office charged with production code. Selznick’s 1939 memo reveals his effort to retain the famous line in the film, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
Selznick states that the omission of the line “spoils the punch at the end of the picture, and on our very fade-out gives an impression of unfaithfulness after three hours and forty-five minutes of extreme fidelity to Miss Mitchell’s work.”
He notes that preview audiences are also stumped at the line’s omission, one that “forever establishes the future relationship between Scarlett and Rhett.”
The Making of Gone With The Wind will include over 300 original items from the Selznick archive housed at the Ransom Center, including photographs, storyboards, correspondence, production records, audition footage, and fan mail. The exhibition will also feature gowns worn by Vivien Leigh as the beautiful and ambitious Scarlett O’Hara. The newly conserved costumes will be displayed together for the first time in more than 25 years.
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