Jonas Wilkerson steps out from the shadow, confronting her. He has some papers in his hands. He is nervously brushing his nose and sniffling—a characteristic gesture.
Wilkerson
Good evening, Mrs. O’Hara.
She stares at him—her expression hardening.
Wilkerson
The cotton reports are ready—when it’s convenient for you, Ma’am.
– – – – – – – – – – –
SCENES 21 & 23:
It has no doubt occurred to you that Ellen’s addressing Gerald as “Mr. O’Hara” is going to puzzle a lot of people outside of the deep South. My Alabama mother-in-law almost always referred to her husband as “Judge Sayre” in public, but often slipped to “Anthony.” I can’t imagine that she called him Judge Sayre in friendlier and more intimate moments. My suggestion is that in scene 21 Ellen calls him “Gerald” and that in scene 23, where the girls are running into the shot, she switches to the more formal “Mr. O’Hara.” If we leave the audience in confusion for even a minute as to who Ellen is there in scene 21, they are liable not to hear the lines about dismissing the overseer.
– – – – – – – – – – –
SCENE 22:
Carreen
Mother, where’ve you been?
Scarlett
Mother, there’s a lot of things—
Suellen
Mother, Scarlett’s being selfish—
– – – – – – – – – – –
SCENE 25:
Scarlett
Mother, the lace is loose on my ball dress. Will you show me—
Suellen
Mother, can’t I wear Scarlett’s green? She said we’d change around.
Carreen
Mother, I’m quite old enough for the ball tomorrow night.
– – – – – – – – – – –
SCENE 26:
Pork
Miss Ellen, you kain’t skip yo’ meals like this—you come along.
– – – – – – – – – – –
SCENE 35:
Prissy is teetering on high-heel French slippers.
Prissy (proudly)
They use’ b’long Miss Scarlett. They sho’ does push a pusson fo’ward.
Suggest that Pork goes out of shot and Prissy either has an awful time on the first step or else takes them off and goes up barefooted.
SCENE 36:
After “I’ll have to get a husband”:
Prissy enters with a tray.
Mammy (gesturing where to put the food)
You’ll have to get that down with a shoe-horn.
(she laughs at her own joke)
Prissy (sets the tray down and stares wide-eyed at the cutlery)
I didn’t bring no shoe-horn.
SCENE 50:
I have your change in Cathleen’s remark. Before I got it I had gone back to the book, as you suggested, and preserved the line, “He’s not received.” It is Scarlett who discovers later that Rhett is not a gentleman at heart, but at this point he is still a gentleman by birth although a fallen one.
– – – – – – – – – – –
SCENE 51:
I have interchanged Brent and Stuart in scene 51. Stuart, a little drunk, is more likely to rush away for dessert, while Brent can cue the situation of Ashley and Melanie. Note that several birds are killed with one stone.
– – – – – – – – – – –
SCENES 51 & 52:
Scarlett’s remark about why she chose the ottoman isn’t funny coming from her—it makes her stick out her chin just a little too much, so I switched it to Rhett—it is just the sort of observation that he would make about Scarlett, something she thought, not said. He always knows what she is thinking.
As to John Wilkes’ remark about her being hard-hearted—in the book it was said very laughingly in Scarlett’s presence, not pronounced grimly and definitively by an old man. Old men like her.
– – – – – – – – – – –
SCENE 55:
Scene 55 is confused and contradictory. It is well planted that Scarlett is so full that she’s had to belch, so how could she have already consumed a large dish of pork and encouraged her swains to bring her two more? I am substituting new lines.
– – – – – – – – – – –
SCENE 60:
Every once in a while Miss Mitchell slips though I admire her careful documentation. One of the places is scene 60. I refer to Ashley’s Journey’s-end-1925 brand of pacifism. It sounds like one of those feeble sops that Warner Brothers now put into their pictures. The grandson of those people who fought the Revolution believed passionately in righteous wars. What the more radical of them hated was Napoleonic militarism. Anyhow, the speech was better in its Margaret Mitchell form and I have restored it somewhat.
– – – – – – – – – – –
SCENE 67:
The scene between Ashley and Scarlett in the library has been badly tampered with. It is important that Scarlett goes into her dance at the very beginning and the evident intention of prolonging the suspense by the lines about “going upstairs and resting” doesn’t come off.
Secondly, while I agree we should show her strong physical attraction for Ashley, I think that in his long speech which includes the line “passionately—with every fibre of my being,” Ashley goes entirely out of character and completely wrecks the meaning and the spirit of it all. The entire sympathy for Ashley would be lost in that moment. A man who turns down a woman is always suspected as being a prig. For an unmarried man to turn down a woman whom he loves “passionately and with every fibre of his being” makes him simply unforgivable, inexplicable and heartless. Margaret Mitchell by having Ashley show admirable control has established a credible situation. Ashley has never allowed himself to love Scarlett “passionately and with every fibre of his being.” That is the whole point of the scene. When he says “Yes, I care,” he is really saying that he knows he could love her—no more, no less than that.
– – – – – – – – – – –
SCENE 71:
This scene should end with Rhett’s laughter. Both these scripts seem to believe that Scarlett needs the exit line, but I think Margaret Mitchell’s instinct was just right. We have a dissolve here and our imagination is quite capable of realizing what is going on inside Scarlett.
– – – – – – – – – – –
SCENE 75:
The expansion of Charles’ proposal in scene 75 is rather decidedly inept. In the first place, “I love you” is never really effective on the screen. Usage has done something to it—killed it, warped it in some way so it is only an expression that leaves some audiences cold and makes others snicker. Now, shouldn’t we follow Miss Mitchell’s method here? All this building up of Scarlett’s love and Scarlett’s plan has made possible the short, sharp denouements in the library and in this scene. They are effective as they are. They are all prepared for and we are simply interested in the answers. Here, as in the library scene, the script writer has seen fit to blow it up and make it draggy.
The underlying truth here is that Scarlett’s show-off has worked perfectly, but it has worked not for Ashley but for Charles, who was little more than a bystander. We don’t have to sell his love to the audience—and more important, we don’t even have to sell Scarlett’s astounding decision.
I have taken the liberty of making many cuts and additions in this scene using the old dialogue.
Shouldn’t there be a seat on the landing for Charles and Melanie in this scene?
– – – – – – – – – – –
SCENE 74:
While the men are rushing away to war, I seem to hear the melody of “Goodnight, Ladies” played swiftly and satirically while Scarlett makes her arrangements with Charles Hamilton.
TO: Barbara Keon1
Typed memo, 1 p. Harry Ransom Humanities
Research Center, University of
Texas, Austin
Selznick International Pictures stationery. Culver City, California
January 24, 1939
“GONE WITH THE WIND”
REASONS AGAINST
SCARLETT’S MISCARRIAGE
AT THE END.
It seems obvious to me that three such bitter doses as the death of a child, a miscarriage and the death of a woman in childbirth will leave a terribly bitter taste in the audiences’ collective mouth at the end of the picture. Melanie’s death was prepared for more adequately in the book than we can do it in the picture—and in the book the miscarriage seems a less of a disaster since Scarlett already had three children.
Most of all, the three events are necessary in such close juxtaposition in the picture, one scene crowding upon the other, that I think the miscarriage can certainly be spared. Mr. Selznick’s scheme of having Melanie’s talk with Rhett follow the night of the party seems to me infinitely superior.
If all three of these catastrophes are used there is not a reporter in the press who will not seize upon them and blame them for the impression of general unhappiness which the picture will leave. There is something about three gloomy things that is infinitely worse than two, and I do not believe that people are grateful for being harrowed in quite this way.
F. Scott Fitzg——
FSF: cf
TO: Scottie Fitzgerald
January 1939
Typed copy, 1 p. Princeton University
Encino, California
Dearest Pie:
Day of rest! After a wild all-night working on Gone with the Wind and more to come tomorrow. I read it—I mean really read it—it is a good novel—not very original, in fact leaning heavily on The Old Wives’ Tale, Vanity Fair, and all that has been written on the Civil War. There are no new characters, new technique, new observations—none of the elements that make literature—especially no new examination into human emotions. But on the other hand it is interesting, surprisingly honest, consistent and workman like throughout, and I felt no contempt for it but only a certain pity for those who considered it the supreme achievement of the human mind. So much for that—I may be on it two weeks—or two months. I disagreed with everybody about how to do Madame Curie and they’re trying it another way.
Your cold stirred certain gloomy reflections in me. Like me, you were subject to colds when young, deep chest colds near to pneumonia. I didn’t begin to be a heavy smoker until I was a Sophomore but it took just one year to send me into tuberculosis and cast a shadow that has been extremely long. I wish there was something that would make you cut it out—the only pay off is that if you’re run down by June to spend a summer in the open air, which is a pity with so much to do and learn. I don’t want to bury you in your debut dress.
My own plans are uncertain. I am pretty disgusted with pictures after all that censorship trouble and want to break off for a while when I have another good credit (I wont get one on The Women.)—but when, I don’t know.
Havent read De Monarchia.1 Read several pieces by Cornelia Skinner2 and found them thin and unamusing. Since you’ve undertaken the Dorian Grey I hope you make a success of it but I hope the professor knows what you’re doing. She might not consider the rearrangement of someone else’s words a literary composition, which would leave you out on a limb. Are you taking swimming?
Dearest love,
Daddy
P.S. Of course I do not care if you postpone Cynara, etc., though it’s such a detail, and you must be in the library everyday. Your college work comes first—but I cant help wondering how, if time is reduced to such minuscules, you would ever have thought of trying out for a play. That of course is entirely out at present—last year should have taught you that lesson.
TO: Scottie Fitzgerald
Winter 1939
ALS, 5 pp. Princeton University
Encino, California
Dearest Scottina: I know you looked first at the check, but it does not represent a business transaction. I am too tired at the moment to argue but your figures are wrong. However I’m having it all checked up by my secretary. I think there is a gift somewhere.
Sorry you got the impression that I’m quitting the movies—they are always there—I’m doing a two weeks rewrite for Paramount at the moment after finishing a short story. But I’m convinced that maybe they’re not going to make me Czar of the Industry right away, as I thought 10 months ago. It’s all right Baby—life has humbled me—Czar or not we’ll survive. I am even willing to compromise for Assistant Czar!
Seriously, I expect to dip in and out of the pictures for the rest of my natural life, but it is not very soul-satisfying because it is a business of telling stories fit for children and this is only interesting up to a point. It is the greatest of all human mediums of communication and it is a pity that the censorship had to come along + do this, but there we are. Only—I will never again sign a contract which binds me to tell none other than children’s stories for a year and a half!
Anyhow Im on the new Madeline Carrol1 picture (go to see “Café Society”—it’s pretty damn good, I think. This one is the same producer-director-stars combination) and anyhow the movies are a dull life and one hopes one will be able to transcend it.
You’ve let me down about the reading. I’m sorry you did because I’ll have to bargain with you. Read Moll Flanders, for any favors asked. I mean this: skip Tono Bungay but if you don’t care enough about my advice to do some fractional exploring in literature instead of skimming Life + The New Yorker—I’m going to get into one of those unsympathetic moods—if I’m not sorry for people’s efforts there seems to be an icy and inhuman reaction. So please report on Moll Flanders immediately. . . meanwhile airmail me another travel folder on Mrs. Draper + her girls. Who is she and they? And who is Moll Flanders?
I hope you enjoy the Princeton Prom—please don’t be overwhelmingly—but no, I am done with prophecies—make your own mistakes. Let me only say “Please don’t be overwhelmingly anything!”, and, if you are, don’t give my name as the responsible parent! (And by the way never give out any interview to any newspaperman, formal or informal—this is a most definate and most advised plea. My name + you, bearing parts of it, is (are) still news in some quarters—and my current policy, for reasons too numerous to explain, is silence. Please do me this courtesy!)
I should like to meet you somewhere early in April—the 3d or 4th.
Your mother is in Florida—it seems to have been delayed.
Of course I’m glad + it warms me all over to know that even ungramatically “both your French English + history teachers” ect. Though you are pretty completely hatched + I can be little more than your most dependable friend your actions still have a most decided effect on me and at long range I can only observe you thru the eyes of Vassar. I have been amazed that you do not grasp a certain advantage that is within your hand—as definate as the two-headed Russian eagle—a girl who didn’t have to have an education because she had the other women’s gifts by accident—and who took one anyhow. Like Tommy Hitchcock who came back from England in 1919 already a newspaper hero in his escapes from Germany + the greatest polo player in the world—and went up to Harvard in the same year to become a freshman—because he had the humility to ask himself—“Do I know anything?” That combination is what forever will put him in my pantheon of heroes.
Go thou + do likewise.
Love
Daddy
TO: Budd Schulberg
CC, 1 p. Princeton University
5521 Amestoy Avenue
Encino, California
February 28, 1939
Dear Budd:
I didn’t send my Dartmouth impressions because I know that when one is once separated from a picture any advice is rather gratuitous—seems to come from a long and uninformed distance. However, if Walter still wants to use the Indian school for a prologue it would be very funny if the Indian students were being solemnly addressed by Ebenezer when you cut outside and pick up young squ
aws approaching on snow shoes, bursting into the school and dancing around with the young braves. From there you could dissolve to the station and the arrival of the girls.
Also your introduction of some character at the station might be a student smashing baggage, followed by a newly-arrived girl. And his turning suddenly, mutual recognition: the pay-off is his finding that he has picked up the baggage of his own girl.
On that same working-your-way-through basis, I got a kick from the student waiters going out of character and talking to the guests—like the man who hired himself out to do that sort of thing.
The picture seems temporarily very far away, and I am engrossed in work of my own. But I wish you well, and I won’t forget the real pleasure of knowing you, and your patience as I got more and more out of hand under the strain. In retrospect, going East under those circumstances seems one of the silliest mistakes I ever made.
Always your friend,
TO: Scottie Fitzgerald
CC, 2 pp. Princeton University
March 11, 1939
5521 Amestoy Avenue
Encino, California
Dear Scottie:
Thanks for your long letter about your course of subjects.
Generally, I think that your election of French as a major is a wise decision. I imagine that there will be some competition for the Sorbonne but it might be something to aim at. Also, if you want to take one English course I think you have chosen wisely. Once again I concur about the History of Music if it pleases you. But I wish you would thoroughly reconsider the chemistry question. It is an extremely laborious subject—it requires the most meticulous care and accuracy during long laboratory hours. Moreover, unless your mathematics are at your fingertips—and you were never very good at mathematics—you will be continually re-doing experiments because of one small slip, and I just can’t see it fitting in with hours of music practice and some regular exercise.
A Life in Letters Page 45