by David Bret
Fleming’s tenure at the helm of Gone With The Wind would be brief. Vivien Leigh and Olivia de Havilland, having been spoiled by George Cukor, resented working with him and consulted with Cukor behind his back. Leslie Howard persistently argued with him and Selznick’s round-the-clock presence on the set ground him down. Two months into the production he had an almighty bust-up with Vivien Leigh who, when riled, could be extremely unladylike and turn out as many expletives as him. When Fleming tried to bully her into making her character more bitchy than she believed Scarlett could have sensibly got away with, he flung the script at her and yelled, ‘Miss Leigh, you can stick this up your royal British arse!’
The press were told that Fleming had temporarily left the production to recover from exhaustion. Actually, he suffered a nervous breakdown. Shooting was held up for two weeks, and when he returned to the set Selznick brought in Sam Wood (who had directed two Marx Brothers’ films and recently completed Goodbye Mr Chips with Robert Donat) to share the workload. The film would be completed with Wood and Fleming shooting different scenes at different times of the day - with Clark still insisting he be directed only by Fleming, and with his leading lady and Olivia de Havilland still taking advice from George Cukor.
A gorgeous score composed by the master of the genre complements the scenario. Viennese-born Max Steiner (1888-1971) was a former child prodigy who studied under Mahler, composed his first operetta at 14 and evaded Nazi persecution by fleeing to New York, where he composed for Florenz Ziegfeld before hitting Hollywood with the advent of sound. In a career spanning 40 years and over 200 film scores, Steiner received a staggering 26 Academy Award nominations though why he did not win an Oscar for Gone With The Wind may only be adjudged a crime against art.
As Scarlett O’Hara, Vivien Leigh is no different on the screen to how she was in her private life: selfish, spoilt, mentally unstable, flighty and capricious where men are concerned - what would today might be called a ‘prick-tease’. Only one person can tame Scarlett and the O’Haras’ other two ‘white trash’ daughters - Mammy (Hatty McDaniel), their firm but loveable housekeeper who is treated more like a member of the family than a slave. David Selznick’s first choice for the part had been Louise Beavers, younger than McDaniel but already a veteran of 100 such roles. Clark and McDaniel had been close friends since Saratoga, and would remain so until her death, 13 years later from breast cancer. He insisted upon her playing Mammy - delaying the production slightly because, as a native of Colorado, she had to be coached how to speak like a Southern slave. As such she effortlessly steals every scene in which she appears, even from Clark and Vivien Leigh.
Against Selznick’s wishes, Rhett Butler is but an extension of Clark Gable: coarse, egotistical, arrogant, tough in the sense that he persistently has to be seen to be proving himself, caddish and smug, impervious to women, admired by their menfolk, who regard him as a redoubtable role model. The film opens with Scarlett, flirting with a couple of obligatory beaux, who are discussing the fast-approaching Civil War, a subject she finds boring. All she is interested in is the barbecue about to be held at Twelve Oaks, the Wilkes’ mansion, where Ashley (Leslie Howard) will celebrate his birthday and announce his betrothal to his cousin, Melanie Hamilton (Olivia de Havilland). For generations the Wilkes have been in-breeding to keep their bloodline pure, and Scarlett has decided that she will hate Melanie for no other reason than she wants Ashley for herself. This despite her father (Thomas Mitchell) assuring her that as heiress to Tara, the O’Haras’ plantation, she can have her pick of all the young bucks in the county.
Scarlett flings herself at every eligible bachelor who attends the party, but is initially standoffish towards Rhett, a visitor from Charleston, whom few appear to like. ‘He looks as if he knows what I look like under my shimmy,’ Scarlett observes. Rhett does have a bad reputation. He was expelled from West Point, though we are not told why, none of his family have anything to do with him - and he once ‘ruined’ a girl by taking her out, without a chaperone, then refusing to marry her! The first of his and Scarlett’s many heated exchanges occurs when, hiding in the library at Twelve Oaks, he overhears her trying to seduce Ashley - who rejects her because he is so devoted to Melanie. Rhett further ruffles a few feathers when, after pacifist Ashley protests that war only brings misery, Rhett declares that, being too ill equipped, the South will not win the War in any case. ‘All we’ve got is cotton and slaves and arrogance!’ he growls. And when Scarlett wants to give Melanie a piece of her mind for ‘stealing’ Ashley, she finds this impossible because the girl is so utterly nice and never sees the bad in anyone.
Unable to have Ashley, Scarlett accepts a proposal from the first man who asks her - Melanie’s brother, Charles (Rand Brooks). They wed the day after Ashley and Melanie, on the eve of his departure for his regiment. He proves an early casualty in the conflict, succumbing to pneumonia, but hailed a hero just the same. Feeling nothing for her loss, Scarlett rejects widowhood and stays with Melanie in Atlanta, where she will be close at hand when Ashley comes home on leave. [Melanie’s mother is played by Laura Hope Crews, whose nephew and Clark’s former lover Earl Larimore was barred from visiting the Gone With The Wind set - following his problems with Cukor, Clark clearly wanted no more reminders of his salad days.]
In Atlanta, news comes of General Lee’s latest victory, and Rhett shows up as a blockade runner - popular with wealthy locals now that he can keep them supplied with essential luxuries. At a party, he charms well-heeled war-widows into donating unwanted jewellery to help the war effort - but while Melanie sacrifices her wedding ring, saying this is what Ashley would want, Scarlett gives hers away because she never wanted it in the first place. For now, Rhett’s actions appear just as selfish. He claims to be obsessed with feathering his own nest and caring little for the cause, but not unlike Gable himself, a few years from now, within the brawny cynical frame there lurks a profound conscience.
That Rhett regards all women as traditionally the sport of the warrior - drawing more comparisons with Clark - is proven when the action jumps to his return from a trip to Europe. He has bought a hat for Scarlett, and (in the very first scene he filmed with Vivien Leigh), shows her how to put it on and audaciously tells her she should not be wearing pantalettes. Of the gift he growls, ‘I never give anything without expecting something in return, and I always get paid.’ Then, to reassure her that his intentions are not honourable, he adds, ‘Don’t flatter yourself. I’m not a marrying man!’
The scenario moves to July 1863, and the aftermath of Gettysberg, which marked the turning point in the war. Ashley comes home, embracing his wife while Scarlett scowls with envy. He is morose, believing the end may be near, so Scarlett promises to look after Melanie, pregnant and in frail health, should the worst happen. She does this because caring for Melanie will always remind her of her unrequited love for him. Then fighting erupts closer to home as enemy troops sweep through Georgia towards the sea, taking Atlanta and almost razing it to the ground. Despite her condition, Melanie becomes a nurse - helping wounded soldiers just in case the next one could be Ashley. Scarlett pretends to care for their welfare, but as usual is begrudging. ‘Melanie, I hate you,’ she says to herself, ‘I hate you, I hate your baby! If only I hadn’t promised Ashley!’ Inadvertently she is caught up in the siege of Atlanta, and is rescued by Rhett, who drives her back to Melanie’s house. However, the baby is due so she returns to the scene of the carnage to fetch the only doctor in the city. As she wanders through the streets, the picture pans out until she is lost in a sea of corpses, a disturbing scene for European audiences who got to watch this only months after the outbreak of World War II. The doctor, of course, needs her to help him, though for once she has an excuse for being selfish, and she returns to Melanie, whose health suffers a setback after the baby’s birth.
Rhett takes the women back to Tara, where they will hopefully be safer. In a truly tremendous scene they drive through the burning city, narrowly escaping death when the Confederat
es blow up their ammunition supplies to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. When Scarlett has a fit of hysterics, Rhett comforts her, though from now on she will have to fend for herself. No longer wishing to stay home while the others are off fighting, Rhett decides to enlist, though he does act irresponsibly, leaving his charges in the middle of nowhere to fend for themselves. Scarlett begs him not to go, now that the War is almost over and she needs him. ‘Selfish to the end, aren’t you?’ he chides, ‘Thinking only of your own precious hide, but never a thought for the noble cause.’
Rhett’s mood changes when he explains why he is leaving: ‘Maybe it’s because I’ve always had a weakness for lost causes, once they’re really lost - but maybe it’s because I’m ashamed of myself.’ If this is the case, she responds, then he should die of shame for leaving her alone and helpless. Here, Rhett and Gable become one - the man who is never happier than when curt and aggressive towards his women, though Scarlett does exact a confession that he loves her more than he has loved any other - and that he has waited far too long before getting physical with her. ‘We’re alike,’ he drawls. ‘Bad lots both of us, selfish and shrew, but able to look things in the eyes and call them with the right names.’ Scarlett fights off his advances, though she really doesn’t want him to stop: he kisses her, she slaps and insults him.
Following this Scarlett drives the trap containing Melanie, her baby and her loopy maid (the magnificent Butterfly McQueen) - not to Tara, but through storms and the corpse-strewn terrain to Twelve Oaks. Again, she thinks only of being reunited with Ashley. The Yankees have been here, and the place is deserted save for a solitary cow, which they hitch to the trap and head for Tara. Here, Scarlett’s mother has succumbed to typhoid and her father has lost his mind: the enemy have used the house for their headquarters, stripping it bare and absconding with all the food.
In one of the film’s most moving scenes, beautifully captured by Lee Garmes prior to his dismissal, Scarlett stumbles out into the barren field, pulls up an inedible root, sobs, then suddenly becomes filled with hope. This is Vivien Leigh’s most glorious moment, the one that reputedly clinched her Oscar for Best Actress - the lonely figure silhouetted against the wasteland backdrop, who defiantly proclaims, ‘As God is my witness, they’re not going to lick me! I’m going to live through this, and when it’s all over I’ll never be hungry again . . . If I have to lie, cheadle, cheat or kill, as God is my witness I’ll never be hungry again!’ It is a classic image much referred to, in Europe especially, as the horrors of World War II unfolded and rationing beckoned.
The credits for the next sequence tells us how Tara has survived to face the hell and famine of defeat yet this is but the beginning of adversity as Scarlett drives everyone - her sisters and the slaves - remorselessly to get the plantation back on its feet. ‘I don’t like the way you’re treating them,’ her father admonishes. ‘You must be firm with inferiors, but you must be gentle with them, especially darkies.’ But Scarlett shows no mercy (in a scene directed by George Cukor after being replaced by Victor Fleming) when an army deserter shows up, bent on plunder. When he menaces her, she plugs him between the eyes, relieves him of his money, and she and Melanie bury him. Then, as the War ends and the survivors come home - Ashley among them - Georgia faces another enemy in the form of carpetbaggers, opportunists who have augmented the Yankee cause. One such is the O’Haras’ former overseer, Jonas Wilkerson (Victor Jory), who as Tara’s new landlord demands money which Scarlett has no hope of raising. She solicits Ashley, who the conflict has made cynical and bitter: having been involved with the carnage, he now sees himself in a world worse than death, a place in which he no longer feels he belongs. Scarlett wants him to run away to Mexico with her and start over - with Melanie too weak to have any more children, she says, there is nothing to keep him here. ‘Nothing,’ he responds. ‘Nothing except honour!’ Yet for a moment he is tempted: he kisses her passionately before reality strikes home and he reminds her that, just as he would never desert his wife and child, so she will always put Tara before any man.
Scarlett is still worrying about Wilkerson’s demands when he turns up and offers to buy the plantation. Her father chases him off the land, falls from his horse and dies. As a last resort she goes to see Rhett, now languishing in a Yankee prison. Within minutes they are engaged in a slanging match - and in any case he cannot help her because the Yankees have confiscated his money. Thus the man who not so long ago sent her senses reeling is dismissed as a skunk. Again, Scarlett marries a man she does not love: Frank Kennedy (Carroll Nye), a once-poor soldier who was sweet on her sister before the War but now has the wherewithal to support her. Scarlett lies, saying her sister, tired of waiting, is engaged to somebody else. And still she has designs on Ashley, getting so upset when he announces that he and his family are relocating to New York, so much so that Melanie rebukes him for being selfish towards Scarlett, who has done so much for them! He therefore elects to stay in Georgia, knowing he will never be safe from her clutches.
Using her new husband’s money to employ convict as opposed to slave labour, Scarlett starts up a lumber business, beating the Yankees at their own game by doing business with them and fleecing them, becoming the scourge of polite society. She is still sluttish towards Rhett when he recovers his finances and buys himself out of jail - yet he springs to her defence when she is almost murdered by Yankee robbers while driving home through the woods. He, Ashley and Frank retaliate by routing the area. Ashley is wounded, but Scarlett is more concerned for him than she is for her husband, who is shot dead - she cannot even bear to look at Frank’s photograph. Rhett calls on her, to be informed by Mammy that she is ‘prostrate with grief’: she sheds a few crocodile tears, pretending to feel guilty for stealing Frank from her sister. What follows may well be the most camp, most sarcastic marriage proposal in movie history, one which required a dozen takes before Gable got it right without cracking up:
Forgive me for startling you with the impetuosity of my sentiments, my dear Scarlett - I mean, my dear Mrs Kennedy - but it cannot have escaped your notice that for some time past, the friendship I had felt for you has ripened into a deeper feeling - a feeling more beautiful, more pure, more sacred. Dare I name it? Can it be love?
Rhett adds he cannot spend the rest of his life catching her between husbands. She has had a boy, then an old man, so now it is time for the real thing - someone who kisses her with such passion that her legs buckle beneath her (an experience later repeated with Doris Day in Teacher’s Pet). It matters little that they do not really love each other: they simply have enough bad qualities in common! So they marry and honeymoon in New Orleans, though she cannot wait to get back to Tara once he tells her she can spend as much money as she wants restoring the plantation to its former glory. They have a child, Bonnie (Cammie King), but Scarlett still keeps a picture of Ashley close at hand, and makes it clear that she wants no more children unless fathered by him. Rhett seeks solace in his ex-mistress, Belle Watling (Ona Munson), a whorehouse madam, who gave more to the war-effort than most, and who now reminds him that his daughter is worth ten of her mother.
Now realising the error of her ways, Scarlett goes to see Ashley, but all they do is reminisce over what might have been - and when their friendly embrace is witnessed by his sister, the rumour spreads that they are having an affair. For once Scarlett is innocent, yet Rhett insists on her wearing a scarlet - in other words, a whore’s - dress when they attend a party at Twelve Oaks. ‘Nothing modest will do for this occasion,’ he snarls. ‘And put on plenty of rouge. I want you to look your part tonight!’ Never has Scarlett/Vivien Leigh looked lovelier, but his ruse backfires when Melanie welcomes her with open arms - aware that much as he might want to, Ashley would never cheat on her.
Back home, Rhett gets drunk and there is a repetition of Clark’s scene with Norma Shearer in A Free Soul - save that this time he pushes her back into her chair twice. ‘Observe my hands, my dear,’ he purrs, wrapping his massive paws around her ne
ck, then her head. ‘I could tear you to pieces with them, and I’d do it if it’d take Ashley out of your mind forever. But it wouldn’t. I’ll remove him from your mind forever this way - one on each side of your head, and I’ll smash your skull like a walnut. That’ll block him out!’ Like the majority of Clark’s female fans, Scarlett only finds such threats acting like an aphrodisiac. She retorts that he will never frighten her, and her fearlessness makes him horny. For a while he has been barred from her bed while she has been thinking only of Ashley, but as he sweeps her up into his arms at the foot of the staircase he announces that tonight he will take her by force!
The next morning Scarlett awakens, obviously having enjoyed the rough sex which has taken place (a trait for which Vivien Leigh was legendary - in her last years going out into the night and picking up nameless men in the park near her London home). But it is not long before they are back to bickering. ‘I’ve always thought a good lashing with a buggy-whip would benefit you immensely,’ he growls, after calling her an unfit mother and demanding a divorce. They survive a little longer, but only on account of Bonnie - and the fact that Scarlett is pregnant again with the child she tells him to his face she wishes could be anybody’s but his. ‘Cheer up,’ he quips. ‘Maybe you’ll have an accident!’ He speaks too soon, for she slaps him, falls down the stairs and suffers a miscarriage.