"Yes, I Read All 1,448 Pages"
On Friday, July 12th at 10 pm I decided to watch all four hours of Gone With The Wind on Turner Classic Movies (TCM). Of course, I’d seen it many times before – sometimes in bits and pieces – so I thought it would be a good idea to watch the entire film straight through with no commercials and no breaks – except for the classy “Intermission.”
After it was over I decided that, for a movie that came out in 1939, it was as captivating and timely as anything we’re seeing today. I also realized, for the first time that I had never read the book the movie is based on. Why not? I didn’t have a good answer so I decided to go to the NY Public Library and reserve a copy. Now was as good a time as ever to read this famous opus by Margaret Mitchell that was published in 1936 and purchased by David Selznick in the same year for a record-breaking $50,000. That’s $903,261.99 in today’s money.
I got the notice that the book was at the library. As I picked it off the reserve shelf on July 20th, I almost passed out. It didn’t look like a book – it looked like a BRICK that was 4” wide x 6 ¾” long x an astounding 3” high. In my entire life I’ve never seen a book like this. Frankly, I was overwhelmed so after a couple of days I decided to make a schedule that was based on reading 64 pages per day. I wanted to finish GWTW on time: meaning check it out on July 20th and return it by August 10th – all 1,448 pages of it! Do this on time and still keep the rest of my life from falling apart. (I ended up taking it back on August 4th.)
THE BOOK VERSUS THE MOVIE
The book begins with a 13-page Preface written by writer Pat Conroy who was born in Atlanta and is author of The Prince of Tides. I rarely read introductory material but I read Conroy’s comments because he’s a terrific writer. His mother first read GWTW aloud to him when he was five years old and made a point of rereading it every year thereafter. Conroy also writes that, “whenever the movie version was released again by MGM, my mother would march all her children down to the local theatre with a sense of religious anticipation.”
Both the book and the movie begin the same: Scarlett O’Hara at the Wilkes barbecue surrounded by young men absolutely smitten by her beauty and charm. This is also where she sees Rhett Butler for the first time. Or, as Conway describes these two: “With the introduction of Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler, Miss Mitchell managed to create the two most famous lovers in the English-speaking world since Romeo and Juliet.” I totally agree.
We all know that Rhett was older than Scarlett – but how much? I finally found this on page 1441 when Rhett asks, “How old are you, my dear? You never would tell me.” And she answers, “Twenty-eight.” And then, on page 1444, he replies, “I’m forty-five – the age when a man begins to value some of the things he’s thrown away in youth, the clannishness of families.” Based on these two statements it would appear that GWTW covers Scarlett from 16 to 28 and Rhett is 17 years older.
This means that in a span of 12 years Scarlett had three husbands and a child by each one – in the book BUT only Rhett’s child, Bonnie, in the movie. I have written a number of scripts but tackling this book would be beyond the beyond. Screenwriter and playwright Sidney Howard wrote it and received a posthumous Academy Award in 1940. The famous line delivered by Rhett, “My dear, I don’t give a damn” comes from the book.
On 2/22/19, the Atlanta History Center opened Cyclorama: The Big Picture, featuring the fully restored cyclorama painting, The Battle of Atlanta. At the centerpiece of this new multi-media experience is a 132-year-old hand-painted work of art that stands 49’ tall, is longer than a football field and weighs 10,000 lbs.
The strongest feature of GWTW is a very POWERFUL story that never falters. Yes, we saw the burning of Atlanta in the film when Rhett pulls a frightened horse by a flaming building. But the book has more shocking details: the total destruction of Atlanta and the mayhem caused by the Reconstruction after the South lost the Civil War. This caused me to think: what do Southerners really think of us Yankees today? I remember visiting a friend in Atlanta back a bit and ordering a double-decker sandwich in a classy restaurant. It was held together by a toothpick – nothing unusual about that – except for one thing: the toothpick sported a Confederate flag.
The Confederate Battle flag – red, white and blue – the three stars on each arm of the cross and one star in the center. The stars represent each of the states of the Confederacy plus one. It was made in 1861 and measures 48”x 48”