Original ‘Gone with the Wind’ Screenplay Shows ‘War’ on Slavery, Deleted Scenes

Movies

By Court of Andre

March 1, 2023 | 10:17 p.m.

Movie buffs will certainly care about this revealing piece of movie memorabilia.

A set script unearthed for ‘Gone with the Wind’ has revealed how a “war” on the depiction of slavery rocked the production of the beloved but controversial 1939 film.

The big-budget blockbuster – set against the backdrop of Civil War and Reconstruction – has long been criticized for its sanitization of slavery, with HBO Max noting in a new warning that it “denies the horrors of slavery, as well than its legacy of racial inequality. ”

However, historian David Vincent Kimel now reveals that several writers pushed for a more realistic depiction of race relations – only to have their dark, disturbing and violent scenes cut from the finished product.

The Oscar-winning film is adapted from Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 novel, which follows Georgia’s beautiful Scarlett O’Hara. Although it has sold over 28 million copies, the tome has been criticized as “diabolical” for “perverting our national view of slavery.”

In 2020, Kimel paid $15,000 for an incredibly rare set script originally owned by the film’s casting director, Fred Schuessler. Going through its 301 pages, the Yale University doctoral student discovered several scenes that did not make the final cut of the film. Through notes and reviews, it also revealed the fierce debate among writers over how to portray race relations on screen.

“I discovered that Schuessler’s Rainbow Script was a mosaic that actually represented the perspectives of many screenwriters,” Kimel wrote in an essay published Tuesday by The Ankler.

“Much of the excised material was a harsh depiction of the mistreatment of enslaved laborers on [character] Scarlett’s planting, including references to beatings, threats to throw [the black maid] “Mammy” off the plantation for not working hard enough, and other depictions of physical and emotional abuse.

According to Kimel, powerhouse producer David O. Selznick ordered that all filming scripts for “Gone with the Wind” be destroyed after the film was produced. He estimates that less than half a dozen documents still exist, which makes the one he has obtained all the more convincing.

Selznick wanted to make “Gone with the Wind” a box office sensation, hiring more than a dozen screenwriters to work on the script, including F. Scott Fitzgerald.

After analyzing the original set script and perusing other “Gone with the Wind” artifacts preserved in the archives, Kimel discovered that “rival groups of screenwriters on the script emerged: the ‘Romantics’ and the ‘Realists’. which amplified scenes of abuse to highlight the brutality of Scarlett’s character and even condemn the institution of slavery itself.

Fitzgerald – who was eventually fired from the production – belonged to the “Romantic” camp. In a letter to Selznick, Fitzgerald wrote that he wanted to push “old Southern romance.”

“I would like to see a two or three minute montage of the most beautiful pre-war shots imaginable… I would like to see… niggers singing,” he wrote. “Then we could get into the story of disappointed love, betrayed overseers, working niggers and quarreling girls.”

Meanwhile, screenwriters Sidney Howard and Oliver HP Garrett belonged to the “realist” camp, and “their material depicting race relations was so often so gritty and uncompromising that some of it was cut into drafts even before creation. of the script in my possession,” said Kimel.

However, some other unflattering scenes remained in the filming script purchased by the historian.

In one scene from the script, Scarlett (played by Vivien Leigh) hits house slave Prissy (Butterfly McQueen) with a rod.

“Scarlett deliberately raises her switch and slams it down on Prissy’s back,” as she yells, “Sit down, you fool, before I wear you out!” the script reads.

Meanwhile, in the set script, Scarlett is far more cruel to Good Mammy (Hattie McDaniel) than she is in the film’s final cut. In a denied scene, she curses the maid when she “expresses regret that she had to engage in hard labor in the difficult days following the Civil War.”

In another deleted scene, Scarlett says, “I don’t know and I don’t care!” in response to the question of where formerly enslaved laborers should go.

Kimel also uncovered correspondence between Selznick and publicist Val Lewton, with the producer saying he hoped to use the n-word in the film – as long as it was spoken by black cast members. Lewton responded by saying black people “don’t like” the word.

The insult didn’t make it into the film, but its romanticized take on the Old South and sanitized take on slavery mean the film is “a classic with an asterisk,” according to Kimel.

It wasn’t just dark and violent scenes about race relations that made the floor of the editing room.

The filming script also includes a scene where Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) contemplates suicide before being interrupted by another character.

Kimel’s essay comes just months after the last surviving ‘Gone with the Wind’ star passed away.

Mickey Kuhn – a child actor from Hollywood’s Golden Age of the 1930s and 40s – died in November at the age of 90. Kuhn made a famous appearance in the film when he was just six years old.