“Wind” Talker
Speaker John Kenrick returns with enlightening look
at “Gone with the Wind”
STORY AND PHOTOS
BY STEPHEN VRATTOS
“Frankly, Pansy, I don’t give a
damn!”
It’s difficult to imagine this
iconic film quote, never mind the
character to which it is directed,
having quite the same impact, if
any import at all, had the Margaret
Mitchell classic, “Gone with the
Wind,” been published as the
author originally intended. But
that’s exactly what might have
happened had not the book’s
publisher, Macmillan, not wisely
suggested the literary heroine
be rechristened “Scarlett,” from
Mitchell’s intended “Pansy.”
Toothsome trivia, such as this,
is what makes attending a John
Kenrick lecture so fun and surprising.
Courtesy of the University
Club, the entertainment teacher/
historian returned to North Shore
Towers Thursday evening, March
29, to address a standing-room-only
audience in the large card room
to pontificate on the silver screen
adaptation of the Margaret Mitchell
classic. Combining vintage movie
clips and images with music and
mouthwatering memorabilia, deftly
delivered with masterful showmanship
and unforgiving personal
commentary, Kenrick’s are always
must-see events.
The film, which will celebrate 80
years in 2019, can trace its origins
to a fortuitous accident suffered
by Mitchell in 1926. At the time a
reporter for the Atlanta Journal,
the would-be author began the
novel, pecking away at a typewriter
her husband had bought her as
a means of whiling the way the
weeks of convalescence she faced
from a badly sprained ankle. The
ankle’s healing was completed far
more quickly than the 1,073-page
book, which Mitchell eventually
took nine years to finish. Published
in 1936, “Gone with the Wind”
was an instantaneous bestseller.
Mitchell tentatively titled her
tome, “Tomorrow Is Another Day,”
from its last line; a moniker which
seems trite in hindsight and certainly
lacking the musicality and
alliterative appeal of the resultant
name. For that, she turned to the
1894 poem “Non Sum Qualis
Eram Bonae sub Regno Cynarae”
by English poet/novelist Earnest
Dowson, the third stanza of which
begins…
“I have forgot much, Cynara!
gone with the wind,
Flung roses, roses riotously with
the throng,
Dancing, to put thy pale, lost
lilies out of mind…
The book’s page-to-screen story
is as epochal as “Gone with the
Wind” itself. The war to secure
its rights alone reads like a lurid
romance. A staff reader at MGM
urged Louis B. Mayer to obtain
them, but the cinematic head was
dissuaded by Irving Thalberg,
MGM producer of such august
adaptations as “Grand Hotel
(1932),” “Mutiny on the Bounty
(1935)” and “Romeo and Juliet
(1936).” At the time, Thalberg’s
work had already brought the
studio three Best Picture Oscars;
his advice as weighty as the movies
he produced. “No Civil War
movie ever made money,” he told
Mayer, both men seeming to forget
D. W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation
(1915).” Or perhaps not, instead
both refusing to acknowledge the
scurrilous celluloid love letter to
the Ku Klux Klan, success or no.
While Mayer dawdled, independent
producer David O. Selznick
swept in, grabbing the rights for a
then unprecedented $50,000, with
the help of good friend and millionaire
John Whitney, who put up
half the money for the book’s movie
option, after being persuaded to
do so by Talent Agent Kay Brown.
As large a sum as that was for the
time, the price tag would have been
much steeper had the sale stalled,
for soon thereafter, Mitchell’s
one and only work received the
Pulitzer Prize. Selznick’s drive
to buy, however, may have been
spurred by something other than
business savvy. He was betrothed
to Mayer’s daughter, Irene, but
had no love for his Father-in-Law
who he believed cheated his own
dad, once vowing “I will get my
revenge!”
As fate would have it, Selznick
would have to work with his wife’s
father, after all. As an indie producer,
he had no long-term contract
players on his payroll and subsequently
needed to “borrow” from
Mayer, Clark Gable to portray
Rhett Butler, when first choice
Gary Cooper turned down the role.
“‘Gone with the Wind’ is going to
be the biggest flop in Hollywood
history,” Cooper notoriously later
remarked after refusing the job.
“I’m glad it’ll be Clark Gable who’s
falling flat on his nose, not me.”
Clark was equally unwilling
to take the role, fearing he could
never live up to Mitchell’s literary
leading man, a feeling with which
the author agreed. The beloved
actor’s stonewalling eventually
landed him a salary with which he
could agree, one which would help
him pay for the divorce from his
Entertainment Historian John Kenrick
The most successful film in box-office history 12 NORTH SHORE TOWERS COURIER ¢ May 2018