Audiences waited three years to see the Margaret Mitchell novel, Gone with the Wind, hit the big screen. A dramatic opening tracking shot increased the anticipation by initially hiding the book’s main character, Scarlett O’Hara, from view. As Brent Tarleton, Fred Crane blocked Vivien until he stepped aside revealing the youthful face of the girl who had “the smallest waist in three counties.”
Producer David O’Selznick labored over the opening scene. In order to give audiences just the right touch, the scene was filmed five times. The first was tackled on January 26, 1939. According to the book Scarlett Fever by William Pratt, the first day of filming (under the guidance of director George Cukor) did not yield anything that was usable.
The curly hairdos of the Tarletons photographed bright orange. Four days later the scenes were repeated, with the actors’ hair styles modified to eliminate their curls and heavily darkened as well (photo below).
In the book, the Tarleton brothers (Brent & Stuart) were twins. Fred Crane and George Reeves were obviously not lookalikes. For the film adaptation, the “twins” were simply referred to as The Tarletons. You’ll also note that Miss Leigh was wearing an entirely different outfit than what is seen in the finished film. In the book, Scarlett wears this green sprig muslin dress and does so again the next day at the Wilkes’ barbecue because she knows that the Tarletons are fond of it.
On March 1, under Victor Fleming’s direction (Cukor had been let go from the film), a third attempt at the opening scene was shot. According to Pratt:
The two young actors were quite inexperienced and one things was soon evident: it wouldn’t be the last time this unlucky first scene was to be attempted.
For the next scene where Scarlett greets her father, played by Thomas Mitchell, Leigh was still wearing the green muslin dress.
However, by June 14th, Selznick had decided that Scarlett should be wearing this white frilly concoction seen below instead, thus making all of the footage shot beforehand worthless.
In the film, Leigh utters the line “I wore this old dress just because I thought you liked it” at the Wilkes’ barbecue to the Tarletons, which is a reference to the fact that that she had originally worn it in the opening scene. Oops.
On Monday, June 26, 1939 and the following day, Leigh, Crane, and Reeves tried the opening scene a fourth time. Tired from the previous months of around-the-clock shooting, Leigh did not look anything like a vivacious sixteen year old. Even the dimwitted Tarleton brothers weren’t fooled!
Finally, on October 12th, Selznick was happy with the fifth and final attempt at this scene and that’s the one we see today. While you might think it ridiculous that it took five separate times to get one sequence just right, it was Selznick’s attention to detail that made “Gone with the Wind” such a blockbuster hit.
See more “Gone with the Wind” photos at my main website.
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