Neither Clark Gable or Leslie Howard wanted to be in the film. Howard didn't even bother to read the original novel.
None of the interior sets had ceilings. These, and the upper parts of many exteriors, were optically added or modified with matte paintings. This is most noticeable to the modern discerning eye in the last shot of the scene showing the many dead and wounded Confederate soldiers. The tattered Confederate flag, previously seen in the astonishing pullback crane shot blowing in the breeze, is now represented by a matte painting, hanging limp.
Nothing in the internal memos of David O. Selznick indicates or suggests that Clark Gable played any role in the dismissal of director George Cukor. Rather, they show Selznick's mounting dissatisfaction with Cukor's slow pace and quality of work. Almost half of Cukor's scenes were scrapped or later re-shot by others. From a private letter from journalist Susan Myrick to Margaret Mitchell in February 1939: "George Cukor finally told me all about it. He hated leaving the production very much he said but he could not do otherwise. In effect he said he is an honest craftsman and he cannot do a job unless he knows it is a good job and he feels the present job is not right. For days, he told me he has looked at the rushes and felt he was failing... the things did not click as it should. Gradually he became convinced that the script was the trouble... So George just told David he would not work any longer if the script was not better and he wanted the Sidney Howard script back... he would not let his name go out over a lousy picture... And bull-headed David said 'OK get out!'" Selznick had already been unhappy with Cukor ("a very expensive luxury") for not being more receptive
Of all the actresses considered for the role, Louise Platt, Tallulah Bankhead, Linda Watkins, Adele Longmire, Haila Stoddard, Susan Hayward (at the time using the name Edythe Marriner), Dorothy Mathews, Brenda Marshall, Paulette Goddard, Anita Louise, Margaret Tallichet, Frances Dee, Nancy Coleman, Marcella Martin, Lana Turner, Diana Barrymore, Jean Arthur, Joan Bennett and Vivien Leigh were given actual screen tests for the role of Scarlett O'Hara.
Of all the many actresses who tested for the part of Scarlett, only Paulette Goddard and Vivien Leigh were filmed in color.
One month after the book was published, David O. Selznick purchased the movie rights from Margaret Mitchell for an unprecedented $50,000. At the time it was the highest sum that had ever been paid for an author's first novel. Realizing he had underpaid Mitchell, Selznick gave her an additional $50,000 as a bonus when he dissolved Selznick-International Pictures in 1942.
One of the few remaining scenes directed by George Cukor to survive into the final cut of the film is the birth of Melanie's baby.
One of the first promising candidates for the role of Scarlett was Adele Longmire, who was seventeen at the time. Her parents did not permit her to travel to New York for a screen test, so Longmire did not appear in a film until several years later.
One of the reasons that Clark Gable hesitated to do the film was his participation in a previous costume drama Parnell in 1937. The film was a terrible, embarrassing failure and Gable regretted accepting the role.
Perhaps because the movie had so many cooks, it accumulated an unusually large number of major scenes which occur on stairways. Scarlett first views Rhett Butler down a stairway; Butterfly McQueen is slapped on the landing of a stairway for complicating Melanie's pregnancy; Scarlett shoots a Yankee in the face on a stairway; Rhett charges up a stairway with Scarlett in his arms to force himself on her; and Scarlett falls down a stairway and miscarries.
Pictured on one of four 25¢ US commemorative postage stamps issued 23 March 1990 honoring classic films released in 1939. The stamp featured Stagecoach, Beau Geste, The Wizard of Oz, and Gone with the Wind.
Pictured on one of four 25¢ US commemorative postage stamps issued 23 March 1990 honoring classic films released in 1939. The stamp featured Stagecoach, Beau Geste, The Wizard of Oz, and Gone with the Wind.
Pictured on one of four 25¢ US commemorative postage stamps issued 23 March 1990 honoring classic films released in 1939. The stamp featured Stagecoach, Beau Geste, The Wizard of Oz, and Gone with the Wind.
Producer David O. Selznick and production designer William Cameron Menzies also directed parts of this film, uncredited.
Production began with Robert Gleckler playing Jonas Wilkerson. After a month of filming, Gleckler died. His scenes were re-shot with replacement cast member Victor Jory.
Prominent Atlanta preacher Martin Luther King, Sr. (father of Martin Luther King) was invited to the cotillion ball held in Atlanta at the film's premiere. King, Sr. had been urged to boycott the festivities by other community leaders because none of the black actors in the film were allowed to attend. A forward thinker, King, Sr. attended because he was invited - and brought along his famous son with him.
Ranks third in the Academy Award most nominated films list with 13 nominations.
Rhett was not allowed to say, on film, "Maybe you'll have a miscarriage" right before Scarlett falls down the stairs; the line is changed to "Maybe you'll have an accident."
Scarlett's son, Wade Hampton Hamilton, was in an early draft of the script, but was cut from the story before filming began. He does appear in a book of paper dolls of the film's characters that was printed before his part was eliminated from the film.
Super macho director Victor Fleming wanted Scarlett, for at least once in the film, to look like his hunting buddy Clark Gable's type of woman. So, when wearing the stunning low-cut burgundy velvet dress with rhinestones that Scarlett wears to Ashley Wilkes' birthday party in the second half of the film, to achieve the desired cleavage for Fleming, Walter Plunkett had to tape Vivien Leigh's breasts together.