These rarely seen materials, which are also being featured in a major 2014 exhibition at the Ransom Center, offer fans and film historians alike a must-have behind-the-camera view of the production of this classic. Before a single frame of film was shot, Gone With The Wind was embroiled in controversy.
There were serious concerns about how the film would depict race and violence in the Old South during the Civil War and Reconstruction. While Clark Gable was almost everyone's choice to play Rhett Butler, there was no clear favorite for Scarlett O'Hara. And then there was the huge challenge of turning Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer Prize-winning epic into a manageable screenplay and producing it at a reasonable cost.
This inside view of the decisions and creative choices that shaped the production reaffirm that Gone With The Wind is perhaps the quintessential film of Hollywood's Golden Age and illustrate why it remains influential and controversial decades after it was released.