When ‘Gone with the Wind’ premiered in Atlanta

Canda Free Press ^ | December 10, 2011 | Calvin E. Johnson, Jr.

[BigReb555]

“There was a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields called the Old South. Here in this pretty world, Gallantry took its last bow. Here was the last ever to be seen of Knights and their Ladies Fair, of Master and Slave. Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered, a Civilization gone with the wind.”

[Mygirlsmom]

I have re-read the book several times over the years and found my perception of the characters changed as I gained more life experience and a deeper understanding of history.

Add me to the list of those who have read the book multiple times - my experience was much like yours, goldfinch. :)

[Nepeta]

Kinda glad that “master and slave” thing went with the wind.

Romanticizing the planter class built on the sweat of slaves has always struck me as tacky. Even when I learned in my 40s that I was descended from slaveholders, I could not see slavery as anything other than the abomination that it was, and I never entertained fantasies about living in the big house, part of a social elite, while others made such a life possible.

[driftless2]

I don’t agree with the sentiments Mitchell expressed in her book, but you’re correct, the book is much more interesting than the movie. Whatever political sentiment she expressed, she could tell a good story. However, I could never stand to watch the movie for more than ten minutes at a time. Sleep inducing.

[Tailback]

While in Charleston, SC my Wife and I took a historical walking tour of the old town. The historian tour guide was incredible and talked a lot about “Gone With the Wind”. It turns out that many of the names of the characters in the book came from rivers, streets, prominent figures from Charleston. It was a fascinating tour and well worth it for a history buff visiting Charleston.

[Blue Ink]

“Ten/fifteen years ago, I read that Margaret Mitchell downplayed her book saying something like ‘I just strung together a bunch of stories I heard growing up’.”

She was selling herself and her accomplishment short. Mitchell was one of those kids who liked talking to old people. She ‘interviewed’ (or rather listened) to countless actual veterans of the war.

That and the fact that ‘Sherman’s Sentinels’ — the still-standing chimneys of burned out homes surrounding Atlanta — were quite common as she was coming up — gives her book more authenticity than someone just passing on secondhand stories.

[nicksaunt]

the scene with Clark Gable at the bottom of the stairs was breathtaking. He was so handsome. I didn’t know anything about him at the time. He certainly withstood the test of time!

I remember as a teen seeing the movie "That's Entertainment" in Carmel while visiting family. There is a part in the film that is dedicated to Clark Gable with clips from his various movies. The place was filled with mostly older ladies and the theater erupted into a spontaneous, loud, thunderous and prolonged applause after the clip was over. It was unbelieveable and I'll never forget it. Mr. Gable still had the ladies and he at that time had been dead 14 years!

[AnAmericanMother]

One of my history professors wrote that book. He would have supervised my thesis, but he was on sabbatical . . . :-(

He quote one of my gg grandfather's letters (from the thesis) in the book.

[miss marmelstein]

Vivien Leigh is one of the movie’s greatest actresses (as well as a great stage actress). I always think Scarlett and Blanche are two sides of the same coin.

[AnAmericanMother]

Sheesh, that's "quoted".

McPherson was a good prof, even though he sometimes said some dumb stuff. He got the whole UDC and SCV out after him for calling them racist.

I guess he can't help it, he's a northeastern liberal, but his book was pretty honest because he let the men speak for themselves through their letters.

[annieokie]

I am now reading the Bio of Margaret "Peggy" Mitchell, "The Road to Tara".

Scarlett is based on her life. Rhett Butler was her first husband Red Upshaw. Most everyone she knew had a part in that story. Her first love (who was a homo), she wrote as Ashley Wilkes.

Margaret loved horses and was thrown twice, severly injuring her right leg, this was the basis for the fall of Bonnie Blue.

She lived in Atlanta, had interviewed many old people including her grandmother who remembered the war, and the devestation Sherman did, this was the basis for the other parts. Very interesting read.

[djf]

If you can get it, the four disc collevtors edition is the best - period!

Two discs are the movie itself, and the remaining two are bonus material including material about the actors and audition process, bonus stuff, films taken at the premier, detailed descriptions of the technicolor process, and much more!

The movie itself, transfer-wise is jaw dropping. They re-processed the original technicolor reels, and digitally resynced them. Truly, it’s stunning. And I say that as a person who has watched the movie maybe a half dozen times in my life but I’m not obsessed with it... (my wife was!!)

[VikingMom]

My son will be green with envy when I tell him!

As I have been researching family histories, I have found several letters and they are truly fascinating! My great grandmother had two sisters - one whose son fought for the North and died at Andersonville and the other whose son fought for the South, survived the war, and then died of the flu on his way home. (She actually had his name legally changed to “Return Jonathan” before he left because she was so determined not to lose him in the war!)

[georgiabelle]

I was in Germany with my husband who was in the Army. I had read the book and of course cried at the end. The movie was on at the base theater and I had to promise everything that I would not boo hoo at the end of the movie.

I didn't. When the movie starts it shows rolling red hills and apple and peach trees in blossom. Just like at home. I burst into tears before the first words were spoken. My husband was so embarrassed. But I do love the book and the movie.

[SparkyBass]

Gone With The Stimulus Money

Frankly Michelle, I don't Give a D****

[2nd Bn, 11th Mar]

What is a gg grandfather?

[DefeatCorruption]

What is a gg grandfather?

Great, great grandfather.

[Joyell]

{What is gg grandfather?}

Great great grandfather.

[AnAmericanMother]

Great-great grandfather - In this case, my paternal grandmother’s grandfather, her mother’s father.

[AnAmericanMother]

That's very interesting - history's all around us.

One ggg grandfather, an Englishman, had four sons in the war and lost all but one. And my gg grandmother, his daughter, died in childbirth while her husband was away at the war, laboring of twins (who died too). They say he died of a broken heart. He's buried up in Rome GA, left a fine monument and an entertaining will (he was a freethinker, which must have been something of a scandal in that time and place).

[AnAmericanMother]

The idea of a "planter class" is part of the pleasant fiction popularized by GWTW. Farming is hard work even now, with all the mechanized equipment, and the idea that the plantation owner sat on the porch drinking mint juleps while the field hands sweated is nonsense.

I have the letters that my gg grandfather the private in the cavalry wrote home to his wife while he was away at the war. He was trying to manage the farming by remote control, and he gave detailed directions on just about everything. I might have been able to manage myself with all that advice, but everybody went to bed dog tired, including his wife.

A couple of interesting points - he gave instructions that if she leased any of their slaves out she must not separate families, and that she must put in the contract that they could not be taken out of the county so they would not be taken to the rice plantations or made to do dangerous work. They had to rest two hours in the heat of the day, and when one of the young women was expecting her first child she was to have the doctor for her rather than the midwife. And apparently he performed marriages and taught his slaves to read and write, because he enclosed a note from Bas, who accompanied him to Montgomery, to Bas's wife. Bas was apparently educated and also was a skilled blacksmith, and when he returned from Montgomery my gg grandfather instructed his wife that when he did smithing work for others in the area he was to keep 10% for himself.

And he was probably speaking straight truth because he never imagined that anybody but his wife would ever read the letters. He was probably a little unusual (in after years when my grandmother asked him why he was so solicitous for his slaves, he would huff a little and say that "it behooved a man to take good care of his own") but he wasn't alone.

No reason that your ancestor couldn't have been one of the other people who acted honorably and humanely within the system as he found it.