During filming Vivien Leigh reportedly smoked four packets of cigarettes a day. Clark Gable smoked three packs a day throughout his career.
During the casting, Erin O'Brien-Moore was suggested for the role of Scarlett, although she was ultimately never auditioned or given a screen test.
Female costumes were made complete with petticoats, although they wouldn't have been missed had they not been there.
First color film to win the Best Picture Oscar.
For the premiere in Atlanta in December 15, 1939, the governor declared a state holiday. Ticket prices for the premiere were 40 times the usual going rate.
For the premiere in Atlanta in December 15, 1939, the governor declared a state holiday. Ticket prices for the premiere were 40 times the usual going rate.
For the premiere in Atlanta in December 15, 1939, the governor declared a state holiday. Ticket prices for the premiere were 40 times the usual going rate.
For the scene in which Scarlett escapes the burning of the Atlanta Depot, a horse was needed to play woebegone, an old nag on the verge of collapse. A suitable candidate was finally found, but weeks later, when the horse was brought to the set, it had gained weight and its ribs were no longer visible. There was no time to find a replacement, so the makeup department painted dark shadows on its ribs to give the appearance of malnourishment.
Half a million feet of film were shot. This was all edited down to 20,000 feet.
If box office receipts for the movie were adjusted for inflation, it would be the top grossing movie of all time; Star Wars would only be the second most successful movie of all time. According to the Guinness World Records homepage the total gross in 2005 figures would be $3,785,107,801.
If the number of total admissions are calculated, this is the most popular movie of all time in the US with over 200 million tickets sold. While having the advantage of being released several times in theaters, there were half as many Americans alive when it was released, compared with other films that set the domestic box office record: Avatar, Titanic, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Star Wars and Jaws. (However subsequent films also had to compete with television and later the internet for audiences, and the emergence of home video formats in the 1980s reduced the demand to see all films theatrically.)
In 1939, the Hollywood Production Code dictated what could and could not be shown or said on screen, and Rhett Butler's memorable last line presented a serious problem. A few of the suggested alternatives were "Frankly my dear... I just don't care," "... it makes my gorge rise," "... my indifference is boundless," "... I don't give a hoot," and "... nothing could interest me less." Although legend persists that the Hays Office fined Selznick $5,000 for using the word "damn", in fact the Motion Picture Association board passed an amendment to the Production Code on November 1, 1939, to insure that Selznick would be in compliance with the code. Henceforth, the words "hell" and "damn" would be banned except when their use "shall be essential and required for portrayal, in proper historical context, of any scene or dialogue based upon historical fact or folklore ... or a quotation from a literary work, provided that no such use shall be permitted which is intrinsically objectionable or offends good taste." With that amendment, the Production Code Administration had no further objection to Rhett's closing line, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."
In 1994, Judy Lewis went public with the information that she is indeed the love child of Clark Gable and Loretta Young, which had been the subject of speculation in Hollywood for years. (Loretta Young always claimed she went away for a while, found the girl, and adopted her.) Thus, in an interesting coincidence, Clark Gable's real life daughter Judy Lewis is a close friend of Gable's on-screen daughter in this film, Cammie King Conlon (Bonnie Blue Butler).
In 2004, the movie was completely restored from the original three Technicolor negatives. This time, digital technology was employed to create results impossible to achieve with traditional methods. The negatives were scanned in at 2K resolution and digitally combined to remove all previous alignment problems and achieve perfect registration despite different amounts of shrinkage in the masters. The resulting digital master is of higher quality than any prints available so far - including the original prints from 1939. The color was timed to be identical to that of the surviving answer print of David O. Selznick, which is the color reference for the film. Reportedly, Selznick's original answer print was lost but it turned up five weeks into the 2004 digital restoration process. The color timing of the new digital master was subsequently stopped and started all over again from scratch. This 2004 digitally restored version looks truly astonishing, particularly when projected with a digital projector. An improved version, this time working at 4K resolution is already approved and should be finished in 2005. The 2009 Blu Ray Release comes from a new improved version 8K resolution scan and that is maximum possible limit for 70mm format.
In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked this as the #6 Greatest Movie of All Time.
In a March 1939 newspaper article, David O. Selznick was reported to be considering producing Gone with the Wind as two films, as it was felt that the novel was far too long and complex to be successfully made into a single motion picture for the time.
In the scene after Scarlett returns to a decimated Tara, digs up a radish in the garden, then retches and gives her famous "As God is my witness... " line, the vomiting sounds were actually looped by Olivia de Havilland. One version of the story is that Vivien Leigh "could not" produce a convincing enough retching sound. Another version of the story is that Vivien Leigh "would not" make the retching sound because "it simply was not lady-like".
In the scene where Rhett pours Mammy a drink after the birth of Bonnie, for a joke during a take, Clark Gable actually poured alcohol instead of the usual tea into the decanter without Hattie McDaniel knowing it until she took a swig.
In the scene where Scarlett searches for Dr. Meade, making her way among 1,600 suffering and dying Confederate soldiers, to cut costs and still comply with a union rule that dictated the use of a certain percentage of extras in the cast, 800 dummies were scattered among 800 extras.
June 2008 Ranked #4 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Epic".