Victor Fleming and Other Directors of The Wind!

Rating: 10/10 (29 July 2017)

"Gone With The Wind" won numerous awards, including the Photoplay Gold Medal and the Film Daily Best Picture of the Year (selected by polling over 450 U.S. film critics), but missed out on The New Film Critics (though Vivien Leigh's was voted Best Feminine Performance) which went to Wuthering Heights. The National Board of Review placed Gone With The Wind only 9th (even The Biscuit Eater preceded it).
The uncredited writers listed by IMDb all made a fair contribution to the finished script. Other writers who worked on the scenario at various stages include Jo Swerling, John Balderston, Michael Foster, Winston Miller, Charles MacArthur and Edwin Justus Mayer. Director George Cukor also took a hand.
The story of the filming of "Gone With The Wind" has been told in many books, most notably "Scarlet, Rhett, and a Cast of Thousands" by Roland Flamini (Macmillan, New York, 1975).
The director: Considering the continued popularity of at least three of his films, Victor Fleming has never been a household name. Yet more people have seen "Gone With The Wind" in a cinema than any other movie in history. In 1982, gross film rental to that date from the U.S.- Canada market alone was $76,700,000. (Negative cost: $3,957,000). As some movie prices have increased a staggering 5,000% since 1939, the figure needs to be multiplied by at least ten — perhaps as much as twenty or thirty — to give a just comparison with movies such as Star Wars ($193,500,000) and E.T. ($187,000,000). "Gone With The Wind" was voted the best film of all time in a poll conducted by the American Film Institute. But not only did Fleming direct this outright winner, he had another film among the nine runners-up: "The Wizard of Oz". Fleming was the only director with two films on the list.
Some critics have pointed out that Fleming did not direct all of either of these films. He had to leave "Wizard" for "Wind" when the former picture was almost completed. King Vidor finished up. However, Fleming returned after his stint on GWTW to supervise the cutting of Oz and it would be churlish indeed to cavil at his sole director credit. GWTW is a bit different. Cukor had already directed about 5% of the finished movie when Fleming took over. When Victor himself walked out after a particularly acrimonious clash with Vivien Leigh, Sam Wood was called in and then retained to direct a second unit, even after Fleming was prevailed upon to return. Wood directed 33 minutes (14%) of the released footage, particularly in the Reconstruction sequences.
William Cameron Menzies directed about 15% of the picture, including the Atlanta fire (the first scene shot) and the memorable silhouette of Leigh and Mitchell at Tara. However, Fleming directed all Gable's scenes (except Rhett's visit to Scarlett with the Paris hat, which was directed by Cukor; and Gable's final exit, which was actually directed by Selznick himself — in Fleming's presence). Fleming also shot the opening sequence of the picture at Tara, Ashley's furlough, Leigh and Howard's love scene in the woodshed, Melanie's death, some of Scarlett's return to Tara, some of the scenes in the cotton fields, and perhaps the film's most memorable shot of all — the enormous crane shot of wounded Confederate soldiers at the railroad depot. (Selznick himself directed some of these takes, and in the end, neither man could say who shot the take actually used in the movie).
The film's most memorable scene — Scarlett shooting Paul Hurst's deserter — was directed by Cukor.
It might justly be claimed that as Fleming directed the main story- line, he deserved the main credit. All the same he was unhappy at being shut out of the film's editing by Selznick. He boycotted the Awards dinner at the Ambassador at which he would have received his first — and only — honor from The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. (He'd never been nominated before and was never nominated again.)