Comments on: What I Didn’t Know About Gone With the Wind

By: Paolo

Paolo — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 05:16:51 +0000

Basil Rathbone haha.

About the n-word: the trivia section of IMDb says that the word was excluded from the script out of respect for the black actors within the cast.

In my opinion, racial slurs cannot and should not be censored in movies because its purpose is to understand the pain that that word causes. The movies would be unwatchable and incomprehensible otherwise. Imagine, person a saying something bleeped out, person b getting angry. Why is he angry? The audience will never know.

I have never heard the word censored in the TV broadcasts of the movies that use it. But then again, I live in Canada.

By: klaatukat

klaatukat — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 00:04:02 +0000

Another interesting fact is whom Margaret Mitchell wanted to play Rhett Butler. And it wasn’t Clark Gable.

By: Jenni

Jenni — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 19:01:55 +0000

About two years ago, I read my grandmother’s coffee table book, David O. Selznick’s Hollywood. It was a biography, and a detailed account of every movie Selznick produced, helped out on, and were successes for him. I found it quite fascinating, loved the pics in it, and the anecdotes in it from those who knew Mr. Selznick quite well. The longest chapter, of course, dealt with GWTW. I highly recommend this book to any movie historian/classic movie fan.

By: NCeddie

NCeddie — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:53:51 +0000

A thousand thank-yous for an article that actually reveals the truer workings of the Production Code than we have ever been “allowed” to imagine! It fascinates me that the PC Office would actually ever try to help directors find plausible work-arounds for possible violations of the Code. I have always marveled at some of the creative ways filmmakers “slipped” things past the censors, and believed that somehow censorship rules boosted creativity, but maybe it was more of a mutual effort than I dreamed.
Of course there are films that were not so lucky. What readily springs to mind is the “no crime shall go unpunished” rule. Viewers can most often perceive that the inner self-punishment of a person guilty of performing a criminal act is much more severe and long-lasting than anything that could be dealt them externally. I am thinking of two Bette Davis films— “The Letter,” and “Dead Ringer,” where the endings had to be rewritten, thus watering down the original stories, just to satisfy the censorship board.
That is my main beef with censorship anyway: establishing a set of rules which pander to any given group who is incapable of thinking for themselves and coming to peaceable terms regarding anything on their own, anyway!

It would be wonderful if, in future, you might unearth more facts about a variety of films which had to deal with the Production Code, and how it all really came down! A more honest understanding of the function and workings of the Production Code would serve to enhance the present-day value of Golden Era films.

By: leclisse

leclisse — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:32:52 +0000

Wow! Thanks for this great article. GWTW is one of my favorite movies (perhaps for sentimental reasons more than anything else), but it’s so easy to think that we already know everything about how the production went down. I can see how Belle’s brothel was toned down (but anyone with two bits of sense could tell what it was), but the other objections you mentioned don’t seem to have been softened in the least. As far as the “n-word,” I’m sure that would have made the film something else entirely — perhaps a near sequal to ‘Birth of a Nation.’

By: hondo

hondo — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:53:39 +0000

Can you imagine how different things might be if they had allowed the “n-word” in GWTW, given current sensibilities? Would GWTW now be broadcast on TV and freely available on home video uncensored? Or maybe only with a permanent edit to remove the offending phrase? Or the whole thing just buried in the vaults like Disney has done with Song of the South?

By: Leigh

Leigh — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:58:02 +0000

Wonderful article! I learned a couple new things; thanks for separating fact from lore.

By: addie

addie — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:50:36 +0000

Suzidoll==
I understood what you were saying, I am sorry if it sounded like I didn’t.

Maybe with the censors, Selznick felt pushed around enough to want to fight a little for art. lol

That is a wonderful story about Fantasia!
Who would have even thought of the hippos as nude? The just would have been hippos)
And you are totally right, the tutua do draw attention to how much they don’t have on. That is really funny.

addie

By: Stooge

Stooge — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:39:04 +0000

Terrific article! Fascinating stuff.

By: suzidoll

suzidoll — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:20:16 +0000

Again, thanks to all who read my article, especially since I was late in posting. What a couple of days I had!!!

John: The story with the tutus goes like this. Seeing a visual representation of the dancing hippos in FANTASIA (maybe sketches; maybe a rough cut), the Code office declared that they were nude. Nudity is not allowed under the Code. So, the Disney animators put those flimsy tutus on them. Because the tutus are so flimsy, I think the tutus draw more attention to the fact that they are nude underneath.

Addie: I think Selznick’s “artistic integrity” was mostly his need for creative control under any circumstances, but in the stories in which he is the hero and the Code office is the villain, it comes off as passion for his art, or artistic integrity.

Here’s hoping for a better week and a good holiday for all.