[GONE WITH THE WIND] | Script Clerk's Annotated Shooting Script, February 27, 1939

[GONE WITH THE WIND]

Script Clerk's Annotated Shooting Script, February 27, 1939  

Mimeograph typescript, 251 pages (11 x 8¾ inches). Script A 771, blue wrappers, with numerous colored script change pages and memos on Selznick International Pictures letterhead inserted throughout, extensive annotations and dialogue changes in pencil; wear commensurate with use, a few pages folded and torn, a few paperclips and rust marks; wrappers somewhat toned and discolored. 

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" — a shooting script for Gone With the Wind with extensive annotations, and alternate versions of the most famous movie quotation of all time

David O. Selznick acquired the film rights to Margaret Mitchell's novel Gone With the Wind in early 1936 before the novel became a runaway bestseller. Three years, three directors, and several screenwriters later, his film adaptation became the highest-grossing film ever made, and held onto that record for years to come.

This heavily annotated shooting script demonstrates exactly how much of a herculean task bringing Mitchell's Civil War epic to the big screen was. The script is replete with colored script changes, memos, and revisions, especially to the final scene of the film, which has extensive dialogue changes to Rhett and Scarlett's discussion of Ashley ("I never really loved Ashley" "Then you certainly gave a good imitation of it -- up till this morning..." are penciled in on page 247). What is perhaps of greatest interest are the changes inserted after page 248, which include two handwritten alternatives to Rhett Butler's iconic parting shot at Scarlett O'Hara: "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." Script clerk Tillie Thompson lists them as follows:  

Alternatives: 

1. Rhett: (very slowly) "Frankly my dear I don't care." 

2. I wish I could care what you do or where you go -- (he opens the door) But frankly my dear I don't care.

Two versions of this exchange were shot, one with the more muted "Frankly, my dear, I don't care", and the other as audiences would come to see it. These alternatives were in anticipation of censors' objections to the use of the word "damn" in the film, which was prohibited by the infamous Hays Code enacted in 1930. The final scene of the film was shot in June, and in the months that elapsed between shooting and the December premier, Selznick was in active negotiations with the Hays office, resulting in a November amendment to the Code allowing the use of the words "hell" or "damn" when deemed essential in historical or literary context. This amendment allowed Selznick to move forward with his preferred version, one that would stick in the mind's and heart's of moviegoers for decades to come. 

REFERENCES:

Gavin Lambert, The Making of Gone With The Wind, The Atlantic, February 1973 

PROVENANCE:

Tillie Thompson (uncredited script clerk)