K. Rountree - The Public’s Reception of Gone with The Wind

"Gone with the Wind is an epic southern antebellum movie rooted in the American Civil War, or The War between the States, as southerners sometimes call the war, but if one strips away the Civil War background, Gone with the Wind is more about a woman's struggle in man's world. If one adjusts for inflation, Gone with the Wind is the top grossing movie of all time. Gone with the Wind was the, "largest and most expensive production in Hollywood up to that time" (Denby 72). The film's director Victor Fleming shot the Gone with the Wind at the same time he was editing his other popular movie of 1939 The Wizard of Oz. Fleming rewrote the script with producer David O. Selznick during a manic four day period where they, "worked eighteen or twenty hours a day, sustained by Dexedrine, peanuts, and bananas" (Denby 73)."