Kitty Hollywood - Scenes of Destruction - The Burning of Atlanta

So, this is a little unusual for me. The main brief when I started this thing was to bring reasonably unknown films into the spotlight. 'Gone With The Wind' would have to be just about the BIGGEST Golden Oldie. However, there are a gazillion stories about GWTW that aren't particularly well known.

Had a bit of a vommy, but recovering with determination.

Like the story about Vivien Leigh simply not being able to bring herself to make retching noises when she returns to Tara, so Olivia de Havilland had to sync them in later.
Q: Is it a sign of true gentility if you are unable to pretend to vomit? Something along the lines of a modern reworking of 'The Princess and the Pea'?

Or, that Hattie McDaniel, who played Mammy, was the first black woman to ever be nominated for an Academy Award. And that her winning speech had been ghost-written by someone at the studio beforehand. What did they think - that she was incapable of writing her own speech? Jeez.

If you want to know how you'd look like if you were denied writing your own Oscar speech - look no further than this.

OR, that in the Atlanta Railway Yard death and misery sequence, there was not a camera crane in existence that would go high enough to film the expanse that Selznick was looking for. They got in touch with the company that had the largest construction cranes in California and hired one of them - but then had to contend with shakes and shudders, as a construction crane does not usually have to worry about whether or not it is being used to hold a camera. To get around this, they built a 50 metre long concrete ramp, which meant the construction crane's engine did not need to be used - thus no shaking and shuddering. The concrete ramp took two weeks to dry.

http://maudelynn.tumblr.com/post/56816903483/vivien-leigh-on-the-set-of-gone-with-the-wind

I think that thing that blows my mind so much was that there were very few simple ways to get around problems then. None of this 'the extras can be CG and you don't need to dress them' rubbish. No, you make the 5500 separate costume items because that is what you have to do. You needed a huge conflagration - burn a heap of stuff down.

I know that this film receives a heap of slag because it is a melodrama, and because it portrays SUCH racial stereotypes. I'm not condoning them.That such stereotypes largely mirrored the thinking of the time doesn't make them right. But think about the work that went into the making of this film. If this film had been made now there would be Director's Cut upon Director's Cut and 15 hours of behind the scenes documentaries and extra footage. It's a behemoth, and a bit of a forgotten one at that, strange as it may seem. 

So really - I suppose that it doesn't matter all that much that this is such a tremendously famous film. As long as I spread the love, I'm fulfilling my brief.
Way to have a satisfactory Friday!