Because Tez Miller called my husband Mr. Jen, I will now call my husband Mr. Jen. It’s like Mr. Turkey, only made of human meat instead of turkey meat.
Things have been crizazy at the Jen and Mr. Jen house. On Monday night we had two completely unrelated deaths in the family (one on his side, one on mine), at almost exactly the same time. It would have been more easily explained if they were riding together in a car or a plane or a hovercraft, but they both just happened to die on the same night, at nearly the same time. I think this is conclusive proof that DEATH is getting closer and closer, alerting me to my mortality with his creepy sense of humor.
Whenever I am faced with just such a weird occurrence that reminds me how very enormous the universe is and how very small and insignificant I am, I watch Gone With The Wind.
Gone With The Wind is really the cure for anything that ails me. Bad day? Gone With The Wind. Slammed my hand in the car door? Gone With The Wind. Syphilis? Penicillin and Gone With The Wind. G ta the O ta the Ne With The Wind.
I don’t know exactly why this movie is such a comfort to me in times of philosophical distress. Maybe it’s the transformation of Scarlet from vain, shallow, manipulative wilting flower to vain, shallow, manipulative tough as nails bitch that cheers me. Maybe it’s the highly unrealistic depiction of the Old South as a world of gleaming white houses and weirdly happy slaves. Maybe it’s Clark Gable’s fake teeth. I have no clue.
Anyway, in the interest of being, you know, interesting, here is some trivia, culled from various spots on the internet, that may or my not be true. In fact, let’s make this interesting. I will plant three fake items of trivia in this list, and whoever makes the first correct guess as to which ones are fake will receive something from me. You know. In the mail. It probably won’t be exciting or even that cool, but you’ll feel like you’ve won something, and that’s pretty much all that counts, right?
Oh, and don’t go cheating and google this stuff. This is like the SATs here. The internetz is seriouz bidness.
Totally True (except for 3 things) Gone With The Wind Trivia
- In Margret Mitchell’s first draft of “Gone With The Wind,” the character we know today as Scarlet was named Pansy.
- The interior sets for the film where constructed without ceilings. They were added with matte paintings.
- Hattie McDaniel, the first African-American to be nominated for and win an Oscar, did not attend the Atlanta premiere of the film due to high racial tensions.
- Olivia de Havilland, who played Melanie, is still alive.
- Scarlet’s twin beaus from the first scene of the film were brothers, but not actually twins.
- Vincent Price auditioned for the role of Ashley.
- Gary Cooper turned down the role of Rhett Butler, because he thought the movie would be a huge flop.
- If its box office receipts were adjusted for inflation, Gone With The Wind would be the fourth highest grossing movie of all time.
- Because of the size of the dresses and the aspect ratio of the film, some scenes of Melanie and Scarlet were shot from the waist up to disguise the fact they weren’t wearing the hoop skirts that would have put them too far apart to be in the same shot.
- Gone With The Wind is a banned film in Thailand.
- Margret Mitchell was paid $50,000 for the rights to her novel, and received an additional $50,000 when the production company dissolved.
- The derogatory “N-word” was removed from the script when its use offended the African-American actors working on the film.
- Vivian Leigh was billed fourth in the film’s credits, until she won the Best Actress Oscar.
- The wretching sounds Scarlet makes after digging up the turnip in the famous “With God as my witness…” scene were dubbed by Olivia de Havilland, as Vivian Leigh couldn’t fake a vomiting noise.