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mother and other guests. At the beginning of the fourth reel, just as Sherman began lobbing shells into Atlanta, President Roosevelt was called away by the secretary of state, according to a Loew’s projectionist sent to Washington for the occasion. The president did not return, but the others enjoyed the film “tremendously” and gave it “a really terrific and enthusiastic reception,” the projectionist reported.
A decade later, Eleanor Roosevelt, in an interview with the Associated Press, remembered a showing of Gone With the Wind — she did not say when — quite differently. As she recalled, the president fell asleep in the middle of the film. When he awoke and found the picture still running, he declared, “No movie has a right to be that long.”
Later that afternoon, at a private cocktail party at the exclusive Piedmont Driving Club, Mitchell finally met Rhett Butler.
Premiere day, Dec. 15, was cold. The city’s newspapers devoted their front pages to the events of the day before: “Rhett Butler at Five Points” and “300,000 Screaming Fans Acclaim Gable in Wildest Welcome in City’s History” were two of the headlines. Some of the actors visited the Cyclorama, the city’s famed circular painting of the Battle of Atlanta. After the Cyclorama tour, Selznick and Gable stopped by the governor’s mansion, where both men were named honorary Georgia colonels. Others attended a “Christmas at Tara” luncheon hosted by the Atlanta Better Films Committee. At the same time, Mitchell, who had kept a low profile, was honored along with other Southern writers at a lunch at Rich’s department store.
The day before the movie premiere, Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable and Olivia de Havilland visited the Cyclorama in Atlanta with George Simons, the city’s parks manager.
Later that afternoon, at a private cocktail party at the exclusive Piedmont Driving Club, Mitchell finally met Rhett Butler. The author and Clark Gable stepped into a private dining room and chatted briefly; Gable later told reporters that she was “the most fascinating woman I’ve ever met.” By 6:00 p.m., the guests began returning to their homes or their hotel rooms to prepare for the moment they had all been waiting for. Atlantans, after three and a half years, finally would see what Hollywood had done with their story.
WATCHING THE SHOW
The Selznicks escorted Mitchell and her husband, John Marsh, to the theater in a limousine. Five giant searchlights pierced the night skies and played across the front of the theater. At the urging of the master of ceremonies, the author stopped briefly before the microphones to speak to the spectators outside and to those listening by radio across the nation: “This is a very happy and exciting day for me, and at this time, I want to thank everybody in Atlanta for being so nice to me and my poor Scarlett. Thank you.”
Selznick, still hopeful of the South’s approval, came next: “Three years of effort have led to this moment. If Atlanta, which is the final judge, approves our efforts, these labors will not have been in vain.”
The two couples made their way into the theater as Gable and Lombard arrived. The actor paid tribute to the woman he had met just hours before: “Ladies and gentlemen, tonight, I’m here just as a spectator. I want to see Gone With the Wind the same as you do. And this is Margaret Mitchell’s night, and the people of Atlanta’s night. Allow me, please, to see Gone With the Wind as a spectator. Thank you.”
Clark Gable and his wife, Carole Lombard, led a procession of convertibles with other stars through Atlanta.
Mitchell and her husband were seated between Gable and John Hay Whitney, chairman of the board of Selznick International Pictures, while de Havilland sat on Whitney’s right. Leigh sat in the row ahead of them beside the governor of Georgia. The lights dimmed and composer Max Steiner’s overture began. The curtains parted and his soaring “Tara’s Theme” signaled the start of a roller coaster ride of emotions for the audience, which featured, as the mayor had promised, visiting dignitaries from across the country, including World War I flying ace Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, Columbia Broadcasting System executive William S. Paley and cosmetics queen Elizabeth Arden.
From the Critics
“Technicolor (using a new process) has never been used with more effective restraint than in Gone With the Wind. Exquisite shot: Gerald O’Hara silhouetted beside Scarlett against the evening sky at Tara while he propounds to her the meaning of the one thing she has left when everything else is wrecked — the red earth of Tara.”
— Time, Dec. 25, 1939
Four days after the Atlanta premiere, Gone With the Wind opened in New York at the Astor (left) and Capitol theaters.
The crowd roared its approval when one of the opening frames announced “Margaret Mitchell’s Story of the Old South.” The mood was light as Scarlett O’Hara flirted and schemed her way through the opening scenes and met her match in the dashing Rhett Butler.
Audience members were not shy in expressing their Southern sympathies. At the Atlanta Bazaar, when Dr. Meade announced that Gen. Robert E. Lee had swept the Yankee army from Virginia, the cheers in the theater drowned out those onscreen. As the tide of war turned, quiet gasps and sobs could be heard as Scarlett searched for the doctor among the hundreds of wounded Confederate soldiers. In the second half, when the word “Sherman!” flashed on the screen, the audience hissed “like a pit of angered snakes,” a reporter noted, and when Scarlett shot the Yankee deserter at Tara, the cheers shook the roof.
An Atlanta crowd welcomed stars Evelyn Keyes (Suellen O’Hara) and Ona Munson (Belle Watling).
Tears flowed freely when Scarlett and Rhett’s beloved daughter was thrown from her pony and killed, and again when Melanie died. Finally, Rhett walked out the door with his declaration that he didn’t give a damn and Scarlett collapsed on the stairs, seemingly defeated. As she was roused by voices reminding her of Tara and the camera moved in on her tear-stained face, the music swelled to a crescendo. The audience rose to its feet with a thunderous ovation.
As he had hoped, Selznick conquered Atlanta. And Atlanta had out-Hollywooded the film capital itself when it came to throwing a premiere party. Now, it was on to New York, where the movie had a twin Broadway opening at the Astor and the Capitol theaters on Dec. 19, and then to Los Angeles, where it showed Dec. 28 at the Carthay Circle — just under the wire for qualifying for the 1939 Academy Awards. •
John Wiley, Jr., is author of Gone With the Wind: Atlanta’s Film, Atlanta’s Night.
From the Critics
“The players give impeccable performances: Vivien Leigh in particular, as the selfish, high-spirited, passionate, green-eyed minx of a heroine, richly deserves her Academy Award. There are action and spectacle in plenty, and not too much sentiment.”
— The Guardian (U.K.), May 28, 1940
Gone With the Wind
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