Gone With the Wind Shooting Script With Alternate Ending in Leather Cover from Script Clerk Connie Earl (MGM, 1939)....

Description

Gone With the Wind Shooting Script With Alternate Ending in Leather Cover from Script Clerk Connie Earl (MGM, 1939). In this script's alternate ending, Scarlett delivers the line, "Rhett!... Rhett!... You'll come back. You'll come back...I know you will!..."

Even before Margaret Mitchell's epic novel was published, Hollywood heavyweights were considering its big screen adaptation. Many major executives and studios declined to create a film based on it, including Louis B. Mayer, Irving Thalberg, Jack Warner and Darryl Zanuck. Finally, David O. Selznick bought the rights for $50,000.

The monumental production of Gone with the Wind was troubled from the start. Actual filming was delayed for two years due to Selznick's determination to secure Clark Gable for the role of Rhett Butler and the extensive search for the perfect actress to play "Scarlett O'Hara," which led to the highly publicized consideration of some 1,400 women including Jean Arthur, Tallulah Bankhead, Joan Bennett, Paulette Goddard, Susan Hayward, Lana Turner and practically every up and coming young actress of the day.

This is an exceedingly rare original studio tooled leather bound 251-page (missing pages 226 through 228, with synopsis of missing pages tipped into script) Shooting Script with multi-color revision pages dated 03/02/39 to 05/27/39. Written by Sidney Howard and dated February 27, 1939 on the interior typed board cover. This script was the personal copy of uncredited "Script Clerk" Connie Earl. Earl was one of few above the line production members who received these special ornately hand-embellished leather covers.

In her capacity as Script Clerk, Ms. Earl would follow lines of dialog as performed during production, leading to making pencil annotations based on line changes called by the director or, at times, the actors themselves. Examples of line changes include, on page 249, Rhett (Clarke Gable) as printed, "My dear I don't give a damn" hand annotated as changed to, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." Selznick was so determined to keep the word "damn" in the film that he threatened resigning from the Producer's Guild to face decency lawsuits, causing Will Hays to relent and add an amendment to the Hays Code allowing for the discretionary use of the word. Ultimately, the word stayed in and the rest is Hollywood history. On page 189, Scarlett's (Vivien Leigh) original line, "If she thought anyone would take after her she'd walk the streets naked!" has been excised. Dialect passages have been meticulously tended to, in example, Prissy's (Butterfly McQueen) line, "She done have her baby today!" has been amended to, "She done had her baby today!"

Notable in this version of the script is an alternate ending. After the iconic scene when Scarlett has lost Rhett and stands in silhouette against a sunset leading to rolling credits, in this alternate ending the camera returns to Scarlett and she delivers the line, "Rhett!... Rhett!... You'll come back. You'll come back...I know you will!..."

Exhibiting age, edge chipping, even toning, covers detached but present, minor tape repair with the last page detached and tipped to the inner back cover. Leather cover (stamped by artisan "J. Mooney") exhibits some light cracking and spot staining to the spine with interior cover lining detached. The only example of this version of the script, the only example we've encountered of this custom leather production cover, and the single best and
most complete Gone With the Wind script we've ever handled. COA from Heritage Auctions.

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