(Gone with the Wind) | Final shooting script of the second half of the film

(Gone with the Wind)

Lydia Schiller — Selznick International Pictures 

Final shooting script for the second part of the film. February-June, 1939

Mimeograph typescript, 176 pages (279 x 216 mm), comprising the final shooting script for the second half of Gone with the Wind, issued to script clerk Lydia Schiller, with extensive annotations and emendations in pencil, printed on pink and cream paper, and interleaved with over a dozen carbon-copy inter-office communications on blue paper with Selznick International letterhead, from producer David O. Selznick and script continuity director Barbara Keon, giving changes and production instructions, plus set list, staff list, chart of seasons, and advance schedule comprising 10 pages bound in at end, front wrapper dated 27 February 1939, final inserted inter-office memorandum dated 9 June 1939; substantial marginal fraying, creasing, and finger soiling, a few leaves loose. Blue wrappers bound with two brass split clasps; upper wrapper detached, creased and soiled. [With:] Pictorial souvenir program from the theatrical run, inscribed with viewing dates at the Astor Theatre, NYC (9 June 1940), and the College Theatre, New Haven (June 1941); light soiling. [And:] Perspex display case.

“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” — The annotated final shooting script of Gone with the Wind, with censorship-protection alternate endings to the most iconic line in film history.

Production on Gone with the Wind officially began on 26 January 1939 and concluded principal photography on 1 July 1939, though second-unit and retakes continued into autumn. The film was produced by David O. Selznick for Selznick International Pictures, directed primarily by Victor Fleming. The screenplay was based on Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 novel and underwent multiple drafts by Sidney Howard. The film’s production is widely documented as one of the most logistically complex and tumultuous in Hollywood history, marked by frequent rewrites, directorial changes, and intense on-set oversight by Selznick himself.

This copy begins with the scene of Suellen and Carreen picking cotton and complaining bitterly about Scarlett. Throughout, the script bears extensive annotations in pencil, including camera directions, scene corrections, and continuity adjustments. Of particular note is a typed memo dated 9 June 1939, from continuity supervisor Barbara Keon to script clerks Lydia Schiller, Connie Earle, and Tillie Thompson, instructing the preparation of two alternate versions of Rhett Butler’s parting line in scene 681 for censorship protection:

Rhett: (very slowly) “Frankly my dear I just don’t care.”

“I wish I could care what you do or where you go—(he opens the door) but frankly my dear I just don’t care.”

These variants were produced in anticipation of potential Hays Code objections to the word “damn.” Fortunately, Selznick’s lobbying resulted in a formal amendment to the Code in November 1939—permitting limited use of words like “hell” and “damn” when justified by historical or literary context—and the original line remained intact, cementing its place as one of the most quoted in American film history.

As was Selznick’s custom, shooting scripts were closely guarded and often destroyed after production—making annotated working scripts like the present example, used on set by a core member of the production team, exceptionally rare. This copy was later presented by Selznick to a colleague working in a neighboring sound stage.

A remarkable production-used script from one of the most iconic films of Hollywood’s Golden Age.

PROVENANCE:

Lydia Schiller, script clerk — subsequently presented by David O. Selznick to the father of the previous owner, a fellow crew member on a neighboring stage — Sotheby's New York, Fine Books and Manuscripts Including Americana. Property of the Estate of James H. Heineman, 26 June 1998, Lot 486