Gone With The Wind | Plot, Cast, Awards, & Facts - Britannica

Plot summary and characters

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The film, set in the American South during the time of the Civil War, tells the story of Scarlett O’Hara, the headstrong and willful daughter of the owner of Tara, a plantation in Georgia. The story begins in 1861. Scarlett is in love with Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard), but she learns that he intends to marry his cousin Melanie Hamilton (Olivia de Havilland). At a party at Ashley’s home, Scarlett’s overtures to Ashley are seen by another guest, Rhett Butler (Clark Gable). Ashley rebuffs Scarlett, and she therefore agrees to marry Melanie’s brother, Charles (Rand Brooks).

Production Notes and Credits

• Studios: Selznick International Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
• Directors: Victor Fleming and uncredited directors, including George Cukor and Sam Wood
• Writers: Sidney Howard (screenplay) and uncredited writers, including Oliver H.P. Garrett, Ben Hecht, Jo Swerling, and John Van Druten
• Music: Max Steiner

Cast

• Vivien Leigh (Scarlett O’Hara)
• Clark Gable (Rhett Butler)
• Leslie Howard (Ashley Wilkes)
• Olivia de Havilland (Melanie Hamilton)
• Hattie McDaniel (Mammy)
• Butterfly McQueen (Prissy)

War is declared, and the men go off to enlist with the Confederacy. Charles dies of measles during the war, and the widowed Scarlett goes to Melanie’s home in Atlanta. She meets Rhett at a charity fundraising bazaar and dances with him, violating the customary rules of mourning. Rhett, a successful blockade runner, continues to visit Scarlett over the next few months, as Atlanta comes increasingly under siege by Union forces (see Atlanta Campaign). Ashley returns home on a Christmas furlough and asks Scarlett to take care of Melanie, who is pregnant.

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Melanie goes into labor as Atlanta is being evacuated, and Scarlett and her servant Prissy (Butterfly McQueen) must attend the birth on their own. Scarlett summons Rhett to take her, Melanie, Prissy, and the baby back to Tara, and they flee through the burning city, only to find that Tara has been pillaged by Union soldiers. Scarlett’s mother has died, and her father has fallen into depression. The only people remaining there are her father, her sisters, and the formerly enslaved Mammy (Hattie McDaniel) and Pork (Oscar Polk).

In the second half of the movie, Scarlett tries to resurrect Tara. She and her sisters and the house servants work in the fields. Ashley returns when the war ends but is unable to offer Scarlett help in paying the exorbitant Reconstruction taxes. Scarlett decides to ask Rhett for money, and she and Mammy construct a dress from velvet curtains for her to wear to meet Rhett. However, Rhett has become a Union prisoner and cannot help her. In desperation Scarlett marries her sister’s wealthy beau, Frank (Carroll Nye). She uses his money to save Tara and then establishes a lumber business in Atlanta.

After Scarlett is attacked while riding in her carriage near a shantytown, Frank, Ashley, and some other men attack the shantytown, and Frank is killed in the raid. Scarlett then marries Rhett, and they have a daughter, but Scarlett continues to pine for Ashley, and the marriage is stormy. Their daughter dies after being thrown from a pony, and later Melanie dies in childbirth. Scarlett realizes that Ashley loves only Melanie and that she loves Rhett, but Rhett refuses her and leaves her alone at Tara with the words “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”