# Gone With the Wind Q **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 17, 2003, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gone-with-the-wind-q/169220 "2003-04-17T01:22:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2003, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gone-with-the-wind-q/169220/61 "2003-04-21T04:27:57Z")
Wow, \*\* Walloon. \*\* Great minds think alike, and apparently, almost simultaneously! ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2003, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gone-with-the-wind-q/169220/62 "2003-04-21T05:32:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lissa \* > \*\*Her first was the portrayal of Tara and Twelve Oaks. For Tara, she had pictured a home like that of her grandparents, which was a simple two story Victorian-style home, with a small front porch. (I’ve seen pictures. It’s not “plantation-like” at all.) Twelve Oaks was pictured as looking like Tara. \*\* That bugged me. Tara is described as having been built up section by section, with rooms added on as need be. In the movie, there was obviously a building plan that didn’t exist in the book. After all, Gerald was a poor Irishman when he got the property. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2003, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gone-with-the-wind-q/169220/63 "2003-04-21T05:37:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by HPL \* > \*\*That bugged me. Tara is described as having been built up section by section, with rooms added on as need be. In the movie, there was obviously a building plan that didn’t exist in the book. > > After all, Gerald was a poor Irishman when he got the property. \*\* Interestingly enough, the reason you always see Tara at an angle in the film is because the front door was built off-center. If they had used a front-on shot, it might have actually pleased some die-hard by-the-book fans to see some indication of imperfection. But to Selznick, imperfection was the filthiest of words. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2003, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gone-with-the-wind-q/169220/64 "2003-04-21T05:46:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Walloon \* > \*\*One of the most common mistaken notions about GWTW is that it portrays the Burning of Atlanta. It doesn’t. > > The novel and the movie portray a smaller event that happened two and a half months earlier: the burning of the Atlanta Depot. A Confederate rearguard intentionally set fire to a train load of materiél and munitions to prevent it from falling into the hands of the advancing Union Army.\*\* I realize this is a historical question, but considering the confederates were pretty bad off for everything in 1864, why not just shoot as much off the ammunition off (at the Union Army) as possible instead of burning it, or distribute it(as much as they could carry) to the troops fleeing Atlanta? ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2003, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gone-with-the-wind-q/169220/65 "2003-04-21T05:57:04Z")
Tara is seen front-on in the moonlight when Scarlett returns from Atlanta. I think the reason it was usually photographed at an angle was for the same reason why architects make perspective drawings along with head-on elevation drawings – it’s just more visually satisfying to see a building that way, just as people usually photograph better at a quarter angle instead of head-on. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2003, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gone-with-the-wind-q/169220/66 "2003-04-21T06:17:40Z")
**HPL** : Atlanta was surrounded, and all rail lines were cut. Here’s how the [Atlanta Depot](http://ngeorgia.com/history/afteratlanta.html) looked after the fire went out. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2003, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gone-with-the-wind-q/169220/67 "2003-04-21T13:00:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by HPL \* > \*\*That bugged me. Tara is described as having been built up section by section, with rooms added on as need be. In the movie, there was obviously a building plan that didn’t exist in the book. > > After all, Gerald was a poor Irishman when he got the property. \*\* My great Aunt lived in a plantation style house in Tennessee. Much smaller than Tara, it was two stories constructed in sections. The slave quarters (converted to a smokehouse) and kitchen first. Aunt Lexie lived mostly in the kitchen with it’s coal fireplace and cistern until she was murdered in the 1980’s by thieves. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2003, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gone-with-the-wind-q/169220/68 "2003-04-21T16:50:56Z")
Well, at least they were able to keep off the rounded columns at Tara. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2003, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gone-with-the-wind-q/169220/69 "2003-04-21T19:49:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Walloon \* > \*\*Tara is seen front-on in the moonlight when Scarlett returns from Atlanta. I think the reason it was usually photographed at an angle was for the same reason why architects make perspective drawings along with head-on elevation drawings – it’s just more visually satisfying to see a building that way, just as people usually photograph better at a quarter angle instead of head-on. \*\* I’m just paraphrasing what one of my books said. Apparently, Selznick was pretty upset about the off-center doorway, and told the directors to avoid front-on shots. Perhaps (and this is just a guess because none of my books address it) they used the front-on shot when Scarlett returns homs because they thought the audience wouldn’t notice it, or they wanted to emphasize Tara being so drastically changed, and thought the off-center door would add to the feeling of things being “out-of-order.” ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2003, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gone-with-the-wind-q/169220/70 "2003-04-21T19:53:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Guinastasia \* > \*\*Well, at least they were able to keep off the rounded columns at Tara. \*\* I agree. For a movie which pays so much attention to detail in costume, you’d think they would have tried a little harder for accuracy in the buildings. Margaret Mitchell claimed that some Clayton County residents were so irritated at the grandure of Twelve Oaks that many got up and left the theater when they saw the staircase. (I think she may have been exaggerating just a wee bit, but it shows how strongly she felt about the matter.) ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2003, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gone-with-the-wind-q/169220/71 "2003-04-21T23:30:50Z")
What always bugged me about the book was that Mammy was referred to as being Scarlett’s wet nurse (and possibly Ellen’s, I don’t remember), which meant she had to have a child of her own the same age, but Mammy’s children/husband are never referred to. Of course “The Wind Done Gone” identifies the father of her Scarlett age baby as Gerald and practically gives Polk a Ph.D. in Economics. My main problem with the sequel was the killing off of Mammy almost immediately. Scarlett needed her as she was almost a Greek chorus, plus the delivery of her baby by Gerald’s 100 year old mother was silly. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2003, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gone-with-the-wind-q/169220/72 "2003-04-21T23:32:27Z")
“Margaret Mitchell claimed that some Clayton County residents were so irritated at the grandure of Twelve Oaks that many got up and left the theater when they saw the staircase.” Supposedly one of the few dozen Civil War veterans who saw the film made the complaint about the Atlanta hospital that “if we’d had that many damned troops we’d have won the war!” ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2003, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gone-with-the-wind-q/169220/73 "2003-04-27T18:12:20Z")
One last bit of trivia I forgot to include before. In the movie, at the part where the two guys tried to attack Scarlett on the road, the white actor was a guy named Yakima Canutt. He had a number of such cameos, then went into production as an animal handler, training, organizing and caring, for horses especially, in a number of epic films. Charlton Heston worked with him in Ben-Hur. According to Hestion, at a point when Heston was concerned about the filming, and his handling of the horses in the chariot race sequence, it was Yakima Canutt who uttered the well-known statement, “Don’t worry Chuck, you’re going to win the damn race.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gone-with-the-wind-q/169220.md?page=3)