Gone With the Wind

David O. Selznick's production of Margaret Mitchell's Story of the Old South
Directed by Victor Fleming

GONE WITH THE WIND

starring Clark Gable as Rhett Butler
Leslie Howard, Olivia de Havilland
and presenting
Vivien Leigh
as Scarlett O'Hara
Released on Jan. 17, 1939. MGM

postcard made by the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2001

unused

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Set in the 19th century American South, Gone With The Wind tells a story of the American Civil War and Reconstruction era from a Southern point of view.

The film received 10 Academy Awards (8 competitive, 2 honorary), a record that stood for 20 years  until Ben-Hur surpassed it in 1960.  In the American Film Institute's inaugural Top 100 Best American Films of All Time list of 1998, it was ranked fourth, and in 1989 was selected to be preserved by the National Film Registry. The film was the longest American sound film made up to that time – 3 hours 44 minutes, plus a 15 minute intermission.