Gone With the Wind deleted footage -- amazing news! (1 Viewer)

[Brian W.]

A man named Jim Tumblin, who is the owner of the largest privately-owned collection of Gone With the Wind memorabelia in the world, has been contacted by Time-Warner, Ted Turner, and New Line Cinema, and is in ongoing negotiations with one or all of them to determine the proper venue for releasing his 90 MINUTES OF DELETED SCENES AND TRIMS FROM GONE WITH THE WIND!

The deleted footage was gifted to him many years ago by Arthur Arling, who was the Camera Operator for GWTW.

Here is a posting from him on a Gone With the Wind bulletin board:

In one of the edited scenes, gifted to me by Arthur Arling, Marjorie Reynolds can actually be seen delivering her line as she walks down the 12 Oaks Stairway.

Miss Reynolds often told me how "very upset" she was when her closeup was cut while she delivered her line.

I also have several cut sequences from the Atlanta Bazaar and a Provost Marshall Trial Sequence, that features Belle Watling and her "girls"...which runs for about 1 1/2 minutes.

There is also a delightful sequence between Rhett Butler and his Horse Groom as Rhett alights from his carriage to visit Scarlett who is mourning the death of Frank Kennedy.

In all, there are dozens of cut/edited sequences which run for over 1 1/2 hours."

He mentioned in another post that he has a deleted scene from the Atlanata Bazaar sequence, where Melanie and Scarlett are discussing Rhett. He also has a "watermelon-eating" scene that Butterfly MacQueen refused to participate in.

This man is probably the world's foremost expert on GWTW, and he is personally acquainted with many of the cast and crew members, and was a close personal friend of Butterfly MacQueen.

Now, let's NOT start bombarding him with email questions. He's busy working on opening a permanent GWTW museum to house his collection, and was kind enough to take the time to answer a question of mine.

But isn't this exciting news? I wonder if he has the scene where the slaves are reading the Emancipation Proclomation?

 

[Rain]

Well this is interesting.

If Warner is so concerned about finding a venue for the deleted footage, I wonder if they will also be revisiting the possibility of doing a proper restoration job, including restoring censored and missing dialogue, on the film itself.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Wow, Warner, PLEASE give GWTW to the same geniuses that did Citizen Kane and Zhivago. The prospect is mouth watering!

 

[Tom-G]

Wow! As if this movie isn't long enough! Wasn't the original running time close to 4 hours? I'm happy that fans of the films will be treated to this extra footage, but I'm probably in the minority when I say that I don't know if I will ever sit for 5 to 5 and 1/2 hours to watch this movie.

 

[Brian W.]

I think it's unlikely that they'll restore it to the movie. They generally don't when the director is not alive to approve it, and this is footage that was never officially in the film.

 

[Chad R]

Not that I'm doubting the veracity of this report, but my wife has been a life long windie and has been teased with rumors of the missing footage for years. I always thought that Herb Bridges has the largest collection of GWTW memorabilia including the huge portraits of vivian and Clark from Lowes in Atlanta. When they were tearing it down (or refurbishing, I can't remember which) he asked to root around in the storage and low and behold found them. His house is littered with stuff to the point where his halls have boxes and bags strewn to every side.

Like I said, I'm not doubting this report, and would be VERY excited for it to finally come to fruition, but among Windies this is similar to the BTTF DVD rumors, or Star Wars. It seems to pop up every now and then but go away.

 

[Brian W.]

Chad, according to ScarlettOnline.com which is where I got the info, "The Selznick Family & Estate has acknowledged the Shaw - Tumblin Collection to be the largest in private hands."

 

[Patrick McCart]

This is really amazing...It's a miracle that this nitrate footage has survived this time!

I hope WB decides to make a 2-disc special edition of this epic/classic. I'd certainly like to see these deleted scenes on DVD!

 

[ScottR]

What needs to happen is a proper restoration. As it stands now, there are many shots of the film that are panned and scanned from top to bottom because the shots are taken from the "wide-screen" cropped versions and the bottom part of the frame is missing. This was also seen in the '99 theatrical release, and there are missing portions of dialogue as well. Warner needs to have this film properly restored.

 

[Lee Bombard]

I'd be very interested to hear what Robert Harris might know about any of this.

Regards,

Lee

 

[Brian W.]

Are you sure about that, Scott? I've never heard that anywhere before.

 

[ScottR]

I'm positive...if you have the dvd you can check it out too...the pans include: an early scene of slaves coming home from work at Tara, when the cows come down the hill, the film pans. Also, after the monumental scene of wounded soldiers at the train station, the film dissolves in a pan. There aren't too many but enough to be distracting. In the theatre you can even see black at the bottom of the screen after the first scene when Scarlett runs down the driveway. Incidentally, the opening scene contains one of those missing lines of dialogue that I was talking about. The original included an additional "It's true" from Scarlett, but it is gone from every track available on home video.

 

[Patrick McCart]

Whoa...

You mean some shots only exist in cropped form?!?

How did this happen?

 

[ScottR]

I wish Mr.Harris could chime in, but those shots seem to have been taken from one of the wide-screen re-releases. Overscan covers most of these at the bottom of the screen, but that does not make up for the fact that the shots are now panned and scanned vertically. And the missing dialogue is annoying, especially considering that it was included in the '89 theatrical re-release (but not the '89 video and ld release.)

 

[Roger Rollins]

It is a very well-known fact that MGM permanently damaged the original camera negatives (!) to GWTW for its 1954 theatrical reissue, by re-positioning certain shots with dupe sections cut into the ORIGINAL negatives. Their purpose was to make the film viewable to be projected in a 1.75 "wide-screen" aspect ratio for that re-issue. It is shocking that the studio, which normally was meticulous about protecting their film elements, would have made such a terrible error.

I remember reading an interview with the late Jeffrey Selznick at the time his MAKING OF GWTW documentary aired on television, and he spoke of this sad situation. Apparently, he knew of no prints that were not affected by this alteration, according to what I read.

As to this Tumblin footage, this has been bandied about for years and years.Although I am skeptical as to the validity of these claims, It would be great if they were true.

 

[Brian W.]

You know, Scot, now that you mention it, I do remember seeing the bottom of the screen just blocked off in a scene where Scarlett is walking on the plantation with her father when I saw it in the theater in, what, '98? I thought that was strange.

I have to say, though, I saw the '89 theatrical reissue and while it was a GREAT surround sound remix (one I wish they would have used for the DVD), it contained several alternate dialogue stems, including the live stems of some lines that were dubbed over, that were never in the original mono theatrical mix. So the missing lines you're referring to might never have been in it until the '89 reissue.

 

[paul o'donnell]

God Bless Collectors is all I can say.

 

[David Lambert]

This should be interesting from a film history standpoint if nothing else. I'd love to see a DVD featuring just this (and perhaps other) supplemental material. A la "Matrix Revisited", y'know?
If they want to re-do GWTW and fix it up to be even better and more accurate to the original theater presentation, then I will buy that one, too! Or better yet combine both efforts, as some have suggested, into one new Very Special Edition.

 

[Jon Robertson]

I think only a three-disc set could do this film justice.

Discs 1 and 2 (both dual-layered, split at the intermission) containing the new Lowry Digital Services restoration released on R2, and Disc 3 with the deleted trims and that wonderful 2-hour documentary.

I've got and love the R1 edition, but I'll gladly pony up for an improved SE.

 

[Roger Rollins]

Brian W. is right about the soundtrack. The 1989 theatrical reissue had bits of "extra" dialogue that weren't supposed to be there. They weren't there before in the '67 version,

or the TV broadcasts on NBC or CBS, nor were they in a "screenplay" I had gotten a xerox of. But they were in those theatrical prints. (I remember an extra line between Scarlett and Prissy, specifically, (even though this was with no lip movemment visible in the shots).

The current home video version has the correct track, and I might add that I think the track on the DVD is exceptionally good, IMHO.

I also heartily concur with the thought "God Bless Collectors", but I'll believe Mr. Tumblin has this GWTW footage when someone other than Mr. Tumblin or his associates have seen it.