‘Gone’ in the Research

I was executive assistant to David O. Selznick for 15 years. A letter last Saturday revealed that David Pleger skimmed too hastily over “Gone With the Wind,” missing these well-researched facts:

Rhett’s early condemnation of the war; the revelation in the railroad station dolly scene of the ravages of war; the crowd gathered at the newspaper office to read the lists of wounded and dead; our constant contact with Walter White, then head of the NAACP, to be sure we did not overstep our portraits of the black carpetbaggers; the picturization of the carpetbaggers in Atlanta.

“Gone With the Wind,” about to be re-released next week on the big screen, was not a historical drama--it was a great drama but its historical setting was revealing of the life in Georgia at that time.

MARCELLA RABWIN, San Diego