A New Ending for Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind had its world premiere in Atlanta 73 years ago today and ever since, people have pondered if Scarlett would ever get Rhett back. Margaret Mitchell refused to ever answer the question, so everyone was left to their own imaginations.
Screen Guide magazine held a contest for their readers to come up with the best new ending for GWTW and published the winner in its September 1940 issue:
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The fadeout of “Gone with the Wind” whets the curiousity of millions of moviegoers. They watch Scarlett return to Tara alone, deserted by Rhett, and they argue hotly among themselves about what happened afterward. “He’d never go back to her!” “Oh yes he would!” “He wouldn’t have to, she’d go back to him!”
Deluged by readers’ suggestions for a sequel, Screen Guide offered a prize of $10 for the most interesting continuation of the turbulent love story. The prize ending, submitted by Arnold Manning, 4th Division, USS Portland, Long Beach, Calif., appears on these pages, with artist Bernard Thompson’s conception of scenes from the imaginary sequel.
The controversy surrounding the ending of “Gone with the Wind” is no criticism, but a great tribute to the film’s compelling force. So real are the characters created by Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh that they do not cease to exist when their images on the screen fade. Their lives go on in the imagination of every moviegoer. Screen Guide believes that Mr. Manning’s conclusion is thoroughly consistent with Margaret Mitchell’s characters. If she had chosen to end her story more decisively, the final chapters might well have looked like this.
“I don’t give a damn!” was Rhett’s weary reply to Scarlett’s selfish cry. “What will become of me?” Now see what might have happened after that.
Rhett tries to forget in the company of Charleston’s Belle Watlings, drinking too much, cursing Scarlett.
Meanwhile, Scarlett, fearing the pitying amusement of gossips, again plays the coquette with man after man, stealing younger girls’ lovers.
Alone, Scarlett gives way to despair, realizing that she cannot live without Rhett. “I’ll think about that tomorrow,” the little opportunist used to say. But this problem she must think about it now. She begns to plot ways and means of bringing Rhett Butler back to her.
Aboard his ship, Rhett continues to drink himself into insensibility, determined not to return to his wife, but still unable to break her hold over him. He decides to set sail on a long voyage. Scarlett, when she hears of the plan, takes desperate action to forestall it.
Scarlett has Rhett kidnapped and brought to their home. They spend another night like the one after Rhett carried her upstairs, but this time it is Scarlett who takes the aggressive. All goes well until he sobers up, and then he becomes furious at her trickery.
He slams out of the house, returns to his ship, and gives orders to sail. He retires to his cabin with a bottle. No matter how much salt water he puts between himself and Scarlett, Rhett is never able to escape from the love he once thought was killed by her selfishness.
A day out to sea, Rhett wakes up, smashes an empty bottle against the cabin door, yells for a full one. A hand sets the bottle on the table. For a moment he thinks he sees Scarlett before him, but convinces himself that the vision is only a drunken mind’s hallucination.
Moments later, a slightly more sober Captain Cutler appears on deck. He stops by the mate at the weel, begins to ask, “Did you see…?” Looking at the seaman’s poker face, he finishes, “Never mind.” “Your wife, sir?” the mate asks. “My wife?” “That’s what she said, sir. She said you’d be looking for her, that she would be waiting in the fo’c’sle.”
Rhett strides angrily along the deck, fists clenched. “My wife! I’ll throw that hussy in the brig. Said I’d be looking for her! If she thinks that I’ll come running any time she snaps her fingers–this time I’ll kill her!…My wife,” he muses. “She said she was my wife.”
A different Scarlett waits for him–proud, yet mutely appealing, promising surrender. “So you said you’re my wife!” His manner changes. “You still say it–and by God, Scarlett, I’ll hold you to it!” And Rhett and Scarlett return together to Tara, to the land. Fadeout.
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He forgives her why? What exactly did she do here to earn a reconciliation? And how is this coincide with Margaret Mitchell’s characters? This is hardly a satisfying new ending. If this was the winning submission, I would be horrified to read the ones that didn’t win!
6 Comments
Kim
I agree. That is a horribly weird ending that contradicts the characters Margaret Mitchell created. In everyone’s search for a “happy ending” they don’t seem to realize (myself included for quite some time) that she already gave one. Her ending is filled with hope and determination after so much dispare anyone would have given up and lost hope after losing so much in such a short time. I used to hate the inconclusive ending but now I love it. It give me hope and brings me up when I’m feeling beaten down. Tomorrow IS another day
Barry Lane
Look, the ending Mrs. Mitchell wrote is not only consistent with Rhett and Scarlett, it is something that happens every day. People in lust fall out of love. Nevertheless, while the story ends with them apart in GWTW, also in the book Rhett is not only much older, but drunken and beginning to show softness as a consequence of time and drink, this ending is fun, if low class. As for Rhett and Scarlett when the book and film end? Rhett grows older, quieter and faces his own mortality. Scarlett becomes what she has always been, shrill and dynamic in business. No romance for either.
Kathleen
Love is a living thing. It can die. Rhett’s died. He told her it “wore out.” That’s life.
Bonnie’s love was a replacement for the love he couldn’t get from her mother. When she died she “took everything.” That’s life too.
Tessa
Rhett was not someone who would allow himself be ‘dumped’ and was prepared for Scarlett’s rejection by getting in there first, he was doing the leaving. He wasn’t going to be known as a man discarded by his wife. He was a man who dictated the terms throughout the story. In addition, at forty five he was having a mid life crisis, drinking too much and blaming himself for the death of his two children, one unborn. The seeds of his political ambition are sown in the novel. He says his interest in politics was for Bonnie’s future but it was as much for himself and he admitted he was a sucker for a lost cause. I think he would have gone to Charleston to see his family and been back in Atlanta in two weeks seeing his marriage from a different perspective. He had always loved his wife for herself and especially at moments when she needed him. He had reached an age when he wanted continuity and stability. At twenty eight, Scarlett was still young and gorgeous and loving parties, was a definite asset to him as politicians wife. Lastly, it is hard to imagine a man who no longer loves a woman still calling her ‘my love, my pet, my darling’. I should like to write a sequel. The question is, did she really want him or was this just a repeat of the scene when husband number two, Frank Kennedy died and she was full of remorse and wishing she had done things differently. These were the things Rhett Butler had to ponder during his two weeks in Charleston before returning to Atlanta to find out and sell the house. That was one thing that was definitely going.
KoniginElle
At least it was an HEA as I believe would have happened to the Butler couple. If you want to read other people’s fanfic, I have a good recommendation. It’s called: “Six Months Later” by HelenSES.