Gone with the Wednesday: 75 Years of Frankly My Dear…

Seventy-five years ago this week, on June 27, 1939,  Clark Gable uttered what was to be the sentence that followed him around the rest of his life and beyond–“Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

June 27 was the the last day of principal filming on Gone with the Wind, and even though the film was not shot in sequence at all, it happened to be the day they filmed the very last scene.

Here’s some trivia regarding that famous last scene and that enduring line:

The original line in the book is “My dear, I don’t give a damn.” Producer David O. Selznick threw in the “Frankly” for emphasis.

Director Victor Fleming also filmed a version of the scene in which Rhett says, “Frankly my dear, I just don’t care.” in case the censors didn’t approve the use of the word “damn.”

There’s a rumor that persists to this day that the Motion Picture Association fined Selznick $5,000 for the use of the word “damn,” but actually the MPA passed an amendment to the Production Code on November 1, 1939, that forbade use of the words “hell” or “damn” except when their use “shall be essential and required for portrayal, in proper historical context, of any scene or dialogue based upon historical fact or folklore … or a quotation from a literary work, provided that no such use shall be permitted which is intrinsically objectionable or offends good taste.” With that amendment in place, the MPA had no reason to fine Selznick.

There is also a persistent rumor that Gone with the Wind was the first film to feature the word “damn,” which is ridiculous. The word was uttered dozens of times in Hollywood’s precode era, even appearing in print in silents in 1925.

Selznick rewrote the final scene several times, finally completing it to his own satisfaction the night before shooting began.

MGM head honcho Louis B. Mayer wanted to end the film  with Scarlett racing out of the house after Rhett and him embracing her in the street.

The final scene of the movie was supposed to be Scarlett standing against a fence, gazing at Tara. The scene was shot, but only a few stills remain.

In 2005, The American Film Institute voted “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn” as the #1 movie line of all time.