Victor Fleming was born on February 23, 1883 in Pasadena, CA. He'd been a racecar driver and in later years was a well-known motorcyclist and airplane pilot. He got into the film industry by accident. First he was an assistant cameraman for director Allan Dwan and by 1915 became a director of photography. He worked under D. W. Griffith's supervision as for Dwen on several films with Douglas Fairbanks. He made his feature debut as a co-director on Fairbanks' movie "When the clouds roll by"(1920). His first solo project was " The Mollycoddle"(1921). He worked at Paramount and went to MGM in 1932. Fleming was a really skilled at film for young audiences, for example "Treasure Island"(1934), "Captains Courageous"(1937) or "The Wizard of Oz". He was also a favorite director of actor Clark Gable, and having guided him in "Red Dust"(1932) and "Test Pilot"(1938) was brought in to take over the directory of "Gone With The Wind"(1939), which earned Victor a Best Director Oscar. He was one of MGM's most reliable directors, and his most notable films of

the 40's were "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", "Tortilla Flat", "A guy named Joe", "Adventure", and his final film "Joan of Arc". Although he directed some of Hollywood's most potent weepers, he was known so much as Mr. Macho J. Victor died on January 6, 1949 in Cottonwood, AZ.

During the Civil War Navy blockaded Southern ports. Blockade-runners, who would risk their lives to bring supplies from England and other places to South were making fortunes, so was Mr. Rhett Butler. The whole run of the Civil War pictured in the movie is historically correct. The character of a General William Tecumseh Sherman as "The Great Invader", soldiers dying of diseases and Yankees' bullets, flames, tragedy, panic... it's a bona fide.

Plantation life has to be divided into two parts. First is the way of life of the wealthy plantation owners, and the second is the brutal and heartless system of unrelenting oppression and exploitation- slavery. That was the reality. While wealthy owners were enjoying their lives at different parties, black slaves were whipped and murdered, slave women were sexually abused, and families were divided. Movie doesn't picture those horrible scenes, however we witness the fight, and as result of it Scarlett spanks Prissy (home servant). We are mostly shown house servants (higher status) and field hands.

Finally let's get back to the roots of the movie, its historical background and connection with the HIS 1000 course at the same time. "GWTW" basically shows pre-Civil War plantation life, the home front during the Civil War and Reconstruction from the point of view of Southern Plantation owners.

As popular is the movie, so is the book, which the film was based on. "Gone With The Wind" by Margaret Mitchell is a over 1,000 pages bestseller. Many parts of it are left out of the movie, but of course it would be impossible to make a movie with 26 fully developed characters (so many has the novel!). The 4-hour drama is long enough. Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable are considered to be exact physical embodiments of the characters in the book. Well, it takes two... Mitchell's writing phenomenon and Selznick's genius casting.

"GWTW" portrays looting, "white- trash" Yankees despoiling the gentility of the Confederates. It also breaks down the facts taught in Northern schools that New Yorkers were the good guys and the Georgians the rebel terrorists. However, as far as I can tell "Gone With The Wind" is a glorious four hours of the theater. Unique captured scenes, great actors as well as the high-quality music give an unforgettable experience.

Was it the end I've expected? I think if "GWTW" had ended with Scarlett's unquestioned triumph, it might not have been nearly as succe

Some common words found in the essay are:
Southern Plantation, Yankees Georgia, Clark Gable, Blue London, Besides GWTW, African- American, Northerners South, Master Slave, Klux Klan, Scarlett Atlanta's, clark gable, gone wind, civil war, bonnie blue, rhett butler, victor fleming, return home, decides leave, vivien leigh, love scarlett,
Approximate Word count = 1846
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)