MovieChat Forums > Jezebel (1938) Discussion > JEZEBEL Actually Pre-Dates GWTW

JEZEBEL Actually Pre-Dates GWTW


It's interesting that with all the comparisons to GWTW that find JEZEBEL wanting, nobody ever seems to think JEZEBEL could have had any influence on GWTW - yet JEZEBEL was first presented on the stage in 1934 - two years before GWTW was published! Of course, Margaret Mitchell had been working on her novel for 8 years or so by 1934, and I don't think she got to New York during JEZEBEL's brief run (something like 34 performances - it starred Miriam Hopkins). That said, it's also known that JEZEBEL underwent some structural and plot changes in the transition from stage to screen, so it's likely that the novel GWTW (published in 1936) most likely had some influence on the film JEZEBEL (filmed in 1937/38), because GWTW was already so much in the public's consciousness and there was so much anticipation of Selznick's film version, which didn't even begin filming until the end of 1938, many months after JEZEBEL's release.

Those of you who think you know everything should politely defer to those of us who actually do!

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Not only that but the book GWTW differs greatly from the movie, most notably that in the BOOK, Scarlett has a child by both Charles Hamilton AND one by Frank Kennedy. Am I ever glad I saw the movie first...and I watch it any chance I get on television.

LLR

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I think the issue was Selznick - he was insulted that they rushed to release this one after the popularity of the GWTW novel and actually sent letters to Jack Warner about it because GWTW was in its early stages of development at the time.

Today it would be the equivalent of a film company buying the rights to the biggest book of the day, but a different company searching out a similar book (even if it was released earlier but was not as popular) and rushing through a film to get the drop on the more popular film.

You can't really blame either - Selznick was insulted at what he probably viewed as disrespectful to what he was trying to do, and Warner was just capitalizing on what was trendy at the time.

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Oh, really, who cares? Does this make Jezebel something better than what it is, a really good movie? Why is it that some people have to make everything that Bette Davis touched tantamount to the second coming?

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