The Smuttiest Character in Canon

Ah, smut. The word gets bandied about regularly within the GWTW universe. As you can probably tell from the last, um, two days, we cover very serious and hard-hitting matters here. And today we're bringing you the definitive answer to a gnawing question: who is, in fact, the smuttiest character in canon? The answer may surprise you. It's waiting for you on the other side of the jump.

Poster of the Week (Or "The Most Successful Living American Artist You've Never Heard Of")

One of our regular features here at How We Do Run On will be our Poster of the Week series, which just as its name suggests will feature a different Gone with the Wind movie poster each week (see- truth in advertising).  For most weeks, our posts will be short and sweet (a picture of the featured poster along with its vital info, such as publication year, dimensions, etc.). But our inaugural post calls for something a little more substantial. And what better poster to feature first than that most famous of all Gone with the Wind posters? 

Ah yes, of course I mean that poster that's hanging out over there to the left. We've all seen it a million times- so much so that it's practically embedded into our corneas. Many windies love it, some aren't fans, but to all of us, it's intrinsically linked to Gone with the Wind. Since its original introduction as part of the 1967 re-release of the film, this poster has achieved iconic status, having graced countless items of GWTW paraphernalia and become a visual shorthand for both the movie and book. In fact, I bet you could go grab a random person off the street and there'd be a good chance your victim innocent passerby would recognize the poster, even if they didn't know anything else about GWTW.

This enduring image was the work of two men, art director and designer Tom Jung and illustrator Howard Terpning. A prolific film graphic artist, illustrator and designer, Tom Jung  developed poster designs for Dr. Zhivago, The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, Raging Bull and Lord of the Rings. Although he's perhaps best known for his work on the original Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back posters,  to us he’s obviously most famous for developing the design for the legendary GWTW poster, which he did during his tenure as a freelance art director for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

The artwork for the poster was created by artist Howard Terpning, who had previously illustrated the Dr. Zhivago and The Sound of Music movie posters, among many, many others. While creating a small army of famous movie posters might be a nice life’s accomplishment for some people, that was merely Howard Terpning’s warm-up act. Today he is “the most successful living American artist you’ve never heard of” per the New York Times, an acclaimed master of Western art who specializes in Native American paintings. The following video provides a nice overview of Howard Terpning’s work, including both his Hollywood years and his long career as a Western painter. 

For more artwork from Tom Jung and Howard Terpning, check out the following links: 

Tom Jung:

Movie design portfolio

Movie artist portfolio

Howard Terpning:

Movie poster gallery – here and here

Movie poster chronology

Fine arts portfolio

The Quotable Rhett Butler: A Certain Mrs. Dives

Introducing today another weekly feature of our blog: The Quotable Rhett Butler. (If you think we're terribly fond of series, well, you are right.) Our aim is to build an inventory of Rhett's lines, with short explanations for his mythological, historical, literary—you name it references and allusions (some of which, I'll admit, took me years to comprehend). And, since he was such an eloquent fellow, we'll definitely have a lot of material to cover.

So, without further ado, our quote for today is:

“Thanks for the crumbs from your table, Mrs. Dives.”

                                     --Gone with the Wind, Chapter XLVIII

As you probably know, the scene in which the line was uttered takes place on the last night of the Butlers' honeymoon. Rhett is comforting Scarlett after her nightmare by assuring her that he's going to tend to her safety and well-being. Scarlett, the ever mistress of thanks and compliments, replies with “Rhett, you are so nice.”, which earns her the above-quoted witticism from her husband. 

By calling her Mrs. Dives, he's alluding to the biblical parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31). The Latin noun for the former was “dives,” and in many later translations of the Bible the word “Dives” was kept as a proper noun, and the parable referred to as the story of Dives and Lazarus. Dives, the rich man, “dressed in purple and fine linen,” denied the dying beggar Lazarus even the crumbs from his table. And of course, he got his punishment for that after his death when he went to Hell, while Lazarus presumably had a good time up in Heaven.

I knew the parable but wasn't aware of the Dives/rich man connection, and so for a long time I didn't understand Rhett's line. And when I first read the explanation, it actually made his joke bittersweet for me. For some reason I couldn't stop thinking that, while he was clearly (and lovingly) mocking his wife's attitude there, the comparison he chose was actually pretty close to how he must have seen their relationship for most of their marriage, distributing himself in the role of the virtuous beggar and Scarlett as the indifferent rich woman that more often than not didn't spare him the crumbs from her table. 

Then again, does she look like she'd give anyone the crumbs from her table?

 

The Leyden House: Neighbor to Rhett and Scarlett

"Finally the business section fell behind and the residences came into view.  Scarlett picked them out as old friends, the Leyden house, dignified and stately; the Bonnells', with little white columns and green blinds; the close-lipped red-brick Georgian home of the McLure family, behind its low box hedges."

--Gone with the Wind, Chapter VIII

Tucked in the passage above with the fictional Bonnell and McLure dwellings is a mention of the Leyden house, which was in fact a very real and prominent Atlanta residence from the antebellum period, through Civil War and beyond. 

And it was near the Leyden house that Margaret Mitchell chose to situate the grand and towering Butler mansion. (“Before we left Atlanta I was dickering for that big lot on Peachtree, the one near the Leyden house.  You know the one I mean?" as sayeth Rhett in the famous honeymoon-nightmare sequence, Ch. XLVIII.) 

So the Leydens had the honor (or infamy, depending on your perspective) to be neighbors to Rhett and Scarlett. But who were the Leydens and what did their house look like?

A native son of Pennsylvania who moved to Atlanta in 1848, Austin Leyden established the town’s first foundry and metal fabrication company that same year. Leyden amassed a fortune and eventually sold the company, called A. Leyden & Co., in 1853 to a business partner. (Thereafter it became known as the Atlanta Machine Works and went on to play a central role in the Civil War, churning out weaponry and other goods for the Confederacy.)

Fate smiled on Leyden through one of his other business ventures: through partnership in a dry goods store with Atlantan William Herring, he met and married Herring’s daughter, Rhoda Catherine Herring, in December 1850. It was William Herring who first lived in what would become known as the Leyden house, built in 1859 or 1860 at 124 Peachtree Street between Cain and Ellis streets. Described as “one of the most beautiful and famous houses ever built in Atlanta,” it was developed on a lavish scale: 

"The house was box-shaped, having four rooms downstairs and four rooms upstairs, with a central hall running from front to back. The impressive facade was dominated by twelve magnificent Ionic columns, eight of which paraded their fluted beauty, along the Peachtree Street frontage, while two more were visible on each side of the spacious piazza. Each column had a hidden opening at its base, presumably a hiding place for valuables. A small glass-enclosed observatory on the roof of the house provided a view of the entire town. At the rear of the structure were a brick smokehouse, a stable, and quarters for house slaves."

--excerpted from Peachtree Street, Atlanta

The massive size of the house can be best seen in this aerial shot from 1895: 

Image from ATLhistory.com

Austin Leyden and his family later moved into the house, which functioned as a hospital during the Civil War, before Mrs. Leyden and her young daughter vacated for Athens during the siege of 1864. Leyden himself served as a major in the Confederate army under the command of General James Longstreet.

On account of the Leyden house’s glass observatory, the home was frequently used by the Confederate Signal Corps as a lookout point to observe the movements of Yankee troops nearing the city. Of course, this wasn’t without danger as the Leyden house was a highly visible target and the Yankee sharpshooters regularly returned aim at their opponents, although they never succeeded in killing any of the Confederate signalers.

With the blessing of Mrs. Leyden, the Leyden house served as the headquarters of beleaguered Lt. General John B. Hood, beginning with several battles preceding and then during the siege of Atlanta.  After Atlanta’s fall to the Yankees, the Leyden house was once again used as an army headquarters—though this time it was U.S. General George H. Thomas who procured the house as his command center. The Atlanta History Center has a great photograph here of the Leyden House during this time period, flanked by two Yankee sentries.

After the war, the Leydens returned to reoccupy their home and lived there for many years, but life did not remain tranquil for either the family or their grand old home. During the 1880s, two fires devastated the house. The first fire destroyed the roof and, upon rebuilding, the Leydens refashioned the home to include three stories, a mansard roof, and a fresh coat of green paint—a change that was met with about as much goodwill as Rhett and Scarlett’s engagement announcement by Atlantans, who viewed the renovation to be a “desecration of the beautiful and historic house” as describes  William Bailey Williford  in Peachtree Street, Atlanta. Fortunately, Atlanta could breathe a sigh of relief when, following the second fire which took out the second and third floors, the house was once again painted white and rebuilt to its original height.

Having fallen on hard times, in 1893 the Leydens decided to rent out most of their home to Mrs. Emma Bell for use as a boarding house.  Ultimately, the story of the Leyden house drew to its final chapter in 1913 when the home was leveled by real estate investors, a sad ending to the long reign of the historic Leyden house as an Atlanta landmark.  

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Marietta But Were Afraid to Ask

“Scarlett was in Marietta when Rhett's urgent telegram came. There was a train leaving for Atlanta in ten minutes and she caught it.” --Gone with the Wind, Chapter LXI

“'I do business in Marietta, a lot of business,' he [i.e. Frank] said.” --Gone with the Wind, Chapter XXXV

I won't lie to you, people. Before I joined the Gone with the Wind discussion group on Yahoo about two years ago, I only had a hazy recollection of Scarlett returning from Marietta to find Melanie dying and an even hazier idea of where the said city was on the map. (In my defense, I live across the pond. Also, on good days I know enough geography to find the bus station in the morning. On bad days...well, let's just say those are better left undiscussed, and leave it at that.) But, as you'll see after the jump, I largely recovered from my ignorance, and Marietta, Georgia will be the first in our series of posts documenting the places mentioned in Gone with the Wind.

Probably named after Mary Moore Cobb, the wife of the US senator in whose honor Cobb County itself was christened, Marietta was established in 1833. The days of its antebellum history were largely uneventful, but marked by steady growth, especially after 1845, when the Western & Atlantic Railroad united it to Marthasville (soon to become Atlanta).

Where in the World is Rhett Butler?

Rhett Butler--blockade runner, explorer, traveler extraordinaire. The man simply went a lot of places in his day. So to keep track of his journeys, we created an interactive map, illustrating all his travel spots as mentioned in Gone with the Wind.

Some quick instructions: click on any marker to see a place name, along with a corresponding citation from Gone with the Wind. The map is scrollable, so you can zoom in or out to get a better look at where in the world Rhett Butler is.

And, in case you're in a pinch and need to find Rhett Butler's possible location in the future, you can always find the link to the map on our side bar menu, under the Pages tab.

View Where in the World is Rhett Butler? in a larger map

Welcome to How We Do Run On

Hello and welcome to How We Do Run On, a joint project between longtime windies and recent bloggers iso and Bugsie. It started with our mutual love for Gone with the Wind and our increasingly long conversations about minor very interesting points in the book. In the process, we discovered the joys of researching said minor very interesting points, and stumbled across tidbits that made us laugh, think, change our opinions and, occasionally, just squeal with excitement. We thought we’d create a place to store and share all these things, and here it is: our virtual Gone with the Wind scrapbook. We had fun putting this together and we hope you’ll have fun reading it as well. 
 

Some of the things you can expect to see around here: various historical tidbits, quotes from the book analyzed in their historical context, Victorian fashion, architecture and mores, book & movie discussions, pretty collages and a fair amount of rambling.

What is fair to assume you won’t find on this page: too much talk about any of the sequels/prequels as we like to pretend they don’t exist, any form of Civil War mythology/racism apologia (we can discuss it, but we can’t and won't defend it) and the snows of yesteryear. The last is the only one prone to change.  

Our calling hours: Visit us each day at any time you'd like and we'll try to make sure there is something new for you to read. 

In the interest of full disclosure, below you’ll find our vital GWTW stats; feel free to point and laugh leave your own GWTW coordinates in the comments here if so inclined. And of course, if you have any other comments, requests for things you'd like to see covered or simply want to say hi, we'd love to hear from you. Other than that, enjoy!

Our Vital Stats 

 

iso:

Age first read the book: 14, scientifically proven to be the ideal age to first read Gone with the Wind. (Just old enough to think you are very grown up and  fully understand it, but young enough to swoon hopelessly over the romance.)

Number of movie viewings: Countless- I actually *wore out* my first VHS tape of the movie from repeated use. 

Number of book copies currently owned: Four. I own a paperback for frequent reading, a pocket paperback (good for on the go travel), a Southern Classics Library special edition from 1984, and a June 1936 edition. 

Favorite Quote from Gone with the Wind: "Talking love and thinking money! How truly feminine!" 

Bugsie: 

Age first read the book: 7, empirically proven to be the ideal age for starting life-long obsessions and learning to use a dictionary.

Number of movie viewings: one and a half.

Number of book copies currently owned: Four, including a 1936 book club edition.

Favorite Quote from Gone with the Wind: "If you were run over by a railroad train your death wouldn't sanctify the railroad company, would it?"