2009 marks the 70th Anniversary of Gone with the Wind.  I don’t think there’s ever been a time when I didn’t associate Clark Gable with Rhett Butler.  He was Rhett Butler as far as I was concerned.  But what if Rhett Butler wasn’t Rhett Butler?  What if he had ended up as someone else?

Apparently, the only actors producer David O. Selznick ever considered for the role of Rhett Butler were Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Errol Flynn, and Ronald Colman.  

I can tell you right now that Ronald Colman would’ve been too old for the part (born in 1891, Colman would’ve been 48 at the time of the release), never mind not having the animal magnetism a role like Rhett Butler requires.  Gable, Flynn, and Cooper did have that animal-something, but Cooper lacked a rogue’s sense of humor and the flashing teeth grins.  Plus, his romantic chemistry wouldn’t have sparked with a silly, willful girl like Scarlett O’Hara.

There was talk of Errol Flynn as Rhett and Bette Davis as Scarlett.  In 1939, Errol Flynn was a magnificent screen hero and a bona fide box office draw.  As producer Hal Wallis wrote in his memoirs, Flynn was the “golden cavalier” of Warner Brothers.  At the time of GWTW, Flynn was an even bigger star than Humphrey Bogart who had yet to find High Sierra (1941), The Maltese Falcon (1941), and of course Casablanca (1942).  The problem with Flynn was that he was pseudo-Irish with an almost-British accent.  He was, in truth, Australian.  Though Warner Bros. cast him in successful westerns, no one ever believed he was a home-grown American.

With or without the process of elimination, Clark Gable was the perfect choice.  Indisputably masculine in ways that satisfied female desires, Gable also won approval from a male perspective because he never appeared whipped.  He looked like he could cold-cock a woman as easily as make love to her (the fact that he refrained from slugging women made him even more masculine).  Gable was king at MGM and because GWTW was an MGM film, what could be more suitable?  [8/2/2011 Note: MGM distributed the film, but it was a production of David O. Selznick.]

Recently, though, in reading Leatrice Gilbert Fountain’s biography of her father John Gilbert, I came across the intriguing comment by David Selznick to Leatrice’s mother who visited the set of GWTW:  “You and I know, Leatrice, we buried the man who should have played Rhett Butler”.  

Gilbert died in 1936.  His career had been made and destroyed at MGM in equally spectacular fashion.  In his prime, he was the romantic ideal.  While he wasn’t impressed with the “Great Lover” title that MGM used to promote him, Gilbert was comfortable playing leading men in grand period dramas (Gable was not).  Gilbert also saw himself as an actor and artist.   Gable, despite his Best Actor Oscar for It Happened One Night (1934), was unsure he had the depth to play Rhett especially considering the rabid expectations Margaret Mitchell’s readers already had for the character.

This notion of Gilbert as Rhett Butler is a provocative “what if?”  And with the release of Gilbert’s final silent film Desert Nights (1929) from the Warner Archive Collection, the notion is not as far-fetched as you might think.  Gilbert plays the manager of a diamond mine in Africa.  After a pair of thieves (Ernest Torrence and Mary Nolan) masquerade as aristocrats to gain access to half a million in rough diamonds, Gilbert is taken hostage in their escape to the Kalahari Desert.

Despite being initially duped by the thieves and ending up their hostage, Gilbert never appears out of control.  He exudes absolute confidence in himself and knows that it’s only a matter of waiting for the thieves to sabotage themselves.  He tells Mary Nolan, “The diamonds are mine -- and you’ll be mine when I want you.” Sure enough, the thieves are dependent on Gilbert to guide them through the desert.  

Their water supply dwindles quickly and hysteria starts to set in, except for Gilbert who watches with some amusement.  A bug-eyed Nolan begs him for water, first offering the diamonds she stole, then herself.  Gilbert replies, “The paint’s all peeled off – there’s nothing tempting about you now.”  But he possesses a rogue’s sort of gallantry and makes sure Nolan doesn’t give herself up to the hyenas.  Through all his taunts and her brattiness, Gilbert really does want Nolan.  It’s exactly the kind of dynamic Rhett had with Scarlett.

Had John Gilbert lived, it is highly improbably (actually impossible) that Louis B. Mayer ever would’ve allowed him to be cast as Rhett Butler.  Mayer’s hatred of Gilbert was apoplectic, despite the fact that in the movie world, Jack Gilbert was one of the good guys – universally well-liked (if not loved) and not phony.

Clark Gable received a Best Actor nomination for his performance in Gone with the Wind, but lost out to Robert Donat in Goodbye, Mr. Chips.  Gable wasn’t happy about that, but his performance as Rhett Butler endures.  Re-casting the role is futile (I think even Timothy Dalton must know it, though he played Butler in the 1994 TV miniseries).  If we hover in the moment before the die was cast, before Clark Gable and Rhett Butler fused together, we can enjoy what might have been.  We can imagine the sad end to John Gilbert’s career turned around by a revelatory opportunity.  Yesterday was another day.