Scarlett Searches for Dr. Meade, from "Gone with the Wind" (1939), directed by Victor Fleming
Directed as well by George Cukor (who was fired) and Sam Wood (hired when Victor Fleming had, or staged, a nervous breakdown). But Fleming did most of the film, including this, its most breathtaking scene and probably the most famous crane shot in Hollywood history (we'll be seeing one other candidate). According to Pauline Bartel, the train-yard scene, with its hundreds of wounded Confederate soldiers (including 800 articulated mannequins to fill out the frame!), took four months to plan and prepare. "The major problem was getting the camera up to the required height. The camera crew estimated that by the end of the scene, the camera needed to be 90 feet off the ground. But the tallest camera crane available in Hollywood reached only a height of 25 feet. [The] production manager, Ray Klune, contacted a southern California construction company that owned a crane with an extension range of 125 feet. He rented the truck-mounted crane for ten days. During tests, he found that vibrations from the truck's engine shook the camera at the beginning and end of the scene. To solve the problem, Klune ordered the building of a 150-foot-long concrete ramp. The truck slid smoothly down the ramp while the arm of the crane lifted the camera easily into the air to capture the breathtaking panorama." All the complex logistics created an indelible vision of the ravages of war, and with the addition of colour photography (which Fleming had used equally memorably on The Wizard of Oz, released in the same year as "Gone with the Wind"), it stands as a historical testament to the growing sweep and confidence of American filmmaking in the sound era. I couldn't find a good rip of this online, so I made my own and posted it to Wave.video, boosting the sound level en route. Even including Scarlett's (Vivien Leigh's) encounter with Dr. Meade (Harry Davenport), seeking his help to deliver Melanie's (Olivia de Havilland's) baby, the entire sequence runs barely over two minutes. It's an admirably concise statement in a nearly four-hour movie. (And de Havilland, who doesn't appear here, is still alive and kicking at 103!)
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