Gone with the Wind (film) time on the night of December 10, 1938, when the burning of Atlanta was filmed. In a letter to his wife two days later, Selznick admitted that Leigh was "the Scarlett dark horse", and after a series of screen tests, her casting was announced on January 13, 1939. Just before the shooting of the film, Selznick informed newspaper columnist Ed Sullivan: "Scarlett O'Hara's parents were French and Irish. Identically, Miss Leigh's parents are French and Irish." Of original screenplay writer Sidney Howard, film historian Joanne Yeck writes, "reducing the intricacies of "Gone with the Wind"'s epic dimensions was a herculean
Gone with the Wind (film) where it placed second in the sales charts, and has since been released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc formats. Upon its release, consumer magazines and newspapers generally gave "Gone with the Wind" excellent reviews; however, while its production values, technical achievements, and scale of ambition were universally recognized, some reviewers of the time found the film to be too long and dramatically unconvincing. Frank S. Nugent for "The New York Times" best summed up the general sentiment by acknowledging that while it was the most ambitious film production made up to that point, it probably was not the greatest film