Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz", which MGM did on June 3, 1938, from Sam Goldwyn for $75,000. Hits in 1939 included "The Wizard of Oz", "Boys Town" and "Gone with the Wind", starring Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara and Clark Gable as Rhett Butler. Although "Gone With the Wind" was produced by Selznick International Pictures, it was distributed by MGM as part of a deal for producer David O. Selznick, Mayer's son-in-law, to obtain the services of Gable as well as financial assistance to complete the film. While "The Wizard of Oz" was a critical hit, the film took 20
Gone with the Wind (novel) disgust of the Yankee woman who was seeking an Irish maid, a "Bridget". African Americans and Irish Americans are treated "in precisely the same way" in "Gone with the Wind", writes David O'Connell in his 1996 book, "The Irish Roots of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind". Ethnic slurs on the Irish and Irish stereotypes pervade the novel, O'Connell claims, and Scarlett is not an exception to the terminology. Irish scholar Geraldine Higgins notes that Jonas Wilkerson labels Scarlett: "you highflying, bogtrotting Irish". Higgins says that, as the Irish American O'Haras were slaveholders and African Americans were held in bondage,