Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American epic-historical-romance film adapted from Margaret Mitchell’s Pulitzer-winning 1936 novel. The leading roles are portrayed by Vivien Leigh (Scarlett), Clark Gable (Rhett), Leslie Howard (Ashley), and Olivia de Havilland (Melanie). At the 12th Academy Awards held in 1940, it received ten Academy Awards (eight competitive, two honorary) from thirteen nominations. It set records for the total number of wins and nominations at the time. The film was immensely popular; when adjusted for monetary inflation, it is still the most successful film in box-office history. The film is regarded as one of the greatest films of all time; it has placed in the top ten of the American Film Institute’s list of top 100 American films since the list’s inception in 1998; and in 1989, Gone with the Wind was selected to be preserved by the National Film Registry. (More from Wikipedia)
In Tiny Tim’s version, “Tiptoe through the Tulips” came off as a novelty song, but that is certainly not how the song started out. Written by Al Dubin and Joe Burke, “Tiptoe through the Tulips with Me” was a featured song in an historic film in 1929, Gold Diggers of Broadway and became a #1 hit recording by one of the film’s stars, the “crooning troubadour” and guitarist Nick Lucas later that year. Only the second all-color “talkie” film (and using an early version of the Technicolor process), it quickly became the best-selling film of all time that year, a record that it held for 10 years until eclipsed by (you guessed it) Gone with the Wind. (Sadly, Gold Diggers of Broadway is now a partially lost film; the loose remake, Gold Diggers of 1933 is better known these days).
(March 2013)
