The job of writing the script was given to Sidney Howard who produced the first draft in February 1937, which when broken down worked out to about 5 1/2 hours. By mid 38 a 4th draft was finished with an estimated length of 6 1/4 hours. The problem was that Selznick wanted the length reduced but was against anything already in the script being cut. Selznick and Howard spent months revising each scene countless of times until finally, in October, Howard quit. Selznick took all the material, enough to fill a four draw filing cabinet, with scriptwriter Jo Swerling to Bermuda to try and produce a workable script but 2 months later it was in the same shape as when they started. Meanwhile other work was continuing, the 150 characters in the book had been reduced to 59, a record for any production at the time. With a budget of $154,000 costumier Walter Plunkett had to design and create 5,500 separate items of clothing providing 290 changes for the principle characters plus renting 100's of costumes, checking them for accuracy and attending to their fitting on the 1,000's of extras.

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