from Thomas Schatz, The Genius of the System, 292-4.

In 1940 SIP had only three pictures in release-Wind, Rebecca, and Intermezzo-while the five major studios along with Columbia and Universal were releasing roughly one feature per week. But none of those massive production companies took in anywhere near the $10 million in net profits that Selznick International earned that year. Only MGM, at $8.7 million, was even close, and half of its profits came from the deal with SIP to distribute Wind. ..

All of the majors benefited from the success of Wind and Rebecca, of course, since both pictures ran in their first-run theaters. And the industry was equally gracious in recognizing Rebecca's value. Just as Wind had the year before, Rebecca won the Academy Award for best picture in 1940, bringin SIP the industry's highest kudos in what was Hollywood's greatest era…

Selznick's commercial and critical success in 1939-40 put him on top of the industry, but the two pictures that carried him there took a heavy toll. The enormous effort he put into Wind and Rebecca left him physically, mentally, and emotionally spent, and the two pictures did in SIP as well. As the profits from Wind and Rebecca poured in, it became evident that the company was the victim of its own success. Without either a massive facility or a full program of productions, the profits could not be amortized, reinvested, or otherwise defrayed, so the tax bite was enormous-especially for Selznick and Jock Whitney, whose incomes in 1940 threatened to reach about $4 million apiece. In August of that year the major stockholders in SIP decided to dissolve the company, sell each other portions of the assets, and let the profits be taxed as capital gains rather than personal or corporate income. Selznick and Whitney retained their interest in Wind (44 percent and 48 percent respectively) and made plans to rerelease it periodically. Selznick announced to the press not only that he was liquidating SIP but that he was taking an indefinite leave ftom active production--though he did create David O. Selznick Productions that summer, so he wouldn't be out of the picture altogether.

Besides doing in SIP and redefining the limits of prestige and profitability in Hollywood filmmaking, Wind and Rebecca also marked something of a watershed in terms of individual power and initiative. Selznick's success with SIP signaled the arrival of the independent producer as a dominant force in the industry. Filmmakers like Sam Goldwyn and Walt Disney had paved the way and would continue to push the limits--with pictures like Fantasia, for example, which Disney then had in production. The success of their pictures contributed to Hollywood's golden age, but they also indicated an important shift in its balance of power. The majors still dominated the marketplace and controlled the overall system, though individuals outside any studio's purview now were reshaping the products, the production process, and even the marketing strategies. And while Wind was the consummate producer's picture, Rebecca suggested that this power shift involved directors as well-or rather what Selznick had termed the "producing director." The movie director's authority had been subdued for some two decades, since the rise of the studio system and of the producer as its key functionary. But Selznick and Hitchcock were proving that the producer and director could break free, if not from the system at large, at least from direct studio control. That freedom enabled them to create some of the studio era's greatest pictures, while it also heralded the system's ultimate disintegration.