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''Gone with the Wind'' was made into a color film in 1939, starring [[Vivian Leigh ]] and [[Clark Gable]], and directed by [[Victor Fleming]]. It was [[Hollywood]]'s largest and most expensive production to date, with a huge cast, massive sets (the fake city of Atlanta was burned down). [[David O. Selznick]], the legendary, manic producer who dominated every aspect of the film, fired the first director [[George Cukor]], and Fleming finished up. It won eight Academy Awards, and is the most-seen and highest grossing film of all time.
The book and film do not attack slaveholders, and the slaves appear to be too happy and the Freedmen too angry, so [[Neoabolitionist]] critics have been hostile. The story is intensely anti-war, showing how hot-heads (repeatedly ridiculed by Rhett Butler) take the highly prosperous South into a needless war and destroy their whole way of life. It takes a very hard-headed woman, Scarlett O'Hara, to whip the underperforming menfolk into shape.