content: You have to give credit to this film for its glossy, epic sweep and the fact that it breaks new ground in filmmaking techniques. Unfortunately, the film, like the novel, promotes a destructive, romantic myth of a south that never really existed.In this Technicolor version of the Old South all the darkies are happy and smiling and dancing on the banks of the Mississippi, and obviously it's too bad the Civil War came along and ruined things. What a trashy message, and the terrible thing is that its wrapped in such a seductive and attractive package.