there are so many slight discrepancies between the book and the movie but it's still a nice adaptation.

Rating: Null/10 (12 February 2006)

Before telling anything about the movie I just should say that I always read the book before seeing an adaptation. "Gone With The Wind" is book that sounds like a book having racist elements in it. I am pretty aware that the book was published before nearly 30 years of the time activists like Martin Luther King but I can sense that M. Mitchell has a sympathy for the social strata of the South. She limns house slaves like Mammy and Pork as devoted and loving servants whom the whites treat like family. In the novel, all masters treat all slaves well. Although some admirable characters dislike slavery, Ashley and Frank among them, once the slaves are freed both the characters and the narrator describe blacks as "trashy," "insolent," and "creatures of small intelligence." Plus we can easily feel that the writer approves the acts of Ku Klux Klan. In the movie it's not too easy to see that element but you can catch a few words like Rhet Butler's description "poorly-brained darkie"... Vivian Leigh as the strong,selfish,opportunistic Southern belle Scarlett has a good performance while Olivia de Havilland as the physically frail but spiritually strong and good-hearted Melanie is satisfactory enough. But let me tell you that Hattie McDaniel as the old heavy set mammy deserves the "Best Actress in a Supporting Role" she got as the the first African American to be nominated for and win an Oscar. I had admired Leslie Howard as Professor Higgins in "Pygmalion" but I thing his performance as "the honorable but weak Ashely Wilkes" is really poor. The performance of players give really something to the should of the movie but really I am a person who attaches importance to little details in a movie. It is not possible that you can see a detailed technical description of fall of Atlanta towards the end of civil war. Even f there were the necessary technology the runtime would not permit that. It's already 225 minutes. Another thing is that Scarlett has one kid from each of her three husbands but we don't really see any of her kids other than Bonnie. In the book characters use alcohol to cope with stress, but when they abuse alcohol, disaster ensues. Drinking is partly responsible for Gerald's death: he rides his horse while drunk, misses a jump, and is thrown to his death he doesn't actually dies because riding crazily after Jonas Wilkerson the white trash as he is called both in the book and in the movie.He gets drunk after refusing to sign an oath stating that he was a Union sympathizer, and breaks his neck jumping his horse over a fence on the way home.Morover in the book, Suellen ends up marrying Will Benteen, a "Cracker" who comes to live at Tara after the war.Will Benteen is not a character in the movieand so Suellen's marriage is never mentioned. One more thing is that...that night when Frank Ashley and other decent people go to a Ku Klux Klan meeting(the movie never mentions that name openly) well when the Yankee guards come to search Melanie's house they read David Copperfield at home in the movie but actually they read Les Miserables in the book and we never see Archie-Scarlett around in the movie! In the book, Archie is an ex-convict whom Melanie allows to sleep in her basement, and who stays on out of obligation to her. In the movie, several of Archie's lines in the scene where they are waiting for news of the ill-fated Klan raid are said by Mammy. But after all this is a pretty adaptation for such a 1000 page book. The performances of the players and the technical skill of the film in spite of its time make up for that.If someone is a book-worm he/she will definitely love the book more. The is not a flawless masterpiece but still worth-watching after all!