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'Atlas,' at last, on map

By Robert Stacy McCain
October 5, 2007

Ayn Rand – taken May 1936 Credit: Pach Brothers 642 5th Ave. NYC

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The famous question remains pertinent a half-century later: "Who is John Galt?" In 1957, Ayn Rand introduced a generation of readers to Galt, the reclusive engineer whose radical pro-capitalist stance brings a socialist government to its knees.

Mixing romance, mystery, science fiction and philosophy, "Atlas Shrugged" has since fascinated millions with its epic tale of railroad heiress Dagny Taggart, who struggles against greedy union bosses, incompetent management and corrupt bureaucrats until her encounter with the refugees of "Galt's Gulch" enlightens her to the true nature of the "anti-life" forces that oppose the entrepreneurial spirit.

The novel's 50th anniversary will be celebrated tomorrow at the Marriott Renaissance Hotel with a daylong conference culminating in a gala banquet featuring John Stossel of ABCNews, who says he was "stunned" when he read "Atlas Shrugged" at age 40.

Rand "stunned me for how she could know things that had taken me 20 years of reporting to see," Mr.Stossel said. "I had already come to the conclusion that competition makes capitalism just. I discovered this as a consumer reporter. ... Competition protects consumers far better than regulation.

"What I got from Ayn Rand was how she describes the chilling and creepy way regulators work."

The golden anniversary of the novel comes at a time when Rand's fans are excited at the prospect of a major motion picture adaptation of "Atlas Shrugged," with Angelina Jolie announced for the starring role of Dagny Taggart.

"It's as close as the book has ever come to being filmed," said Edward Hudgins, executive director of the Atlas Society, which is hosting tomorrow's event.

Over the decades, repeated efforts to bring "Atlas Shrugged" to the screen have failed, Mr. Hudgins noted, but this project now has all the elements of a blockbuster — a studio (Lion's Gate), producers (Howard and Karen Baldwin, who produced an Oscar-winner, "Ray," the biography of singer Ray Charles), a director (Vadim Perlman, who directed "House of Sand and Fog"), a script (by Randall Wallace of "Braveheart" fame) and a marquee name in Miss Jolie.

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