Movies are often as much or more the work of their director as they are the work of the author whose book they are based upon. In this case, a reviewer said this:
> King Vidor turned Ayn Rand's preposterous 'philosophical' novel into one of his finest and most personal films, mainly by pushing the phallic imagery so hard that it surpasses Rand's rightist diatribes
Considering I'm operating from a very different set of values than she was, I doubt I would find the movie particularly persuasive.