It's with some sense of poignancy that, in the late 1950s, the old guard of Hollywood began to finally fade away. With Band of Angels we have a middle-aged Clark Gable in one of his last ever archetypal he-man roles, Raoul Walsh, one of the few directors left who had been around since the beginning, and John Twist, a writer of adventures and romances who had started back in the silent era. These men were professionals of their day, still able to turn out a good production, and yet it was also clear they were becoming hopelessly out of time.
Band of Angels is one of many pictures from this time to take a stand on racial issues, and yet even by the standards of the time it is a woefully misguided attempt. Rather than using Yvonne De Carlo's situation to demonstrate the horrors of slavery and make the point that a person's colour is skin deep, it seems to present her being branded black as something horrifying in itself. It holds up kindly masters in mitigation of slavery, and even goes so far as to condemn a slave (the Sidney Poitier character) who is ungrateful for this condescending attitude. There's also a full supporting cast of cringeworthy stereotypes – including a "mammy" – and all the drawling and eye-rolling that cinema had mostly put-paid to by this time. The makers of the movie meant well, I'm sure, but it is clearly a case of old Hollywood trying to do The Defiant Ones while still stuck in Gone with the Wind mode.
And yet there is much to be said for old Hollywood. Walsh's dynamic direction brings an iconic look to scenes like Gable and De Carlo's kiss during the storm. He brings real intensity to the duel between Gable and Raymond Bailey, stealthily moving the camera forward as the two men get closer to each other (a trick he first used in his 1915 feature debut, Regeneration). Despite his age Gable is still very much the virile, eye-catching lead man, and this is a decent performance from him – check out the look in his eyes when he slaps his rival at the slave auction. There is also some achingly beautiful cinematography from Lucien Ballard, with some gorgeous Southern scenery and really effective lighting of interiors, achieving a look with candlelight and shadow that was hard to pull off in Technicolor. Band of Angels is, if nothing else, a movie to be enjoyed visually – and in this way more than any other harks back to a bygone age.
Plot summary
Living in Kentucky prior to the Civil War, Amantha Starr is a privileged young woman. Her widowed father, a wealthy plantation owner, dotes on her and sends her to the best schools. When he dies suddenly Amantha's world is turned upside down. She learns that her father had been living on borrowed money and that her mother was actually a slave and her father's mistress.
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January 20, 2024 at 04:13 AM
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"Freedom's a white word"
A lot of our IMDb reviewers just don't get it!
I believe this to be a seriously underrated film. And, it's main problem is that it's Clark Gable's picture, and here he's Hamish Bond, not Rhett Butler. Since it's a Civil War pic, there are the inevitable comparisons to "Gone With The Wind", and no film compares to that.
For those who think the film is too tame in the way in deals with slavery, miscegenation, and related topics. This film was made in 1957, long before things in cinema opened up; keep in mind that the dramatic way "Roots" dealt with the same topics was in a different era 20 years later. But, stop and think about the first 30 minutes of this film (during which Clark Gable doesn't even appear): a young White girl finds out she's not really White...she's a Negress (the term used in the film). Her father dies and she is stripped of her family estate and heirlooms. At a slave market in New Orleans she is sold into slavery after she learns first hand of the sexual abuse many slaves underwent and she attempts suicide. Pretty powerful stuff for 1957. And then there's Gable's character who we think is a fairly kind slave owner...but later in the film he admits that he was a slave trader who partook in atrocities in Africa. Again, pretty powerful stuff in 1957 to have a leading man take such a position.
Clark Gable is excellent here, particularly when he admits his past. I didn't always like Gable's films, but when the part was right he could be very powerful on screen...and he is here. Yvonne DeCarlo, as the "Negress" is excellent here. This is probably her best role, and it is a shame she eventually succumbed to making "The Munsters".
In supporting roles, Sidney Poitier is key as Gable's slave that he has raised as a son. Poitier was just building his acting career here, but he was an impressive actor even then. Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. is good as a Union soldier, although I would like to have seen more of him; I feel he is an underrated actor. Rex Reason is just right an the evangelical lover who plays a continuing (but ever-changing) role in DeCarlo's life. Patric Knowles plays a cowardly plantation owner very well. A gem of a performance is put in by Ray Teal as a slave dealer...can't say you'll like the character, but it's great acting.
I don't find a lot to criticize here. There are some plot twists, particularly toward the end of the film, but I found them enhancing the story line. Too many of our IMDb reviewers here are trying to review a 1950s film about race from a 21st century perspective. Sorry, that's not fair and it doesn't work.
Watch for yourself, keep an open mind, and learn about an era before Dr. Martin Luther King.
The story of a woman who denies her own people in turbulent time
The world was full of all colors during the time leading up to the Civil War in the South
The cry for freedom was in the air like a rising wind
Slaves have already gone wild on many plantations but not yet on Pointe du Loup, Louisiana, where it was still serene
Hamish Bond maintains a plantation outside New Orleans
At the slave mart he buys a beautiful girl for $5,000
She is the daughter of a supposedly wealthy Kentucky planter
After her father's death she discovered he has left her nothing but debts
She also discovered her mother was a black slave and that, according to the custom of the time, she is classified of Negro blood and literally sold down the river to discharge her father's debts
Amantha Starr is horrified and degraded at the treatment shea well-bred white girlreceives when she becomes classified as a woman of mixed race
Hamish doesn't relegate the proud dark-haired woman to slave quarters but treats her as a lady in his household, where romance develops
Clark Gable plays the New Orleans wealthy gentleman who got a past he'd like to forget
He knows better than most men that money is no cure-all
He used to think it was
He used to think it would open the door to friendship and other essentials more important than power
He used to believe it was everything: a drug for loneliness, a painkiller for certain memories, the whole apothecary shop for every problem of life
He bought the attractive Amantha because she was on the slave block
Somebody else was bound to bid her on
That fellow with laced cuffs putting his hands on her and he hates lace cuffs
Yvonne de Carlo plays Amantha, the lady of quality with Negro heritage
She didn't go on her way north, nor she jumped the boat at Pointe du Loup
She has suffered, and she always will, with Hamish or without him
There always will be the fires, the memories because she loves him, and because he's the only man she ever loved, or ever will
The young Sidney Poitier plays the rebellious ambitious chief slave Rau-Ru who gets off the sidewalk for nobody
No constable or paddy roll ever stopped him
No steamboat captain ever asked to see his pass
Will he feels lucky enough to deliver his boss to the hangman one day?