User reviews

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.

In Kentucky in the antebellum of the Civil War, Amantha Starr (Yvonne De Carlo) is the pride and joy of her father, the plantation owner Aaron Starr (William Forrest) that treats her slaves with dignity. When he dies, Amantha learns that he mother was black and she is included as a slave to be sold to pay his father's debts. She is sent to an auction in New Orleans and bought by the wealthy Hamish Bond (Clark Gable) by a fortune. He brings her home and treats her as if she were a guest. Amantha meets the slaves Rau-Ru (Sidney Poitier), who is treated like a son, and Michele (Carolle Drake), who is Hamish's mistress and in love with him. Soon they fall in love with each other, but Hamish discloses a dreadful secret from his past, their relationship ends. Meanwhile the Civil War breaks out and Hamish becomes a wanted man while Rau-Ru joins the Union Army. Will the love of Amantha and Hamish be doomed by the war?

"Band of Angels" is a romantic epic that seems to be a soap opera with a story with many twists. The plot seems to be a melodramatic version of "Gone with the Wind" and Rau-Ru first attitude is ungrateful. The best moment of this melodrama is when Amantha discovers that she is considered a black woman and consequently a slave. Her situation is impressive and heartbreaking. The spoiled woman is suddenly transformed into a property of despicable men. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Meu Pecado Foi Nascer" ("My Sin Was to be Born")

This film is a typical pre-Sixties look at the Civil War. They are very progressive for the time, having one black actor in a major role and several in bit parts, but even still the film is startlingly unwitty. It would be great to study the politics behind this film. It follows the early Hollywood mode of having white actors play black roles, and I would not hesitate from assuming that they had Evon De Carlo to play the role because of the taboo of a black person kissing a white person on the screen. Sidney Potier delivers a fairly decent performance, while Evon De Carlo and Clark Gable could not get out of the Rhett Butler/Scarlett O'Hara mold. The film has some fairly good scenes, but overall it is just barely watchable.

Warner Brothers spared no expense in this lavish film production of a young woman of mixed parentage who falls in love with the man who buys her at an auction but denies her racial heritage. Clark Gable dominates the film as an ex-slave trader and plantation owner in the antebellum South. Yvonne De Carlo is the mulatto who becomes Gable's mistress and Sidney Poitier as a proud man who was raised as Bond's son. Gable and De Carlo make an appealing pair in the film but they spend a great deal of time quarreling with each other. Gable has a dark secret about his past that he'd like to forget and De Carlo struggles to accept the truth about her racial origins. Gable later is a fugitive from Union justice for burning crops and stores, thereby risking the hangman's noose. The film's title refers to a newly-formed Union regiment of black soldiers in the waning days of the Confederacy. The film has an excellent music score by Max Steiner, great technicolor lensing by Lucien Ballard and a solid supporting cast.

If you watch this film more for its fun factor and less on its artistic merit, you will probably be more satisfied. While the movie does have some holes (such as Yvonne DeCarlo's adequate performance and the film's making slavery seem not quite so horrible), it is enjoyable on at least an emotional level. Fans of Clark Gable, for instance, are sure to be pleased and the settings around the bayous of Louisiana are are quite pretty. Sidney Poitier does a good job in the film as the angry ex-slave and it's interesting to see a younger Efram Zimbalest, Jr. playing a supporting role. This film will NOT change your life and at times it's pretty predictable, but it is better than just a time-passer and worth your time.

It's obvious that Warner Brothers decided to duplicate the success of Gone With the Wind when they hired Clark Gable for the lead role in Band of Angels. As Hamish Bond, former slave trader, and now plantation owner in the Louisiana delta country, Gable is an older and more worldly wise Rhett Butler. A man deeply concerned about the sins he committed in this life as a slave trader, living it down as best he can.

One of his new charities is Yvonne DeCarlo who received one rude shock when her father died. Her mom was black, one of the plantation slaves and she is technically one also. She's not the mistress of her father's plantation, she along with the rest of the property, real and human, is to be sold for back taxes.

Gable buys her and sets her up in his New Orleans home. Also in that house is a young black man named Ra-Ru played by Sidney Poitier. Poitier, in violation of the laws of the time, has been educated. And he's acquired enough education to appreciate the situation he's in. He's got a great hate for his benefactor who he really sees as no different than other, crueler slave holders.

Today's audience which has seen Steven Spielberg's great true film Amistad about the illegal African slave trade, can appreciate far better Gable's dilemma. It's as if the owners of the Amistad grew a conscience. Gable's description of life in the slave trade when he levels with Yvonne DeCarlo is a high point of the film as is his description of the rescue of an African baby who grew up to be Sidney Poitier.

The film does borrow liberally from Gone With the Wind in terms of Gable's character. But it also borrows from Birth of a Nation. Catch the scenes at his plantation on the delta when his slaves greet him and DeCarlo coming off the riverboat. Very much in keeping with that flawed classic. Had Gable done this film at his former studio MGM, I'm sure Ava Gardner would have been cast opposite him. Though DeCarlo is fine, Ava would have made the part a classic.

Actually it's Poitier who walks off with the acting honors here. His Ra-Ru is filled with fire and passion. What Gable thought of as an act of kindness, is not perceived by Poitier as that. He's educated enough to see exactly the institution of slavery for the dehumanizing force that it is. His confrontation with another plantation owner, Patric Knowles, when he tries to force himself on DeCarlo is not something one with the slave mentality would do. Knowles makes a big mistake in assuming Poitier thinks that way.

Actually Patric Knowles has another important scene with Gable after Poitier assaults Knowles and escapes. Gable has no use for him at all. He's originally from New England and doesn't like southern aristocrats as a group. Though Knowles is reputed to be a dead shot as a duelist, Gable faces him down and makes him turn tail in my favorite scene in the film.

Band of Angels did not get the best of reviews at the time it came out. I think it was ahead of its time and can be better appreciated by audiences today.

I have to say this film was much better than the civil war potboiler I was expecting. Yes it definitely has overtones of Gone With the Wind but if you put Clark Gable in a Civil War movie that's what you are going to get. Warners have obviously spared no expense with this one and the money shows on screen. Gable's salary would have been a part of that and frankly he is too old for the role of a slave trader turned plantation owner in the old south but he brings a legacy with him that is there on the screen. His big scene where he comes clean to Yvonne De Carlo about his slave trading past could almost be paraphrased as "Frankly my dear you really shouldn't give a damn" and it's almost as if Gable knows it. De Carlo is also too old for her part by at least 10 years but she does some her best work here. The trouble is that her best work can only be described as competent when the part of Amantha requires more fire than De Carlo can offer. The real acting pleasures here are provided by some of the supporting players. Carolle Drake, in her only screen appearance, gives a cool and knowing performance as Gable's housekeeper and former mistress who still loves him. Likewise Juanita Moore makes something out of the nothing the script gives her in a brief appearance as a maid on a steamboat. Andrea King leaves you wanting more as Miss Idell who seemingly ends up with Amantha's inheritance. King's exit scene (quite early in the piece) as she walks away towards the plantation house with her back to the camera is beautifully shot. Sidney Poitier on the other hand seemed a little self-conscious to me as the educated slave (and by proxy Gable's adopted son figure). Overall this is a film that has improved with age and deserving of a re-evaluation today.

This movie is something else I must say. I just don't know how to take it. I guess the thing that upset me the most was this movie was another example of Hollywood being racist, while telling a story about racism, their displaying racism. First thing that upset me was they cast a white actress to the part of a mixed black person, Hollywood did this often in movies about mixed race people (Pinky, Lost Boundaries, Imitation of Life, Show Boat), they always would cast white actors and actress and try to make them look ethnic, instead of hiring light-skinned black actress and actors to play the part, it would bring an authenticity to the role if a real black played the part. For this particular movie, Band of Angels, Hilda Simms (famous for playing Anna Lucasta on Broadway) who was a beautiful, talented, light-skinned black woman, would have been perfect as Manty, but as some reviewers have said, a true black and a white kissing and being in love on screen was taboo and something the world wasn't ready to see yet, but it was okay to see a "pretend black girl played by a white" and a white man in love, how much sense does that make??? Manty once lived as a white privileged girl, so when she finds out she's "black," she can't accept her blackness or the black side, and throughout the movie she's still acts like a white girl, detached in many ways. Yvonne De Carlo, doesn't even play the tragic mulatto well, she seems very cold, especially when she's on the black side. Its because she has no experience as a black, she can't bring that experience to the role, so she seems very detached and going through the motions in some parts of the movie. She couldn't bring the suffering and hardships of being black like a real black actress could.

This movie showed some truth about slavery, many white slave masters were sleeping with black women and having black mistresses. Where do you think all these different tones of black people come from? Many blacks have white ancestry, but most whites won't admit they have black relations. Many slave masters would keep their mixed race children a secret from their white families. President Thomas Jefferson has black descendants, from the children he had with his black slave mistress, but most white descendants of Thomas Jefferson haven't been as welcomed to them. I saw a common theme in this movie it seems the men couldn't wait to sleep with or rape the light-skinned Manty, proving that during slavery, many light-skinned black women were used as sex slaves back then, but yet still slaves.

Another thing about this movie is the "one drop of black blood" rule. This was something made up by whites to keep mixed race people out of their race. Whites wanted to keep their race pure, so even if a mixed race person looked more white, that drop of black kept them from being white. They didn't have a choice to choose to be black or white. White people were in denial of their black-white relations and gung-ho about not accepting mixed race ones, and that's still true to this day. Our President Obama is of mixed race, but people call him black. Also back then there was a rule that if your mother was a slave, you had to be a slave. That was one way slave owners could keep more slaves from being free. Quite a few black men were able to buy their freedom, but most black women couldn't afford their freedom and plus if a slave was of mixed race, she still had to be a slave, even if her father was a white man, if her mother was black she still had to be a slave.

There's some discrepancies in this film, I doubt in real life back then a Manty could just be crossing the color line back and forth, being black then being white. If you were lucky enough to pass and get away with it, you ran away somewhere no one knew you. If you were known as black, people would keep an eye on you so you wouldn't pass. Manty had more freedoms then a black girl would be given in true life back then, and she had more freedoms then even white woman would ever be given, so I doubt Manty would just be all over the place like she was in this film. Slave masters back then who were having affairs with blacks, didn't carry on so openly as this movie suggest. I doubt in real life Manty and Clark Gable would ride out into the sunset and live happily ever after.

I could understand the bitterness of Rau-Ru, Clark Gable's character buy slaves and supposedly treat them nice, to make up for being apart of the slave trade, but yet his slaves are still slaves, not free to go and come as they please. I wonder how many white slave owners back then thought they could make up for buying slaves by being nice.

Michele, played by model Carrole Drake, is a pretty house slave, who once was the mistress of Clark Gable, but when Manty was brought in, Michele had to move over, but she still loves him. It supposedly was taboo for a black and white romance, but anyone could see Michele and Clark Gable had something going on between them, without kissing. Carrole never did any other films, and that's ashame, she was wonderful in this part.

Tommie Moore was marvelous as the spunky, naughty, sassy Dolly, she was a wonderful black actress who people don't even know. She was a great actress, but like many black actress and actors it was hard to find work and get recognition. Juanita Moore, famous for Imitation of Life, was wonderful in her small part.

'Band of Angels' is an unusual 1950s melodrama with a fairly good cast. The script is not free of a few groaners, and some of the characterizations call for some endurance. The viewers' introduction to Gable's character, for one, is of a US bully from the we-saved-the-world 1950s. Also, a very cliche'd sailor friend's drinking scene at Gable's mansion was sheer torture for this viewer, and an excess of fawning slaves gathering to sing their Mass'ahs praises at the drop of a hat didn't help.

That now out of the way, there's more at work that to my mind saves this movie. Supported by Sidney Poitier and Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Clark Gable and Yvonne deCarlo play the lead pair, who openly 'live in sin' and are otherwise reprehensible. All the same, both are portrayed sympathetically. Set in the 'Gone with the Wind' period, Gable plays an ex-slaver and cotton-grower who once prowled his plantation's slave shacks for his jollies. She is the shameful issue of a liaison with a slave on another plantation, and it's even suggested that she fools around on Gable while he's away on business.

This movie's clearly no gem, but it's no dreck. However maudlin and overdone, its basic theme of the redemptive power of love is fairly well handled. The era and settings are unusual and atmospheric enough to hold the viewer's interest, and I had no difficulty with plot over-entanglements even if my credulity was strained now and then.

It may well have been Yvonne De Carlo's best film, and Gable also did a fair job with an okay script (something not unusual while the studios struggled to survive). Sidney Poitier has a small but meaty role as an educated slave with a deep grudge. Efrem Zimbalist Jr. got his first speaking part in this film, and acquits himself smoothly with limited material. Max Steiner grinds out a spotty sountrack that's effective only in the chase scenes, and then only just ...yet a Rozsa or Korngold he never was.

The Warnercolour's glorious, and the art direction is especially fine, with atmospheric scenes especially in the Gable character's New Orleans pied-a-terre and (less so) in his plantation mansion. Mind you, it's all 100% 1950s Hollywood, and very pristine and polished ...but let's not expect too much from the era, when Edith Head primped up the women and the idea of onscreen grime, sweat or facial stubble as far off as spaghetti westerns.

A fairly good film from the 50s, in short: its eventful, sometimes quirky plot, more than passable acting and some unusual settings make most of it very watchable.

A nice attempt at costume drama with intense moments , plot twists and some weak incidents . Set in the Southern states at the time of the American Civil War concerning Amantha Starr : Yvonne De Carlo grows-up as a privileged Southern heir . But later on , Amantha learns has African-American blood and since it's the pre-Civil War era she promptly suffers from a distressed fate . Become an orphanaged woman and winds up on the auction block . Starr becomes both the property and the mistress of mysterious New Orleans landowner Hamish Bond : Clark Gable.

This epic movie is set in early American Civil War bringing mayhem, revelations and threats. A good film though tended to acquire the reputation of a poor man's "Gone With the Wind" and again Clak Gable as its top-drawer star . Overall, though , it is a big budgeted picture with impressive battles , expensive action , sparkles enough and enjoyable scenes especially on the pursuit set pieces through swamplands. Based on the best-seller book by Robert Penn Warren with interesting and moving script by John Twist and Ivan Goff . Clark Gable is pretty good , playing in his ordinary style . Yvonne De Carlo looks properly surly in this really luxury drama . Performance honours, however, are stolen by a young Sidney Poitier in his starts , as he clearly robbing the show as a rebellious African-American overseer . Very good support cast with plenty of notorious secondaries, such as : Efrem Zimbalist Jr. , Rex Reason, Patrick Knowles , Torin Thatcher , Andrea King , Ray Teal , among others .

It displays a stirring and agreeable musical score by grand maestro Max Steiner . As well as colourful cinematography in Warnercolor by Lucien Ballard that sets off the action in glamorous and haunting fashion . The motion picture was well and professionally directed by Raul Walsh . He was one of the best Hollywood craftsman who made a lot of films in all kinds of genres , such as : "Big Trail" , "Distant Drums", "Along the Great Divide" , "Dark Command" , "Gun Fury" , "Gentleman Jim" , "They Died With their Boots on" , "Tall Men", "The Thief of Bagdag" , "White Heat", "Northern Pursuit" , "Roaring Twenties" , "Blackbeard Pirate" , "They Drive by Night" , "Pursued" , "High Sierra" , "Strawberry Blonde" , "Battle Cry" , "Naked and the Dead" , and several others . Rating : 6.5/10 . Worthwhile watching. The flick will appeal to Clark Gable, Yvonne De Carlo and Sidney Poitier fans .

(William) Clark Gable was a towering figure in American motion pictures from their the birth of sound into the middle of the 20th century. But this film is proof that neither he, nor the studios that employed him, could figure out what to do with his talent(s) after WWII.

Most commentators on Band of Angles comment about the film's overall quality, and the work of emerging (Sidney Potier) and established (Yvonne DeCarlo) character actors who turn out professional, above average performances. In doing this they show kindness to the professional history of Mr. Gable and the studio(s); and in fairness to the memory of the beginnings of the careers of actors like Mr. Potier. But standing on its own, the poor quality of this film is striking, and its problems begin and continue with Mr. Gable and the failure of he and the film's produces to have any idea about what to do with him as a motion picture actor - Leading Man Type.

The studio faces this problem squarely by the very choice of its production. Of course Band of Angles is a re-play of the cinematic setting of "Gone With the Wind". The heaving bosoms; the passionate cavaliers; the hot-blooded creoles; and the angry Negroes, all lead to the conclusion that the studio was thinking backward not forward. And this film was not produced by MGM. It is inconceivable that a studio would have produced this film in 1957, if it did not already have Clark Gable under contract.

But what else could the studio do? Another Love triangle between Gable, Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly? Who are we kidding? Gable was no Cary Grant. Gable's screen sexuality was based upon overwhelming power. His prowess was not to charm his way into a women's heart; but to kick down the door, as he did in GWTW. Its so sad to watch; in GWTW era films, if Gable has a walking stick, its for swagger; to show his hands are idle, unless he's handling a woman. In Band of Angles he can be seen resting himself on his walking stick as a cane. It conveys a totally different impression.

When in the film Gable confronts a rival plantation owner, he is, in the scene, holding himself up by his cane; while he's talking to his rival. In his pre-war films Gable doesn't talk to a man who's confronting him; his fists do the talking. Or the threat of their use get's a Gable male plot rival to back down in advance of a physical confrontation.

It was combination

the combination of De Carlo and Gable then this film would be worth than awful - a parody of all that is wrong with cinema. In fact, in retrospect, it is terrible. The only reason I sat through it was to see Yvonne looking beautiful in period costume - if you're not a fan of hers then just don't bother! A terrible film that has not stood the test of time at all...

Probably the best of the bad 50s ripoffs of GWTW. Lucien Ballard's corruptly beautiful cinematography and a nice, low key, late Clark Gable performance (call it Rhett Lite) help to get the viewer over the boring humps of over acting by Ms. DeCarlo and over writing by woman's pic scribe John Twist and Goff and Roberts of "White Heat" fame whose dialogue sounds like they'd rather be doing a noir but can't quite swing it. Caught in the middle are Sidney Poitier who at this early stage of his career alternates moments of power with moments of bathos and, of course, director Raoul Walsh who excels in the action scenes but slows down considerably during the intimate ones, particularly those between the two leads. And there are many such scenes in this two hour and twenty minute bloviation.

Bottom line: DeCarlo won't make you forget Vivien Leigh but Walsh sure eclipses Eddie Dmytryk (of "Raintree County" infamy). C plus.

While Band of Angels has a very captivating premise, it's so terrible you'll wonder why you didn't just watch Gone with the Wind for the thirtieth time instead of taking a chance on it. It's another Civil War drama that takes place on a large Southern plantation, starring Clark Gable without a Southern accent. The costumes, designed by Marjorie Best, are breathtakingly beautiful, however, and every bit as lovely and authentic looking as Walter Plunkett's costumes in Gone with the Wind. The clothes are really the only good part of the film, so if you're the type of person who watches movies only to look at the costumes, rent this one.

Yvonne De Carlo is a Southern belle, but when her father dies, her mother's race is revealed. Not only is Yvonne the descendant of a slave, but she has lost her inheritance to her father's plantation and fortune, and she's carted off to the selling block and sold as a slave. Wealthy plantation owner Clark Gable buys her with intentions to make her his mistress. I know the plot sounds like something you'd want to watch—it sounded that way to me, too—but there are lots of reasons why the film was so torturous. Either director Raoul Walsh gave his actors atrocious advice on how to deliver their lines, or everyone was naturally atrocious without his help. Clark Gable rattles off his lines the way he always does, quickly, without feeling, and with a sense that he's not really listening to himself. Carolle Drake, Clark's former slave mistress, reads her lines with worse delivery than a cold audition. And, as if to make up for it, Tommie Moore, another of Clark's slaves, hams up every single line as if she belongs in a bad community theater production.

If horrible acting doesn't bother you, Max Steiner's score will. Just as an example, when Rex Reason announces he's been recruited to make speeches for President Lincoln, Max's music plays "I've Been Working on the Railroad" as he triumphantly leaves for his assignment. It's classic Max Steiner, which means he'll use silly ditties and score a drama as if it's a cartoon.

On a side note, Sidney Poitier plays Clark Gable's "head slave". In the story, he seethes and resents Clark's kindness, and in his major scenes, he plays more a villain than a hero. I can't imagine white audiences in the 1950s were pleased with his character; it's pretty amazing he had a career after this movie.

Just watched this DVD of the movie after 30 years of remembering it being promoted on a local station for a late Sunday night showing. Clark Gable plays Hamish Bond, a slave owner who treats his employees with kindness like Carolle Drake as Michelle (we find out she was also his mistress) and Tommie Moore as Dollie. Also, Sidney Poitier as Rau-Ru, who later joins the Union Army. Oh, and Yvonne De Carlo plays a mulatto named Amanda Starr who passes for the lighter race. I'll just now say that while I was fascinated by the fact that one legend was teamed with someone who would become one himself, part of me was bored with the way the plot kept meandering along. I'm sure Robert Penn Warren's novel must have been more exciting than this. In fact, I feel asleep a couple of times so I had to rewind to find out what I missed sometimes. So on that note, I say Band of Angels is at the least worth a look. P.S. I recognized that white Union soldier Poitier was talking to as William Schallert who would later appear with Sidney in In the Heat of the Night. I was a little distracted that the general in this film had the surname of Butler. And I liked the Louisiana locations that were showcased since I happen to live in the state.

This film is called " Band of Angels " and with such a title and with Clark Gable as the star, one would expect it to be a motion picture about flying. Instead it's a great surprise to see it is set during the Civil War. Based on the novel by Robert Warren, it tells the story of Amantha Starr (Yvonne De Carlo) an attractive young white girl raised on a southern plantation in a well-to-do fashion. When her father dies, she discovers her wealthy father was in terrible debt and she is sold into slavery, and it is further discovered she is actually the daughter of a female Negro. Fearing the worse, she attempts suicide when she realizes she will be put up for sale at auction. Purchased by Hamish Bond (Clark Gable) a wealthy southern gentleman, introduces her to a fine house and unusual servants. Sidney Poitier is in great form as one sees the early caliber of his acting. Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Rex Reason and Torin Thatcher, make fine additions to this surprisingly good film. Recommended to any who seeks a good movie. ****