Band of Angels

I've often felt that a movie--even a bad one--can be enjoyed on many different levels--for example, the acting alone, the script, the direction, photography, atmospheric effects, etc. It's hard to find anything to say about BAND OF ANGELS except that it was photographed in excellent technicolor and Max Steiner actually manages to create an interesting score--though definitely not one of his best.

Indeed, no one is at their best in this film--not Clark Gable, as an older and tired looking version of Rhett Butler, nor beautiful Yvonne de Carlo--each given some of the worst dialogue any actors have ever been saddled with. It's a murky tale of a plantation owner in love with a woman of mixed ancestry. Patric Knowles and Sidney Poitier try to bring some semblance of dignity to the acting but there's simply too much tripe to allow anyone to look good. And by the way, it's not based on a Frank Yerby novel, as someone has said previously. It's based on a novel by Robert Penn Warren which I hope was better than the movie. Had to be.

Only the Steiner score provides a point of interest. Certainly nowhere near the level of that other Civil War epic starring Gable. No way!

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.

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.

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 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. ****