Band of Angels (1957)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

I love this movie. It's got everything. I've watched it three times. I absolutely fell in love with Clark Gable's house - love the French-style courtyard with the house built around it, the terraces and the big wrought iron gates!! All style!!

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")

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.

I disagree with those who say this film whitewashes slavery. I found the scenes where Amanda finds out she is a slave and the slave auction among the most moving I have ever seen in the cinema. The film clearly shows that light skinned women were highly prized in the slave market to be used for sexual reasons. One only has to think what would have happened had someone like Bond not bought her.Sidney Pointier character clearly shows that slaves didn't identify with the masters even those that treated them well.This picture was a very moving experience. I saw it on TCM during non prime time. I wish it was better known.