Band of Angels (1957)

Mantha Starr grows up as a privileged southern Belle in the ante-bellum South but after her father dies broke, her world is destroyed when she discovers her mother was black.

Director: Raoul Walsh
Cast: Clark Gable, Yvonne De Carlo, Sidney Poitier, Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Rex Reason, Patric Knowles, Torin Thatcher, Andrea King, Ray Teal, Russell Evans, Carolle Drake, Raymond Bailey, Tommie Moore, Roy Barcroft, Larry J. Blake, Marshall Bradford, X Brands, Robert Carson, Miles Clark, Robert Clarke, Zelda Cleaver, Myron Cook, Noreen Corcoran, Giselle D'Arc, George DeNormand, Ann Doran, Pete Dunn, William Fawcett, Harry Fleer, William Forrest




This is a better film than history has accorded it, and presents even more reasons to view it today than in times nearer to its production neatly 50 years ago. First, it is a later film directed by Walsh, who made and average of over 2-1/2 movies per year from 1912 to the early 1960's. (Unfortunately, one of his last, "Marines, Let's Go," is one of the greatest wastes of celluloid in the history of the industry, but doesn't obviate the quality and significance of most of his work.) Since this is a Civil War-era film, but made before the defining, sweeping civil rights occurrences, turmoil, and advancements generated by the 1960's - it provides an excellent presentation of the previous approach to this subject. I recall reading sometime back a comment about Walsh's "Tall Men" film, also starring Gable, along with Robert Ryan and Cameron Mitchell - using the now-antiquated term "lusty," in describing the characters and actors in the picture, as well as the types of films often made by Walsh, and those with Clark Gable. Clark, as Hamish Bond, personifies "lusty" in this film, with a CAPITAL "L" - part of the film's depicting quintessential 1950's work. Yvonne DeCarlo is a lovely presence, and while her physical beauty wasn't completely-hidden by her "Munsters" persona, it's pleasing to see her, in plainer view and when she was younger. Sidney Poitier is excellent as usual. but doesn't he always seem as if he is on the verge of grabbing a spear, and leading a horde of natives in storming the southern African British garrison, undermanned and commanded by, say, Jack Hawkins, John Mills or Alec Guinness? Rex Reason, as a union officer, former acquaintance of De Carlo, who turns smarmy when he discovers her in New Orleans, provides a time capsule example for the word "hipocracy." That the plot is one of those is one of those where you can see both the short- and long-term developments coming (right to the film's climax) from the proverbial "mile away," doesn't diminish the enjoyment of this presentation on many levels – the final being that this is among several of the films Gable made in what was the unexpected end of his iconic career, from a heart attack only a few years following.
~ caa821

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