"Band of Angels"
1957
Directed by Raoul Walsh
Starring Clark Gable, Yvonne De Carlo, Sidney Poitier, Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Carolle Drake
Plot: a light-skinned daughter of a plantation owner and a slave is sold into slavery after living a young life of luxury. A series of men attempt to rape and/or seduce her. Finally, she embarks on her "happily ever after" with a slave trader.
Where to begin. How to summarize everything that is wrong with this ugly little movie.
It must be said that this film has its fans. One can see why.
"Band of Angels" has star power: Gable, who did not age well, is 56 here, and he looks ten years older, but he's still Gable. This is your one chance to see Sidney Poitier and Gable together. Yvonne DeCarlo is a great beauty.
The film has glorious sets of the old South, lovely gowns, and a series of bodice-ripper scenes that some will find arousing.
It has a tried and true bodice-ripper, romance novel plot: a woman falls in love with her rapist, and in this case, her owner: a slave trader who bought her at a slave auction.
Many viewers will find this plot, though, icky, and Gable is too creaky here to ignite the kind of spark he could once ignite that will get us past the ick factor.
The real problem with this movie is this: the movie thinks that it is a groundbreaking, truth-telling, realistic depiction of the horrors of the enslavement of African Americans. It's not, though. Rather, it is a tragic display of white denial.
I know what you're thinking. "This reviewer is politically correct!" The thing is, I'm not politically correct at all. "Gone with the Wind" is one of my favorite movies.
But "Gone with the Wind" has tremendous narrative and archetypal power that transcends its unrealistic portrayal of slavery.
"Band of Angels" has no such power.
Its "realistic" and "truth telling" depiction of slavery includes the following:
In the opening scene, two slaves are shown running away. They, like the other slaves in the movie, are very well dressed. Even GWTW has the decency to show slaves in ragged clothing.
Read descriptions of how real slaves actually dressed. They dressed in rags, or in nothing at all.
The runaways walk tall and quick. Their body movements announce that they consider themselves to be the equal of their captors.
Again, even GWTW depicted the deferential walk and posture that slaves had to adopt. Read Richard Wright. Blacks in the South had to assume a different posture and walk just to survive, right up until the Civil Rights Movement.
The runaway slaves' owner decides to punish them -- by having them pull weeds! Read any honest history of slavery. Runaway slaves were punished with horrible tortures. "Pulling weeds" was not one of them.
There is one bad white Southerner in the movie. Like most of the other men in the movie, he tries to rape Yvonne DeCarlo. She easily rebuffs him. Millions of real slaves were not so lucky.
Most of the white Southerners in the movie are well meaning, and most of the slaves are happy. Carolle Drake, whose dignified performance is the best thing about the movie -- it is a real tragedy that this is the only film she ever made -- plays a slave woman who is in love with her owner. She is light skinned, and is allowed to be dignified. Other, darker slaves are shown as idiotic and animal-like, or as so overjoyed by the presence of their slave owner that they burst into spirituals.
Sidney Poitier plays a slave who has been treated well by his master, Clark Gable.
Poitier repays Gable for this excellent treatment by scheming for Gable's death. It is only when Gable reveals that he is Poitier's father that Poitier realizes his appropriate love for the man who owned him and raped his African mother.
In the film's capstone scene, where Gable talks about the horrors of the slave trade, Gable describes savage Africans as doing most of the dirty work. Gable, poor, innocent white slave trader, physically fights against the Africans who are savaging their own people in order to supply him, Gable, with human cargo.
For any decent person, watching this scene of white denial is gut wrenching.
Finally, Yankees arrive. They are every bit as bad as the Yankees in GWTW. The poor, stupid slaves who welcome their arrival, Gable intones, are not intelligent enough to realize how lucky they had it under their beneficent Southern owners.
Again, if you like seeing beautiful women in pretty costumes, and if you want to see Yvonne De Carlo's bodice ripped -- six or seven -- I lost count -- men in the film attempt to have their way with her -- and if "woman falls in love with rapist" plots are your cup of tea, and if you can ignore the nauseating denial that underlies this exercise, then you may enjoy this movie.
Otherwise, it is more of sociological interest than aesthetic.
1957
Directed by Raoul Walsh
Starring Clark Gable, Yvonne De Carlo, Sidney Poitier, Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Carolle Drake
Plot: a light-skinned daughter of a plantation owner and a slave is sold into slavery after living a young life of luxury. A series of men attempt to rape and/or seduce her. Finally, she embarks on her "happily ever after" with a slave trader.
Where to begin. How to summarize everything that is wrong with this ugly little movie.
It must be said that this film has its fans. One can see why.
"Band of Angels" has star power: Gable, who did not age well, is 56 here, and he looks ten years older, but he's still Gable. This is your one chance to see Sidney Poitier and Gable together. Yvonne DeCarlo is a great beauty.
The film has glorious sets of the old South, lovely gowns, and a series of bodice-ripper scenes that some will find arousing.
It has a tried and true bodice-ripper, romance novel plot: a woman falls in love with her rapist, and in this case, her owner: a slave trader who bought her at a slave auction.
Many viewers will find this plot, though, icky, and Gable is too creaky here to ignite the kind of spark he could once ignite that will get us past the ick factor.
The real problem with this movie is this: the movie thinks that it is a groundbreaking, truth-telling, realistic depiction of the horrors of the enslavement of African Americans. It's not, though. Rather, it is a tragic display of white denial.
I know what you're thinking. "This reviewer is politically correct!" The thing is, I'm not politically correct at all. "Gone with the Wind" is one of my favorite movies.
But "Gone with the Wind" has tremendous narrative and archetypal power that transcends its unrealistic portrayal of slavery.
"Band of Angels" has no such power.
Its "realistic" and "truth telling" depiction of slavery includes the following:
In the opening scene, two slaves are shown running away. They, like the other slaves in the movie, are very well dressed. Even GWTW has the decency to show slaves in ragged clothing.
Read descriptions of how real slaves actually dressed. They dressed in rags, or in nothing at all.
The runaways walk tall and quick. Their body movements announce that they consider themselves to be the equal of their captors.
Again, even GWTW depicted the deferential walk and posture that slaves had to adopt. Read Richard Wright. Blacks in the South had to assume a different posture and walk just to survive, right up until the Civil Rights Movement.
The runaway slaves' owner decides to punish them -- by having them pull weeds! Read any honest history of slavery. Runaway slaves were punished with horrible tortures. "Pulling weeds" was not one of them.
There is one bad white Southerner in the movie. Like most of the other men in the movie, he tries to rape Yvonne DeCarlo. She easily rebuffs him. Millions of real slaves were not so lucky.
Most of the white Southerners in the movie are well meaning, and most of the slaves are happy. Carolle Drake, whose dignified performance is the best thing about the movie -- it is a real tragedy that this is the only film she ever made -- plays a slave woman who is in love with her owner. She is light skinned, and is allowed to be dignified. Other, darker slaves are shown as idiotic and animal-like, or as so overjoyed by the presence of their slave owner that they burst into spirituals.
Sidney Poitier plays a slave who has been treated well by his master, Clark Gable.
Poitier repays Gable for this excellent treatment by scheming for Gable's death. It is only when Gable reveals that he is Poitier's father that Poitier realizes his appropriate love for the man who owned him and raped his African mother.
In the film's capstone scene, where Gable talks about the horrors of the slave trade, Gable describes savage Africans as doing most of the dirty work. Gable, poor, innocent white slave trader, physically fights against the Africans who are savaging their own people in order to supply him, Gable, with human cargo.
For any decent person, watching this scene of white denial is gut wrenching.
Finally, Yankees arrive. They are every bit as bad as the Yankees in GWTW. The poor, stupid slaves who welcome their arrival, Gable intones, are not intelligent enough to realize how lucky they had it under their beneficent Southern owners.
Again, if you like seeing beautiful women in pretty costumes, and if you want to see Yvonne De Carlo's bodice ripped -- six or seven -- I lost count -- men in the film attempt to have their way with her -- and if "woman falls in love with rapist" plots are your cup of tea, and if you can ignore the nauseating denial that underlies this exercise, then you may enjoy this movie.
Otherwise, it is more of sociological interest than aesthetic.