Band of Angels
Encyclopedia
Band of Angels is a 1957 romantic
Romance film
Romance films are love stories that focus on passion, emotion, and the affectionate involvement of the main characters and the journey that their love takes through courtship or marriage. Romance films make the love story or the search for love the main plot focus...

 drama film
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...

 set in the American South before and during the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

, based on the novel of the same name by Robert Penn Warren
Robert Penn Warren
Robert Penn Warren was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the influential literary journal The Southern Review with Cleanth Brooks in 1935...

. It starred Clark Gable
Clark Gable
William Clark Gable , known as Clark Gable, was an American film actor most famous for his role as Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh...

, Yvonne De Carlo
Yvonne De Carlo
Yvonne De Carlo was a Canadian-born American actress of film and television. During her six-decade career, her most frequent appearances in film came in the 1940s and 1950s and included her best-known film roles, such as of Anna Marie in Salome Where She Danced ; Anna in Criss Cross ; Sephora the...

, and Sidney Poitier
Sidney Poitier
Sir Sidney Poitier, KBE is a Bahamian American actor, film director, author, and diplomat.In 1963, Poitier became the first black person to win an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Lilies of the Field...

. The movie was directed by Raoul Walsh
Raoul Walsh
Raoul Walsh was an American film director, actor, founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the brother of silent screen actor George Walsh...

.

Plot

Amantha Starr (Yvonne De Carlo) is the privileged daughter of a Kentucky plantation
Plantation
A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...

 owner. However, after he dies, a shocking secret is revealed: unbeknownst to Amantha, her mother had been one of her father's black slaves. Legally now property, she is taken by a slave trader to New Orleans to be sold. On the riverboat
Riverboat
A riverboat is a ship built boat designed for inland navigation on lakes, rivers, and artificial waterways. They are generally equipped and outfitted as work boats in one of the carrying trades, for freight or people transport, including luxury units constructed for entertainment enterprises, such...

 ride there, he makes it clear that he intends to sleep with her, but desists when she tries to hang herself; as a beautiful, cultured young woman who can pass
Passing (racial identity)
Racial passing refers to a person classified as a member of one racial group attempting to be accepted as a member of a different racial group...

 for white, she is far too valuable to risk losing.

Amantha is put up for auction
Auction
An auction is a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bid, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder...

. When she is callously inspected by a coarse potential buyer, she is rescued from further humiliation by Hamish Bond (Clark Gable
Clark Gable
William Clark Gable , known as Clark Gable, was an American film actor most famous for his role as Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh...

), who outbids the cad, paying an exorbitant price for her. Expecting the worst, Amantha is surprised to be treated as a lady, not a slave, by her new owner. At his city mansion, she meets his key slaves, his housekeeper (and former lover) Michele (Carolle Drake) and his conflicted right-hand-man Rau-Ru (Sidney Poitier
Sidney Poitier
Sir Sidney Poitier, KBE is a Bahamian American actor, film director, author, and diplomat.In 1963, Poitier became the first black person to win an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Lilies of the Field...

). Rau-Ru is grateful for the kindness, education and trust Hamish has bestowed on him, but hates him anyway.

As time goes on, Amantha and Hamish fall in love
Miscegenation
Miscegenation is the mixing of different racial groups through marriage, cohabitation, sexual relations, and procreation....

. He arranges to send her to freedom in the North, but she decides to remain with him. To complicate matters further, Hamish harbors a terrible secret from his past that troubles his conscience.

Then, the Civil War breaks out, and New Orleans eventually falls to the Union. Hamish becomes a wanted man when he joins the other plantation owners in burning their crops in defiance. He and Amantha are helped to escape by Rau-Ru, who had fled and joined the Union Army.

Cast

  • Clark Gable
    Clark Gable
    William Clark Gable , known as Clark Gable, was an American film actor most famous for his role as Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh...

     as Hamish Bond
  • Yvonne De Carlo
    Yvonne De Carlo
    Yvonne De Carlo was a Canadian-born American actress of film and television. During her six-decade career, her most frequent appearances in film came in the 1940s and 1950s and included her best-known film roles, such as of Anna Marie in Salome Where She Danced ; Anna in Criss Cross ; Sephora the...

     as Amantha Starr
  • Sidney Poitier
    Sidney Poitier
    Sir Sidney Poitier, KBE is a Bahamian American actor, film director, author, and diplomat.In 1963, Poitier became the first black person to win an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Lilies of the Field...

     as Rau-Ru
  • Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.
    Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.
    Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. is an American actor known for his starring roles in the television series 77 Sunset Strip and The F.B.I. He is also known as recurring character "Dandy Jim Buckley" in the series Maverick and as the voice behind the character Alfred Pennyworth in Batman: The Animated Series...

     as Lieutenant Ethan Sears, who falls in love with Amantha, believing her to be white
  • Rex Reason
    Rex Reason
    Rex Reason is an American actor.He is the brother of actor Rhodes Reason, who is two years younger...

    as Captain Seth Parton, an old friend from her past
  • Patric Knowles
    Patric Knowles
    Reginald Lawrence Knowles was an English film actor who renamed himself Patric Knowles, a name which reflects his Irish descent. He appeared in films of the 1930s through the 1970s...

     as Charles de Marigny, a neighboring plantation owner
  • Torin Thatcher
    Torin Thatcher
    Torin Thatcher was an English actor born in Bombay, British India, India), to English parents. He was an imposing, powerfully built figure noted for his flashy portrayals of screen villains....

     as Captain Canavan, Bond's seafaring friend from his past
  • Andrea King as Miss Idell
  • Ray Teal
    Ray Teal
    Ray Teal was an actor who appeared in more than 250 movies and some 90 television programs in his 37-year career. His longest running role was as Sheriff Roy Coffee on NBC's most successful western, Bonanza...

     as Mr. Calloway
  • Russell Evans as Jimmee, Bond's steward
  • Carolle Drake as Michele
  • Raymond Bailey
    Raymond Bailey
    Raymond Thomas Bailey was an American actor on the Broadway stage, movies, and television. He is best known for his role as wealthy banker, Milburn Drysdale, in the television series The Beverly Hillbillies....

     as Mr. Stuart, a plantation owner
  • Tommie Moore as Dollie, Bond's house servant
  • William Schallert
    William Schallert
    William Joseph Schallert is an American actor who has appeared in many films and in such television series as The Smurfs, The Rat Patrol, Gunsmoke, The Patty Duke Show, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, The Waltons, Bonanza, Leave It to Beaver, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Love, American Style, Get...

    as Union Lieutenant (uncredited)

External links

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