BAND OF ANGELS

US, 1957, 125 minutes, Colour.
Clark Gable, Yvonne De Carlo, Sidney Poitier, Efrem Zimbalist Jr, Rex Reason, Patric Knowles, Torin Thatcher, Andrea King.
Directed by Raoul Walsh.

The comments at the time for Band of Angels was that it was another look at Gone With The Wind territory. This was enhanced, of course, by the presence of Clark Gable in the central role. Gable at this time had finished his long contract with MGM (going back to the early 1930s) and was freelancing. He made a number of interesting films in the late 50s including Teacher’s Pet with Doris Day, It Started in Naples with Sophia Loren and Run Silent, Run Deep. In three years he was to make his final film, The Misfits, with Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clift.

Yvonne De Carlo had become a star at Universal Studios, appearing in a number of exotic films in the 1940s and 1950s. Sidney Poitier, however, was at the beginning of a long career even though he had appeared in 1950 in No Way Out and in 1954 in The Blackboard Jungle. Efrem Zimbalist was also at the beginning of his career which included films during the 1960s and then strong presence on television in The FBI.

The film was directed by veteran Raoul Walsh who began directing films in 1912 with The Life of Pancho Villa. He made numerous films during the 1920s and 1930s including The Big Trail with John Wayne. However, it was only during the 1940s that he rose to prominence with a series of action films: They Drove By Night, High Sierra as well as a number of genre films at Warner Brothers from war films, Action in the North Atlantic, boxing films, Gentleman Jim to westerns, They Died With Their Boots On. He also made the classic White Heat in 1949. During the 1950s he made numerous action films including this one.

Band of Angels raises issues of Americana, American society prior to the civil war, race relationships – and the use of black actors in films of the 1950s.

1. The impact of this film in interest and enjoyment? The title and its reference? Themes? The comparisons with Gone with the Wind?

2. The use of colour, Cinemascope, sets, music, stars, the atmosphere of the deep South and the 19th century?

3. The film as a vehicle for Clark Gable? Gable's type? The comparison with Gone with the Wind? Is this fair?

4. The importance of the atmosphere of the South, the film's way of communicating this the culture, style, slavery, racism? The attention to detail.

5. Amantha as the focus for the film and audience sympathies? Her way of life as white? Her mental attitudes an white? The way that it was discovered she was coloured? The psychological attitudes to misfortune? The bitterness?

6. The portrayal of Amantha an a woman? At the start, the way she changed in her fortune and its effect on her?

7. Amantha and her relationship with Bond? The initial hostility, her pride, her infatuation and lover a shared way of lift?

8. Bond and the type of person he was? Style of personality and character his way of life in New Orleans, his house and his household, his owning of Amantha. love and hatred? The place of Rau-ru? The love and hatred in this relationship?

9. The atmosphere of war, hatred, class differences, racism and slavery? The war and the consequences of the American evil?

10. Rau-ru and his role in the film? Sidney Poitier's style? His function an a slave and helping audiences to understand slavery?

11. His place in the household, feelings, work? His involvement in the Revolution? The possibility of killing and hatred? His relationship with Bond? His letting them go? Slavery and the meaning of his life?

11. The film's attention to detail in the minor characters, the people in New Orleans, their role in the South, in the war?

12. The importance of details and their impact: for example, the steamboat, slave market, the streets of New Orleans, the houses? Entertainingly? Mansions, the war?

13. How valuable is this kind of film for understanding the American past?