Band of Angels

Band of Angels (1957) is based on the 1955 Robert Penn Warren novel of the same title. In the novel, young Amantha Starr, the daughter of a Kentucky plantation owner, returns to her father's funeral and discovers that she is the daughter of her father and a slave. He spent all his money on gambling and a fancy woman, his plantation is in debt, and Amantha is seized by a slave auctioneer, to be sold with all the other slaves on the plantation. The film devotes itself to how Amantha reacts and adjusts to her new station in life.

Band of Angels as a novel is so densely philosophical, so infiltrated with Warren's sometimes murky musings about slavery and identity and guilt and consequence, that the story itself seems secondary. Amantha is purchased by a former slave runner named Hamish Bond and at the end of the novel ends up married to Ethan Sears, whom she knew as an aspiring minister who visited her in finishing school. Although he was an ardent abolitionist as a young man, when he discovers that Amantha is part black, he is repelled, though he doesn't leave her. Warren loved this kind of irony and hypocrisy, loved to be able to show that even the most idealistic people often cannot live up to their ideals.

The film based on the novel strips away much of the philosophizing and moralistic musings and instead focuses on slavery and race. It foregrounds the relationship of Amantha and Hamish. Although well intentioned, and progressive for its time, as a film Band of Angels is confused. Most of the characters from the novel remain in the film, though some are relegated to minor status (such as Ethan Sears). The point of the film is to show the wrongness of slavery and racism. It does this in ways that are both overt and subtle. The home of Hamish Bond allows for subtlety. He owns slaves whom he treats as employees and near equals. The mistress of the house, Michelle, is a slave whom he has obviously had a relationship with, and she shows minor signs of jealousy when Hamish brings Amantha into the house. Perhaps as a result, she helps Amantha in an attempt to escape upriver to Ohio, where she attends school, though the attempt fails. Amantha, who has never been a slave until her father's death, never knew that she was part black or that her mother was a slave, regards the bars on her second-floor bedroom as a sign of her enslavement, while Michelle tells her that the bars are Hamish's way of trying to keep out the external world. There is ambiguity and uncertainty attached to the boundaries of Hamish Bond's house and yard. Within those boundaries the house servants (slaves) are allowed to come and go as free members of the household. Those who cross the boundaries and go out into the outer world do so either by permission or as a matter of trust with Hamish. The film implies that if they wished to leave Hamish would not prevent them, and that they do not leave because of how well he treats them. Yet there is one moment when Amantha, assisted by Michelle, tried to leave and turns back when confronted by Rau Rau. Would he have prevented her? The most important slave characters in the film are Rau Rau and Michelle. They are apparently allowed to do as they wish, but in return for the way Hamish treats them they remain to do his bidding. It seems likely that Michelle loves and respects Hamish, while Rau Rau, whom Bond has educated and reared as his own son and to whom he has given much responsibility, hates him—hates him because he is, after all, the Master. Despite everything Hamish has done for Rau Rau, the fact that he remains a slave provokes his hatred. These slaves—educated, respected by their owner, dressed in fine clothes, entrusted with important and serious tasks—are hardly representative of the typical slave in the American South and their relationship with their owner is hardly typical of the average owner-slave relationship. Of course, in New Orleans, where slavery took on new and complicated dimensions compared to the rest of the South, these issues become even more complicated. The film examines these issues through Amantha, who is a special case, and through Rau Rau.

In the film, Hamish Bond tries to atone for his terrible sins as a slave runner by treating his own slaves with respect and by purchasing Amantha, thereby protecting her from being sold as another man's mistress or into a brothel. In his house, she may become his mistress, and the implication is that he may have purchased her for that ultimate purpose. However, he makes no moves towards her, waiting for a moment to develop that will bring them together. This happens during a thunderstorm (recall the Kate Chopin story "The Storm"). After they have slept together for the first time, Hamish later seems remorseful and tells her that she is free to go, that he will help her travel upriver to Ohio and provide support for her to live there. Instead, as they arrive at his plantation, she declares her intention to remain with him. Is this a declaration of love on her part, where she chooses love over freedom, or is it a matter of the slave choosing to stick with the comfortable life afforded by the Master? The movie seems to hold both possibilities up for consideration. This is both a slave choosing to stay with the Master who owns her legally and sexually, but also the woman who has been placed in bondage by a man and who chooses to stay with her out of love. It reminds me of that scene in the William Gilmore Simms novel The Yemassee, where a slave owner tries to emancipate a loyal slave who then begs not to be released because of his love for and allegiance to his master. Undoubtedly such scenes may have occurred in reality, in isolated episodes, but Simms uses the scene to exemplify his contention that slavery was a beneficent institution that served the welfare of the slaves. How Band of Angels means us to see it is another matter, perhaps. It also reminds me of the rape scene that Scarlett O'Hara so clearly relishes in Gone with the Wind. These aspects of Band of Angels are clearly dated. Rather than focusing on the fact that Amantha, Michelle, and Rau Rau are slaves, the film focuses on Hamish's kind treatment of them, as if that mitigates his role as the enslaver or their roles as slaves.

As Hamish Bond Clark Gable plays a part curiously similar to his role as Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind. At least it is difficult to tell the difference. Yvonne DeCarlo, who went on to fame as Mrs. Herman Muenster, actually handles her role well. In 1957 Sidney Poitier was always the actor of choice for African American roles—he is, as ever, refined and articulate, too much so for a character such as Rau Rau who is supposed to be burly and muscular as well as educated. In Warren's novel Rau Rau is somewhat less elegant but perhaps more convincing, given his background.

A major difference between the film and its source is that Amantha and Hamish reconcile after a separation. Hamish has a duel with a rival plantation owner, a reconciliation of sorts with Rau Rau, and finally escapes the Northern military officers who are trying to capture him on a fishing boat. As weak as the ending of Warren's novel may be, the end of the film rivals it in credulity.