An entertainingly full-blown melodrama brimming with lust, notable for its similarities to GONE WITH THE WIND and for dealing with miscegenation and racial tensions. Forced to leave school when left penniless after her father's death, De Carlo learns that she is partially black and is
promptly taken to be sold on the block. Before any mean-minded plantation owner can unbutton her bodice, however, powerful landowner Gable buys her and ensconces her inside his lavish mansion, where she soon becomes his loving and grateful mistress. The Civil War breaks out, and the Yankees
capture New Orleans, recruiting ex-slaves to the colors. Poitier, Gable's overseer (in a soft profile of the legendary black leader Bras Coupe), deserts his master to join the Union Army, hating the patronizing Gable and his mulatto mistress. Risking execution by disobeying Yankee orders, Gable
burns his crops and retreats to one of his remote plantations. Poitier follows in pursuit and the stage is set for several climactic confrontations.
Almost the entire cast is in top form, even sultry De Carlo, who had an occasional penchant for overacting. Gable almost does a reprise of his magnificent Rhett Butler from GONE WITH THE WIND. Outlandishly memorable is the scene on his patio where he drunkenly confesses his past as a slave trader
while a summer storm rages overhead. Poitier, in an unsympathetic part, does what he can with a surly, graceless character. Walsh's direction is at its finest in a lively adaptation of the Warren novel. Steiner's score thunders, hums and calls plaintively where needed, while Ballard's photography
shows the Old South in all its glories and gluttonies. leave a comment
