Warner. Director Raoul Walsh; Producer Jerry Wald; Screenplay John Twist, Ivan Goff, Ben Roberts; Camera Lucien Ballard; Editor Folmar Blangsted; Music Max Steiner; Art Director Franz Bachelin
Clark Gable
Yvonne De Carlo
Sidney Poitier
Efrem Zimbalist Jr
Patric Knowles
Carolle Drake
Subject of miscegenation is explored and developed in this colorful production of the Old South. Raoul Walsh is in top form in direction of the screenplay derived from a Robert Penn Warren novel. Screenwriters have captured the mood and spirit of the Deep South narrative which deals with a young woman of quality discovering that her mother was a slave.
Sold on the auction block to a former slave-trader, unfoldment dwells on the pair's relations, both in New Orleans and later on a plantation up-river. Beautiful and realistic backgrounds are achieved through locationing in Louisiana.
Clark Gable's characterization is reminiscent of his Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind, although there is obviously no paralleling of plot. As former slave-runner turned New Orleans gentleman, with bitter memories of his earlier days, he contributes a warm, decisive portrayal that carries tremendous authority.
Yvonne De Carlo is beautiful as the mulatto, who learns of her true status when she returns from a Cincinnati finishing school to attend her father's funeral. Sidney Poitier impresses as Gable's educated protege, whom slaver picked up as an infant in Africa and reared as his son.
(Color) Extract of a review from 1957. Running time: 125 MIN.
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