On the riverboat ride there, he makes it clear that he intends to rape her, but desists when she tries to hang herself; as a beautiful, cultured young woman who can pass for white, she is far too valuable to risk losing.

When she is callously inspected by a coarse potential buyer, she is rescued from further humiliation by Hamish Bond (Clark Gable), who outbids the cad, paying an exorbitant price for her.

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).

The Civil War begins, and Rau-Ru has joined a black regiment in the Union Army, a group Hamish sarcastically calls a "Band of Angels".

Ethan's commanding officer, Captain Seth Parton (Rex Reason), was formerly an idealistic abolitionist divinity student and preacher, who had known Amantha when she was schooled in Cincinnati.

Hamish then reveals that he stopped being a slaver because, in a terrible raid on a village, an African woman who had been his lover was killed and he fought his own accomplices to rescue her baby.

[3] The New York Times called it "a readable and dramatic combination of flamboyant melodrama and thoughtful reflection about moral issues and psychological factors.

[10] Ava Gardner had been discussed for the female lead but in December Yvonne De Carlo was signed, on the basis of her recent performances in The Ten Commandments and Death of a Scoundrel.

Bosley Crowther wrote in The New York Times that "all we get is flamboyant melodrama in big, juicy, Warner-colored blobs, with nary a thoughtful reflection at any point in the vast, romantic scene.

"[13] Robyn Karney gave the film a two-star review in Radio Times, insisting that "this utter tosh strains credibility to the limit and has little to recommend it".

[14] Emanuel Levy wrote in 2011, "this entertaining melodrama, directed by Raoul Walsh, bears some thematic resemblance to 'Gone With the Wind', in dealing with issues of race and miscegenation, set against the backdrop of the Civil War.