Well, we have quite a range of reactions to this film from the greatest film ever to the worst film ever seen. I prefer it to the more polished "Gone with the Wind". I believe it was one of Gable's most significant roles after 1939, along with "The Tall Men". Yes, Clark Gable was no longer the swaggering rogue, man of action and lady killer of the '30s. Here, we have a more mature weathered-looking Gable, who has settled down to the genteel life of a southern plantation owner, after a financially successful life as a rough and tumble Yankee slave trader. Yet, he is still something of a rebel. He has a guilty conscience about his former life as a ruthless slave trader and wants to make partial amends by treating his large group of slaves decently. In fact, he plans to leave his estate to one of them. He tends to see the born southern aristocracy as largely decadently effete, as exemplified by a neighbor who takes a liking to his recent light-skinned mulatto acquisition((Yvonne De Carlo, as Amantha). Clearly, Gable, as Hamish Bond, has no interest in supporting the recent unsettling changes in the political scene and the impending Civil War. He recognizes that these events will probably shatter his idyllic life and that the lives of many of his slaves will likely be changed for the worse if they are liberated by the Yankee troops. Perhaps, he recognized that secession failed to solve the looming problem of a lack of new territories for the expansion of plantation slavery, thus depressing the monetary value of young surplus slaves. Perhaps, he also recognized that a separate South impeded the legal demands slave owners could make in recapturing escaped slaves who made it out of the Confederacy. On the other hand, Hamish refuses to support the cause of the Yankee troops who want to sell his soon-to-be harvested cotton. He risks execution in burning his cotton crop and most of his equipment.
Hamish rescues, in dramatic fashion, a beautiful cultivated mulatto(Yvonne De Carlo, as Amantha) from a fate she could not bear, although she initially shows little gratitude. He does not require that she become his mistress and in fact gives her a chance to escape his world, but she has a last minute change of heart and decides to remain with him. Amantha has experienced two benevolent slave owners: her father and Hamish. This is in marked contrast to her treatment as a slave on the auction block. The dialog makes it clear that her father and Hamish are rather exceptional in this regard. Thus, I don't buy the criticism that this film provides an unrealistically rosy picture of the typical lives of slaves. The film makes the viewer feel deeply the horror of a sudden change in status from a southern belle to a life-long slave. If you want a much more extreme example, read the book "Skeletons in the Zahara", in which shipwrecked Yankee sailors are transformed into barely living slaves of fearsome tribes or Arabs near the coast of northwest Africa.
The relationship between Hamish and his slave and appointed successor Rau-Ru(Sidney Poitier)is another key element of this story. Rau-Ru hates the institution of slavery and hates Hamish even more for his rather successful attempt to make slavery agreeable to his slaves. The fact that he is the heir apparent for this plantation does nor change his attitude. The last portion of the film deals mainly with the critical relationships between Hamish and Rau-Ru, now a Union soldier, and between Hamish, Amantha and a certain Union Caucasian soldier, against a background of Union troops overrunning Hamish's plantation. See the film to find out how this cliffhanger complex of relationships turns out.
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