THE ASTOR REVIEW

Based on a novel by Robert Penn Warren, this Southern potboiler tells of the daughter of a wealthy Louisiana plantation owner. When her father unexpectedly dies, she discovers that her father was deep in debt and the family is penniless, and she is forced to drop out of the exclusive girls’ school she was attending. What’s more, it is discovered that she has a small amount of African-American blood, and under the laws she is to be sold into slavery in New Orleans. A poor man’s Gone With The Wind, it is worth seeing for these comparisons and to observe the somewhat uneasy Gable. PN

IMDB SYNOPSIS

Living in Kentucky prior to the Civil War, Amantha Starr is a privileged young woman. Her widower father, a wealthy plantation owner, dotes on her and he sends her to the best schools. When he dies suddenly however, Amantha's world is turned upside down. She learns that her father had been living on borrowed money and that her mother was actually a slave and her father's mistress. The plantation is to be sold to pay off her father's debts and as the daughter of slave, Amatha is also to be sold as property. She is bought by a Louisiana plantation owner, Hamish Bond and over time she grows to love him until she learns he was a slave-trader. She tries again to become part of white society but realizes that her future lies elsewhere.