The Sins of Rachel Cade ** (1961, Angie Dickinson, Peter Finch, Roger Moore) – Classic Movie Review 12,047

The 1961 drama film The Sins of Rachel Cade stars Angie Dickinson as an American Christian missionary nurse, involved in romance and trouble in the Belgian Congo during World War Two. 

Director Gordon Douglas’s 1961 drama film The Sins of Rachel Cade stars Angie Dickinson, Peter Finch and Roger Moore, and is based on the 1956 novel Rachel Cade by Charles E Mercer.

Angie Dickinson turns in a capable performance as Rachel Cade, an American Christian missionary nurse, involved in romance and trouble in the Belgian Congo during World War Two. But she is up against Edward Anhalt’s corny, episodic script, rather wooden acting by the very handsome young Roger Moore as dashing crashed Royal Air Force doctor Paul Wilton, and artless direction.

Still Peter Finch (as Colonel Henri Derode, the Belgian local military administrator) and Dickinson keep it watchable, just. And J Peverell Marley’s Technicolor cinematography and Max Steiner’s score are further obvious assets.

Roger Moore appears after about an hour and then has relatively little screen time of around only 30 minutes in a movie that runs 124 minutes.

Though widowed Colonel Derode is sceptical about Rachel’s work in the village of Dibela, he finds he is attracted to her. And, as for The Sins of Rachel Cade, she makes love with one of her patients, Paul Wilton, an American doctor with the RAF, the night before he is to leave, and then she becomes pregnant.

Also in the cast are Errol John, Woody Strode, Juano Hernández, Frederick O’Neal, Mary Wickes, Rafer Johnson, Scatman Crothers, Charles Wood, and Douglas Spencer.

Filming began on 27 August 1960 and it was released by Warner Bros on 2 April 1961.

Peter Finch called his role ‘a good, rather cynical part with some excellent dialogue’.

Producer Henry Blanke had just produced the successful The Nun’s Story (1959), a similar kind of story with both lead characters a religious woman working to help during wartime, while Peter Finch plays an atheistic authority figure in both films. Errol John also appears in the The Nun’s Story, which is also set in the Congo.

The film rights were bought before publication by William Dozier, head of production at RKO, which wound up as a company and the rights went to Warner Bros.

The cast are Angie Dickinson as Rachel Cade, Peter Finch as Colonel Henry Derode, Roger Moore as Paul Wilton, Errol John as Kulu, Woody Strode as Muwango, Juano Hernández as Kalanumu, Frederick O’Neal as Buderga, Mary Wickes as Marie Grieux, Scatman Crothers as Musinga, Rafer Johnson as Kosongo, Charles Wood as Mzimba, and Douglas Spencer as Doctor Bikel.

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 12,047

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