Buck and the Preacher

After the Civil War. Freed Black families are leaving Louisiana for the west, for places where they can hold land of their own. Buck guides those wagon trains. Against him are men hired by white landowners whose job is to stop the migration and drive the people back to the fields. A confidence man who has declared himself a preacher attaches himself to Buck. Sidney Poitier both stars and directs, in his first film behind the camera. Joseph Sargent had started it; after a disagreement Poitier took over and Columbia accepted the change. Harry Belafonte plays the preacher and Ruby Dee plays Buck's wife Ruth. What the film does is correct a genre. The westward migration of Black communities had gone almost entirely untold in the western, and here it is the centre, along with the economic violence organised to prevent it. There is a second thing worth noting: the film builds an alliance between the Black migrants and Native communities, against the habit of the classical western. Benny Carter wrote the score, with Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee playing harmonica and blues. Who it is for: viewers interested in the western and in the untold side of American history. Who it is not for: the action rhythm is uneven, and the shifts between humour and hardness do not always land.