Buck and the Preacher
With his rousingly entertaining directorial debut, Sidney Poitier, alongside actor-producer Harry Belafonte, helped rewrite the history of the western, bringing Black heroes to a genre in which they had always been sorely underrepresented. Combining boisterous buddy comedy with blistering, Black Power–era political fury, Poitier and a marvelously mischievous Belafonte star as a tough and taciturn wagon master and an unscrupulous, pistol-packing “preacher,” who join forces in order to take on the white bounty hunters threatening a westward-bound caravan of people recently emancipated from slavery. A superbly crafted revisionist landmark, Buck and the Preacher subverts Hollywood conventions at every turn and reclaims the western genre in the name of Black liberation.
Special Features
- New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- New interview with Mia Mask, author of Black Rodeo: A History of the African American Western
- Behind-the-scenes footage featuring actor-director Sidney Poitier and actor-producer Harry Belafonte
- Interviews with Poitier and Belafonte from 1972 episodes of Soul! and The Dick Cavett Show
- New interview with Gina Belafonte, daughter of Harry Belafonte
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by critic Aisha Harris
New illustration by Sean Phillips
Special Features
- New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- New interview with Mia Mask, author of Black Rodeo: A History of the African American Western
- Behind-the-scenes footage featuring actor-director Sidney Poitier and actor-producer Harry Belafonte
- Interviews with Poitier and Belafonte from 1972 episodes of Soul! and The Dick Cavett Show
- New interview with Gina Belafonte, daughter of Harry Belafonte
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by critic Aisha Harris
New illustration by Sean Phillips
Cast
- Sidney Poitier
- Buck
- Harry Belafonte
- Preacher
- Ruby Dee
- Ruth
- Cameron Mitchell
- Deshay
- Denny Miller
- Floyd
- Enrique Lucero
- Native American chief
- Julie Robinson Belafonte
- Sinsie
- Clarence Muse
- Cudjo
- Lynn Hamilton
- Sarah
Credits
- Director
- Sidney Poitier
- Story by
- Ernest Kinoy
- Drake Walker
- Screenplay by
- Ernest Kinoy
- Produced by
- Joel Glickman
- Director of photography
- Alex Phillips Jr.
- Musical score composed and conducted by
- Benny Carter
- Featuring
- Sonny Terry
- Brownie McGhee
Edition introduction to Buck and the Preacher
A scene from Buck and the Preacher
