Stars: Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, Cameron Mitchell, Ruby Dee, Nita Talbot, John Kelly, Denny Miller

Director: Sidney Poitier

Summary: Three recently-freed slaves head out West to start new lives after the American Civil War. Their trip is impeded by a tough racist who viciously resents their new-found freedom.

Sidney Poitier directs and stars in this all-black western about an ex-Union Army cavalry soldier leading a group of recently-freed slaves to the western frontier in post-Civil War America. Tagging along with Buck are his wife Ruth (Ruby Dee) and a con man disguised as a preacher (Harry Belafonte, in his first onscreen pairing with Poitier). The black homesteaders' progress is seriously impeded by a sadistic racist (Cameron Mitchell) and his band of murderous thugs who resent the slaves' newfound freedom and wish to send them back to a life of servitude and sharecropping in Louisiana. With equal parts drama and comedy--as well as Biblical allusions to the story of Exodus--Buck and his followers must summon all their courage to contend with the racists on their journey to freedom.

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Sidney Poitier made his directing debut with this1972 action comedy with an edge to it. Made at the height of the Black Power movement in America, the film has an unmistakable militancy in its story of a wagon-train guide and a con man who team up to throw a posse of white nightriders off thetrail of escaped slaves. Poitier has never been a distinctive filmmaker, and Buck and the Preachercertainly doesn't indicate any early signs of raw talent that later went undeveloped. But the film's energy and sense of fun, hand in hand with the suggestively political zing, make it watchable.--Tom Keogh

Aspect Ratio:	1.85 Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Theatrical Trailer, Stills, Photos, Filmographies
Subtitles:	Arabic, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish
Year:	1972
Release Date:	July 28, 2003
Runtime:	98 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	C D R 10174
Keywords:	Buck, Preacher, Wide, Screen, Westerns
Genre:	Westerns