Sidney Poitier Directs: Buck and the Preacher (1972)

The great Sir Sidney Poitier is celebrating his 90th birthday tomorrow, Feb 20, and in honor of his unique, distinguished career, this weekend a number of movie bloggers are participating in the '90 Years of Sidney Poitier' blogathon, hosted by Virginie of The Wonderful World of Cinema. Check out all the fabulous posts here.  I'm contributing a review of his first directorial effort, Buck and the Preacher, in which he also starred and produced along with his good friend Harry Belafonte.

In 1972 Poitier was an established star with his most iconic films behind him.  For this first directorial effort, Poitier worked in the film genre which enthralled him the most growing up -- the Western.  In fact, his earliest dreams of Hollywood involved him becoming a cowboy.  This immigrant from the Bahamas, who epitomized the American dream when he, in fact, rose from abject poverty, without a formal education, to the pinnacle of fame, chose the most American cinematic form to tell a story that illuminates a little known piece of African-American history.  Buck and the Preacher entertains and educates, and is a must-watch for fans of Poitier, Belafonte, or Western movies. 

Poitier wasn't originally supposed to direct the film.  His long-time friend actor/producer Harry Belafonte reached out to him with a movie he wanted to make based on story by Drake Walker about African-Americans in the West.  Belafonte and Poitier would co-star and co-produce the film, and engaged Ernest Kinoy to finish the script.  The director they hired was Joseph Sargent, whose credits at that point were mostly television serials.  Early on, though, Sargent was fired when it was apparent to the producers that their epic vision of black heroes wasn't being adequately captured.  Long interested in taking up directing, Poitier did not hesitate to slide into the director's chair at Belafonte's urging, after some difficult negotiations with the Columbia studio execs. 

The narrative is a fictional account of real events -- former Southern slave families migrating west (primarily to Kansas) during the Reconstruction era, only to find themselves embattled by white bounty hunters paid to 'convince' these 'exodusters' to return to the South as sharecroppers to struggling white landowners.  The character of Buck (Poitier) is the wagon-master making a living helping the emigres, and goes on the lam after a shoot-out with a particularly nasty gang of mercenaries led by Deshay, played by Cameron Mitchell.  The gang is after Buck when he happens upon the itinerant con man-cum-preacher (Belafonte).  At first wary of each other, they forge a partnership when the Buck finds his strength is a match for his latest foes only when paired with the wiliness of the Preacher.  The two team up to lead a group of Louisiana emigres through dangerous Indian country while avoiding the mercenary gang.  In an underwritten character, Buck's wife, Ruth (Ruby Dee) only wants Buck to give up his dangerous profession so they can make a life for themselves.

Poitier as 'Buck' coming across a scene of carnage and destruction

In the early 1970s, traditional Westerns were in a decline, and the revisionist Westerns, in response to the war in Vietnam and changing cultural mores, arguably had peaked as well (think The Wild Bunch, Little Big Man, and many more).  But films marketed to black audiences ("Blaxploitation'), and films with significant African-American characters were gaining traction with the broader market. Both Belafonte and Poitier were uniquely positioned, as civil rights champions and powerful stars in Hollywood, to capitalize on this trend and make a film that they felt would reclaim some of the history of African descendants in a new land.  

In plot outline and thematically, Buck and the Preacher is a very traditional Western.  You have your heroes, or anti-heroes (cowboys or lawmen in other films), defending the helpless settlers against the powerful (ranchers, railroaders, etc.), who wish to maintain an older order, and must combat external threats (Indians) as well.  The good guys succeed due to their smarts, their willingness to fight and kill, their understanding of their enemy, and of Indians.  They are at odds with female characters over the choices they make.  Shades of Shane, Rio Grande, etc.  At the same time, here the Indians were portrayed as equals to the blacks, with legitimate claims to their land on which passage had to be negotiated.  The primary discontinuity here is that the besieged and their heroes are black, underscoring the fact that blacks in the West in the 19th century were not all servants or marginal to the action of settling the West.  In parallel, the white characters, with a minor exception, were brutal villains who deserve to be cut down at the hands of the former slaves.  These paradoxes didn't escape the notice of critic Vincent Canby of the New York Times, who wrote at the time "the film is a loose, amiable, post-Civil War Western with a firm if not especially severe Black Conscience."

Our heroes (foreground) negotiate with leaders of the Native population (Enrique Lucero and Julie Robinson)

While Mr. Canby goes on to lightly praise the film, and while I don't totally disagree with his assessment, my experience of the film was that it was more than 'loose and amiable.'  As director/storyteller, Poitier kept a kinetic pace, with fast editing, especially in the early scenes where the first shootout occurs in the first 10 minutes.  Interesting high and low camera angles and stunning scenic visuals (the film was shot in Durango, Mexico) keep your attention.  There are some outstanding scenes, including a showdown in a whorehouse where our heroes cunningly ambush their enemies playing cards and visiting upstairs whores.  And great tension is built and released multiple times in this and other confrontations along the journey.  The soundtrack by jazz musician Benny Carter adds a bluesy-style jangle that punctuates key moments. (The main theme is on YouTube here).  There also is quite a bit of humor, especially with Belafonte's portrayal of the Preacher (of the 'High and Low Order of the Holiness Persuasion Church').  Contrasted with solemn, stoic Buck, Belafonte's Preacher is all slithery energy -- when not capturing him jumping around, the camera lingers on his expressive face, where all sorts of contortions play out.  Yet he has guts, as when he doesn't hesitate to punch Buck in the face for stealing his horse.

Belafonte as the 'Preacher'

As Poitier served as the film's co-producer, director, and star, we learn much about Poitier's sensibilities, his desire to do honor to his kinfolk of African origin while advancing the art of cinema. In my opinion, he succeeded. In addition, black cultural critics, including author and critic Nelson George of the Village Voice, generally praised the film. Unfortunately, while doing modestly at the box office, the film did not turn a profit, and Columbia did not renew Poitier's production contract.  Perhaps more unfortunately, Hollywood did not pick up the main threads in the story to produce more films exploring the life of African-Americans in the West.  While Poitier apparently was not completely satisfied with the final film, and found his own performance 'dull', he thoroughly enjoyed his experience as a director.  He went on to further hone his directorial skills, with a total of nine film credits to his name.

A final note: Harry Belafonte is also celebrating his 90th birthday soon -- on March 1st.  Happiest of days to both esteemed entertainers!  Enjoy the first encounter these two have in the film, courtesy of TCM, here.

Sources:
George, Nelson, Blackface: Reflections on African Americans in the Movies; Cooper Square Press, 2002.
Goudsouzian, Aram, Sidney Poitier:  Man , Actor, Icon; University of North Carolina Press, 2004.

Slotkin, Richard, Gunfighter Nation; University of Oklahoma Press, 1998.
TCM.com article on Buck and the Preacher