Buck and the Preacher (1972) on Netflix
PG19721h 42mAdventureDramaWestern
After the Civil War, Buck leads freed African Americans west from Louisiana. Plantation owners hire raiders to drive the wagon trains back, and a fleeing Buck forces a preacher to trade horses.
- Netflix3.3/5
- IMDb6.6/103,196 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes63%
Trailer
Plot summary
In the late 1860s, freed African Americans leave Louisiana for Kansas to farm their own land, with Buck as their wagon master. A former soldier, Buck knows the territory and pays the Native Americans whose land the trains cross, buying safe passage and the right to hunt buffalo to feed the settlers. White plantation owners in Louisiana, deprived of the labor they once held in slavery, hire armed raiders under Deshay to turn the trains back, destroying wagons and supplies. The raiders set a trap at Buck's home, but his wife Ruth warns him and he gets away. On the run, Buck comes upon a bathing preacher, Reverend Willis Oaks Rutherford, and takes his horse.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Buck and the Preacher (1972)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte first hired Joseph Sargent to direct, but Poitier fired him after a few days of shooting, saying Sargent's approach lacked the ethnic qualities that would let black people and minorities find substance in the film. Poitier took over the camera himself.
- Although it was the first feature Sidney Poitier ever directed, he shot Buck and the Preacher in 45 days and cut it while simultaneously acting in another picture, The Organization.
