Buck and the Preacher - Screenplay by Ernest Kinoy
November 25, 1970 · Los Angeles
by POITIER, SIDNEY - AFRICAN AMERICAN FILM HISTORY
Los Angeles: Columbia Pictures, November 25, 1970. Original 122 page final shooting script with blue, yellow, green, and pink re-write pages. This script was owned by actor James McEachin who appeared in the film. Buck and the Preacher is a 1972 American Western film released by Columbia Pictures, written by Ernest Kinoy and directed by Sidney Poitier. Poitier also stars in the film alongside Harry Belafonte and Ruby Dee. This is the first film Sidney Poitier directed. Vincent Canby of The New York Times said Poitier "showed a talent for easy, unguarded, rambunctious humor missing from his more stately movies". This film broke Hollywood Western traditions by casting black actors as central characters and portraying both tension and solidarity between African Americans and Native Americans in the late 19th century. The notable blues musicians Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, and Don Frank Brooks performed in the film's soundtrack, composed by jazz great Benny Carter. Actor James McEachin’s early life experiences were in the military, as a policeman, a fireman, and a record producer. He turned to a career in show business, and was often cast to highlight his African-American heritage with successful roles in such well-known television series as Hawaii Five-O, Mannix, and Dragnet. He was cast in the pivotal role of the d.j. in Play Misty for Me with Clint Eastwood. He starred briefly in his own series as detective Harry Tenafly, in Tenafly. Many of us remember him for his terrific work as police lieutenant Brock in the 1986 television movie Perry Mason: The Case of the Notorious Nun - a role he would reprise throughout the years. (Inventory #: 16400J)