For a while into the movie I thought it might be an all-Black cast Western but that changed when the night riders showed up. There actually was a series of all-Black Westerns back in the late Thirties starring cowboy crooner Herb Jeffries, who's singing sounded as good as guys like Gene Autry. My favorite Jeffries flick is "Two Gun Man From Harlem" but I haven't seen them all yet. One name I was surprised to catch in this film's credits was that of Clarence Muse as the old black fortune teller Cudjo. He had a lot of roles portraying dignified black characters in the Thirties and Forties, and since I brought it up I had to take a look, but he didn't appear in any pictures with Herb Jeffries.
Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte team up in this one following a less than friendly first impression between their characters. Poitier is wagon master Buck, leading freed black slaves across the West to destinations they might call home following the end of the Civil War. Preacher Willis Oaks Rutherford is more of an opportunist than a Man of God, but he did have the Bible thing down pretty well when he needed it. Who was going to argue with the Reverend of the High and Low Order of the Holiness Persuasion Church.
As a revisionist Western this one works to show a different side of the Old West experience though it doesn't set any new standards by my estimation. The inclusion of the Indian tribe on the side of the black settlers was an interesting element, helping them out in the final shoot out against the night riders even after stating they wouldn't get involved. After that, the wagon settlers make it to a fertile land completing their Westward trek, but done in such an abrupt fashion that one wonders if the ending had any kind of thought put into it.
Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte team up in this one following a less than friendly first impression between their characters. Poitier is wagon master Buck, leading freed black slaves across the West to destinations they might call home following the end of the Civil War. Preacher Willis Oaks Rutherford is more of an opportunist than a Man of God, but he did have the Bible thing down pretty well when he needed it. Who was going to argue with the Reverend of the High and Low Order of the Holiness Persuasion Church.
As a revisionist Western this one works to show a different side of the Old West experience though it doesn't set any new standards by my estimation. The inclusion of the Indian tribe on the side of the black settlers was an interesting element, helping them out in the final shoot out against the night riders even after stating they wouldn't get involved. After that, the wagon settlers make it to a fertile land completing their Westward trek, but done in such an abrupt fashion that one wonders if the ending had any kind of thought put into it.