Buck and the Preacher, a likeably unpretentious Western which marks the directorial debut of Sidney Poitier, gains much of its charm from the sly manipulation of genre conventions. It's about a taciturn ex-cavalryman and a shifty preacher leading a wagon train westward under repeated attack by a gang of bandits. Nothing much new here, except perhaps the mating of the Ford tradition (many echoes of Wagon Master) with modern anti-heroism. The real twist, though, is that the pioneers are black, the bandits are white trash, and the wagon train is rescued not by the cavalry but by the Indians.

Buck and the Preacher is saved from being a mere stunt like the black Hello, Dolly! by its creative use of the conventions it turns inside out. It mocks them at the same time it allows black audiences (and, vicariously, whites) the pleasure of usurping the mythology which the...