The McMasters

Set in the American South just after the Civil War, The McMasters follows Benjie, a Black Union army veteran who returns to the ranch of his former owner. McMasters, his old master, makes him a co-owner of the land, an arrangement the surrounding white community refuses to accept. When Benjie's wife Robin, who is Indian, and other members of her people come to work the ranch, longstanding racial hostilities boil over into open violence, and Benjie must defend what he has been given. The film is a Western about the unresolved tensions of the postwar South rather than a straightforward frontier adventure.

The movie was directed by Alf Kjellin from a screenplay by Harold Jacob Smith, with Monroe Sachson producing. Burl Ives plays McMasters, Brock Peters is Benjie, and Nancy Kwan plays Robin. David Carradine appears as White Feather, Jack Palance as Kolby, and John Carradine as Preacher, part of a credited cast of 28. The film runs 90 minutes and was released on April 23, 1970.

On IMDb, The McMasters holds a 6.1 rating from 444 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 4.6 from a much smaller pool of 11 votes, so the two audiences differ sharply and the larger sample is only moderately positive. The modest vote counts on both platforms indicate a Western that has remained little seen since its release.