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Zachariah is a cult,college circuit,head
movie designed to appeal to pot-smoking. meaning of life seeking,
Herman Hesse reading neo-hippies circa 1970. It was billed
as the first Electric Western. On DVD it's called the first
and Only Electric Western. There's a reason for this…. * *
* *
When I was barely a teenager I liked
a lot of the film but remembered I didn't care for the ending.
I figured revisiting the film on DVD would be fun. It almost
was. * * * *
Zachariah is pretty tame stuff.
Too tame. It's rated PG and has a couple of shots of nudity,
some drug use and mild display of violence but it's not a
very innovative work. There's a little satiric homage to 2001
in the beginning of the film (where an amplifier is photographed
like the 2001 monolith)but don't get your hopes up for too
many moments like this--they aren't here. The use of rock
music in a period piece wasn't a first, but it was almost
a new idea. There's some hard rock, folk rock, country rock,
classical rock, and some old fashioned fiddling too. Some
of the music is still enjoyable (though it's not too memorable).
A lot of it was written for the film specifically. * * * *
The film however is not particularly
hip (never was), or trippy, or bizarre (stick with El Topo
for that). * * * * *
You might enjoy it as a piece of
nostalgia, or you might enjoy it as an entertaining so bad
it's kinda' good movie in a Quick and the Deadheads vein.
It was junk in 1971 and it's dated junk now. Don Johnson who
looks like he's 15 (He was 21 or 22) has a major but not starring
role in the film. Johnson was in a lot of quirky films from
The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart (1970) to Zachariah
(1971) to the Harrad Experiment (1973) to the notable A Boy
and His Dog (1975) before hitting the big time with Miami
Vice in the early 1980's. * * * * *
Zachariah is a farmer (John Rubinstein)
who dreams of being a wild-west gunfighter. After getting
his gun via mail order, he teams up with his old friend the
blacksmith, Mathew (Don Johnson) to seek their fortunes. *
* * *
Psychologically the film is a hoot.
The gun of course being symbolic of one's manhood and the
friendship between Mathew and Zachariah being thinly disguised
Homoeroticism at it's clumsiest. There's a montage where they
share the joys of gun slinging that is high camp classic (as
is the films finale'). They team up and pursue The Crackers,
a well-known gang of outlaws who also happen to be a rock
and roll band. The Crackers are played by the once well-known
Country Joe and the Fish (the band's claim to fame was the
"F" cheer at Woodstock and the I'm Fixin' to Die Rag anti
Vietnam anthem). * * * * *
The Crackers play at a local bar
and one of the patrons hates their music and picks a fight
with Zachariah. It's the squares versus the hippies set in
the old West. This leads to a gunfight. Zachariah wins and
decides he's a tough gunfighter. They join the Crackers. The
Crackers however aren't very good outlaws. In a forced montage
set to a rocked up William Tell Overture, The Crackers are
seen being incompetent outlaws, failing to rob a stage coach,
and then ambushing a Pony Express rider stripping him of his
mail and his clothes.* * * *
Zachariah and Mathew come up with
a plan and they pull off a bank robbery. Zachariah needs more
out of life though. He's sure he has a destiny, though he
doesn't know what it is. Shades of Herman Hesse's Sidhartha.
The search for one's true self is on. In this case Zachariah
wants to learn how to be a great gunfighter from one of the
most notorious gunfighters in the West… a man named Job Cain.
We know Cain is good because there's a $50,000 bounty on his
head. The Crackers bounty is $25. * * * *
The names are downright biblical
aren't they? * * * *
Job Cain turns out to be Elvin
Jones who hangs out with the James Gang. He does an impressive
and long drum solo after winning a gunfight…. The James Gang
dress in cooler leather outfits and have lots of good looking
woman groupies hanging around. However, even after Zachariah
proves himself worthy to Job Cain's challenge he's not fulfilled.
He and his friend Mathew go their separate ways. Mathew stays
to become part of the gang. * * * *
Zachariah spends some time with
an old man in the middle of nowhere, and then goes to a strange
border town to meet some ladies. The town is interesting,
but the film gets really silly during this sequence and Pat
Quinn does a very bad imitation of Mae West as Belle Star,
Queen of the Whores. Zachariah is coifed and decked out like
a countrified Siegried and Roy with a big white cowboy hat
complete with a large feather. If you ever wondered what Liberace
as a cowboy would look like the answer can be found right
here. He then woos Belle Star and decides of course that she
is not what he is looking for in life either. * * * * *
This all leads to… well I don't
to spoil the film. . . let's just say if you like high camp
you'll have a great time at the end of this film. * * * *
If you can laugh AT the film, you'll
have a pretty good time with it. If you can't, the film's
charms (assuming you found a few in the film) evaporate completely
after the first 45 minutes. The film is co-written by the
Firesign Theater and there are a few amusing ideas and a couple
of good joke scenes in the film ( like Dick Van Patten selling
Horses as if he's a slick used car dealer) but Firesign fans
will be disappointed. The satire is slight and sometimes forced
and the film has more unintentional laughs than earned ones.
* * * *
It's an odd hybrid of a film which
boils down to a story of two friends searching for themselves
and discovering friendships are perhaps most important of
all. It's cornball stuff. It never quite clicks as an exploitation
type film ala' Roger Corman's Psyche Out or The Trip, nor
is it a Cheech and Chong Out West type of thing. It's also
not as fun, manic or funny as Blazing Saddles is either. They
almost do a funny campfire scene though.
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