Zachariah

Starring:John Rubinstein, Barry Melton, Patricia Quinn (II), Don Johnson, Country Joe McDonald, Elvin Jones, Doug Kershaw, William Challee, Dick Van Patten, Lawrence Kubik, White Lightnin', The James Gang, Joe Walsh (III), Country Joe and the Fish, Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez, Hank Worden, Peter Bergman, Robert Ball, New York Rock Ensemble
Director: George Englund
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Product Type: DVD

Average customer rating:

Classic Western Electric
Zacharaiah, Zacharaiah, you don't need a gun to die...
The First (and only?) Electric Western
Heavy, man.
Wonderful Film, but mostly a small correction to an earlier reviewer

Zachariah
Starring: John Rubinstein , Patricia Quinn (II) , Don Johnson , Country Joe and the Fish , and Elvin Jones
Director: George Englund
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00026L7QS
Release Date: 2004-08-24

Description

Firepower meets flower power in this "outrageous western" (Motion Picture Herald) about two thrill-seeking cowboys who rock the range! Starring John Rubinstein, Don Johnson and Dick Van Patten, and featuring legendary musicians Country Joe and the Fish and White Lightnin', this psychedelic trip through the Wild West is an utterly "unique film experience" (Variety)! Two cowboys (Rubinstein and Johnson) set out for adventure and join up with a band of rock'n'roll outlaws. But as the two friends are seduced by their own quick-draw ambitions, a deadly rivalry grows betweenthem, and they must struggle to find a path to peacebefore they lose more than their reputations and kill more than their friendship!

Customer Reviews:

Classic Western Electric.......2007-01-03

A really cool film portrayal of Hess's Siddhartha.

Whatever happened to the New York Rock Ensmeble?

Zacharaiah, Zacharaiah, you don't need a gun to die..........2006-08-21

Just a couple of points to add that seem unmentioned by previous reviewers:

One of the eeriest high points of the film is a cameo appearance by the legendary Ragin' Cajun, Doug Kershaw, who plays an itinerant prophet known only as The Fiddler -- part insane oracle and part Orpheus.

The other important point to mention is that the story is a loose retelling of the Hermann Hesse novel Siddhartha. But then... so many things are....

jmr

The First (and only?) Electric Western.......2006-08-05

I saw this film when it was first released, and still remember it as great fun. The subtitle "The First Electric Western" captures the spirit - tongue-in-cheek stoner western from an indie studio. The first half of the film was hilarious: electric guitar music in the middle of the desert (very long power cord?); stagecoach outruns men on horseback; Country Joe and the Fish as an outlaw gang named the Crackers (funnier than Cheech and Chong); a mail order pistol turns a boy into gunslinger; an ambiguously gay relationship between Don Johnson and John Rubenstein (or is it just boyish enthusiasm and naivite?)
The second half of the film is more serious (and operatic). Judge for yourself. What have you gor to lose?

Heavy, man........2006-02-04

The only way to "get into" this film, as we used to say, is to pull out the bong, turn out the lights and maybe watch it in tandem with VANISHING POINT, another "lost movie" from the Seventies. Otherwise, you may want to remember that some things aren't nostalgia, they're just dated.

Oh, yes, do all of this at midnight...the vibes are better then.

Wonderful Film, but mostly a small correction to an earlier reviewer.......2006-01-02

I have loved this film since i saw it in the base theatre at NAS Sigonella in Sicily.

Just one additional correction to the writer who missed the point and thought it was a drama gone wrong, rather than a purpose-built comedy:

"The Fish" are not "Country Joe's band" (as a lot of people assume) -- rather, the "Fish" is guitarist Barry Melton, co-founder and co-writer of a lot of the music.

Average customer rating:

Desperately Seeking Even Marginally Talented Actors
High Quality and Awesome poduction
A Pathetic, Juvenile Movie
Standing in the crowd!
AWESOME!

Full Ride
Starring: Meredith Monroe , Riley Smith , Bob Cady , Jonathan Wayne Wilson , and Mario Foxbaker
Director: Mark Hoeger
Manufacturer: Allumination
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00014NEQW
Release Date: 2004-01-27

Customer Reviews:

Desperately Seeking Even Marginally Talented Actors.......2005-11-22

Excellent example of the disaster that happens when you combine a challenging script with two actors choosen for physical appeal. It is rare for me to be consciously aware of the acting during the first viewing of a movie because I try to just go with the story and save the analysis for the second viewing. In the case of "Full Ride", the acting was so weak that the movie was impossible to appreciate as a story; I was too busy (during first and only viewing) alternating between laughter and nausea.

Fortunately for most individual members of the cast, pretty much everyone in the ensemble is weak, the individual talent limitations do not contrast with any actual competent acting. Riley Smith and Meredith Monroe are at least well matched physically, finding common ground in looking far too old for the credible age of their characters.

Unfortunately the script requires especially intense and convincing performances to portray their characters which just exposes Smith and Monroe's staggering lack of talent. On the positive side, they know enough to not look directly into the camera and they do not stutter.

Better to have used a less attractive pair who could physically pass for the proper age, better yet a pair with at least some acting ability. The basic story is not particularly original, just another variation on "An Officer and a Gentleman", but it would have provided a nice showcase for a talented pair of "teenage" actors.

Then again, what do I know? I'm just a child.

High Quality and Awesome poduction.......2005-04-07

I remember this movie, it was aired on the WB. High Quality and Awesome poduction. It is a teenage flick and you just get pulled in by everything!

I can't wait to order this DVD, watch it, and know that I was there! Get this DVD and enjoy the same experiences that I loved so much!

A Pathetic, Juvenile Movie.......2004-11-24

I wasn't going to review this, but once I saw 4 positive reviews, I knew I had to. This is without question the worst movie I have ever seen. The storyline is laughable, the acting is atrocious, and the camera work looks like a 2nd grader did it. A high school football player with a drunk mother graduates from high school going nowhere. He robs a house with his friend and is arrested. His punishment is to block for a charity football team. He doesn't fit in from the beginning. The other players hate him, and his attitude ticks off the coach. Not a bad premise. However, it gets worse from there. He falls in love with a girl who works in the cafeteria. She rejects him.
I could go on all day. The point is, Riley Smith is a terrible actor. I didn't believe his character for one minute. Meredith Monroe is even worse. Her voice tone never changes. She is completly monontone the entire movie. We watched this movie in Sociology class, and after one day, our teacher gave up and told us to keep watching it just so we could make fun of it. By the way, even the music they use in the movie sucks. I used to think From Justin to Kelly was the worst movie I had ever seen, but after seeing Full Ride, I could watch From Justin to Kelly nonstop for 3 days. Watching this movie was torture.

Standing in the crowd!.......2004-07-19

I first saw this movie while still in the making. Wonder why? Because it was filmed at my college! Dana College of Blair, Nebraska. A quiet little private Luthren college in the middle of a Danish comminuty right on the Nebraska/Iowa border, 20 miles north of Omaha. I was there to see all the actors go at it and even be kept up late b/c of the bright lights used at night right beside my dorm window.

Any way, it was so much fun watching the making of this film, through the many times the actors practiced to talking with people that were made extras. I can point out my friend Jason many times in the movie, because of his distintive bright red hair and beard. Look for him and count how many times you see him.

I loved it when I heard the movie was going to be made there, loved it while they shot their footage, and loved the premiere of it on the WB and watching it with my friends and classmates in the commons room, The Dragons Head.

Riley Smith is a gorgoues boy and I think he did a marvelous job in the film alongside Meredith Monroe. It is a teenage flick, but as everyone else says its worth it to watch, because you just get pulled in by everything!

You know the line in the movie "The Hawaiians?" Thats there because at Dana College we usually get quite a few students every year from Hawaii and everyone usually calls them the Hawaiians. And it's so much fun to watch them at first snow in the winter.

I can't wait to order this DVD, watch it, and know that I was there! Get this DVD and enjoy the same experiences that I loved so much!

AWESOME!.......2004-05-23

At first when I picked up this movie I thought, oh geez, it doesnt look every good... ~ but after I watched it I couldn't STOP watching it... Riley Smith is gorgerous..and the whole movie is great.. if you love football, hardwork, and romance.. you'll love this movie!! how exciting!!!

Average customer rating:

"For Novelty Use Only"
A movie that was perfect for its time
Grooovy
You missed the point
Hoo Boy.

Zachariah
Starring: John Rubinstein , Patricia Quinn (II) , Don Johnson , Country Joe and the Fish , and Elvin Jones
Director: George Englund
Manufacturer: Anchor Bay
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00003ETIU
Release Date: 2000-01-11

Amazon.com

Advertised in 1970 as "the first electric Western," Zachariah is an endearingly pretentious effort that prefigures such genre oddities as Jodorowsky's El Topo and Alex Cox's Straight to Hell. The story is the archetypal one about two friends who become gunslingers and must inevitably face off against each other in the finale. But it's treated here as if it meant something deeper, which means that after enjoying 75 minutes of violence we can all agree that peace and love and harmony is on the whole better for children and other living things. Curly haired farm boy Zachariah (John Rubinstein) and eternally grinning apprentice blacksmith Matthew (Don Johnson) are the fast friends who run away from home to join up with a gang of outlaws known as the Crackers (played by hippie folk-rock collective Country Joe and the Fish). These apparent 19th-century Westerners tote electric guitars and are given to staging free festival freak-outs at one end of town to distract from the bank robbery at the other. The boys soon hook up with Job Cain (Elvin Jones), an all-in-black master gunfighter who is also an ace drummer (his solo is impressive), but then drift apart as Zachariah has a liaison with Old West madam Belle Starr (Patricia Quinn) in a town that consists of fairground-style brightly painted wooden cut- out buildings (a gag reused in Blazing Saddles), then gets rid of his outrageous all-white cowboy outfit to settle down on a homestead and grow his own dope and vegetables. Matthew, of course, goes for the black-leather look after outdrawing Cain, and comes a-gunning for the only man who might be faster than he, but the hippie-era message is that once these kids have killed everyone else, they can still make peace with each other and the desert or something, man.

Aside from a Beatle-haired teenage Johnson making a fool of himself by overly emoting to contrast with Rubinstein's nonperformance, the film offers a lot of beautiful "acid Western" scenery and excellent prog rock and bluegrass music from the James Gang, White Lightnin', and the New York Rock Ensemble. Comedy troupe the Firesign Theatre (huge on album in 1970) provided the script, which explains satirical touches like the horse-and-buggy salesman (Dick Van Patten) spieling like a used car dealer and the madam's claim to have had affairs with gunslingers from Billy the Kid to Marshall McLuhan. --Kim Newman

Customer Reviews:

"For Novelty Use Only".......2004-01-10

Still dont remember why I bought this DVD, or why it sat for 4 years before watching it. Anyway, this movie is a real hoot. From Don Johnson's premiere as an 18 yr old Prom Queen lookalike with a sidearm to Country Joe's surreal insertion into an old west shoot-em-up saloon. The whole thing is just twisted as hell, and semi-fun.

A recommended rental with a 6 pack. 3 tokes.

A movie that was perfect for its time.......2004-01-07

"Zachariah" has remained one of the most vivid memories of my teenage cinematic years. And I only saw it once. As a 14-year-old in 1970, it was perfectly timed to take advantage of the growing fusion of rock, drugs, rebellion, free love and good times that were evolving through the culture. And it packaged them up in a funny, satirical fashion that was uniquely themed as a Western. I still remember one of the gunfight songs "Zachariah, Zachariah don't go to Apache Wells; 19's tried and 19's died, and you'll make only one."

If you're a hippie product of the 70s era, "Zachariah" is a must see, as much for the fun, gags and drug references, as for the actors who went on to further stardom whether in movies or television.

Grooovy.......2003-07-25

After reading the reviews for this film, you will realize that Zachariah is a "Love it or hate it" phenomenon. If you can't appreciate camp, then you have no business watching this one. I am in the "Love it" category myself. For me, the Elvin Jones drum solo is enough reason to buy this one. I am also a fan of Country Joe, and I enjoy all the music in this one. The fiddler's tune always sticks in my head for days after I hear it. Of course, the acting is horrid. You have to expect that (Although Elvin Jones is surprisingly good). The homo-eroticism is a bit silly, but so is everything else in this one. The Herman Hesse connection really takes it to another level. It amuses me to no end that this silly romp is based on a serious work of literature and is remarkably true to the original (Except for the ending).

You missed the point.......2003-02-07

The plot is a parody of Hermann Hesse' Siddartha. It is the life story of Gautama Buddah. This novel was very popular in colleges in the late 60's and early 70's

Hoo Boy........2002-09-28

You know, I've even shown this to fellow fans of the Firesign Theatre, who purportedly wrote this piece of dreck, and even THEY can't find much to like about it. (Peter Bergman appears as a bartender for about five seconds.)

Don Johnson, who looks fresh out of high school, and John Rubinstein, who looks fresh out of rehab, play gunslingers in a town that is OBVIOUSLY just flats with no actual buildings. That's the cool, groovy, 60s point, get it? It's just a movie, maaaan.

And it's a movie that's more interesting to watch from a stunned, "why did they make this" sense of wonder than from a "boy, I sure like 60s Westerns" point of view. Called the "first Rock and Roll Western," it's more a kind of surreal trip of a film, with smoke-hazed nods to Bunuel and Peckinpah.

One thing about the relationship between the two friends/gunslingers/eventual enemies that is a little creepy is that there seems to be a kind of "more than just friends, nudge nudge" feeling to their relationship. Your milage may vary.

I'm not going to bother to tell you what it's about, since it doesn't really matter. All I know is, I have never loaned a DVD to so many people and had them all give me the same reaction: "Get This Piece of ... out of my house!" That alone keeps it from being a one-star movie.

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