Penny T
It helps to be stoned and in your late teens/early 20s. LoL The movie is advertised as an acid western. One of the first time we see Don Johnson on the big screen. He also did A Boy and His Dog around this time. Back to Z, it's got a fabulous soundtrack. Some of the artists featured are the James Gang, Country Joe and the Fish, Doug Kershaw and the New York Rock Ensemble. Six shooters and electric guitars! Oh yeah. Well, except for Doug. Man plays a fiddle like a Louisiana man!
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/17/24
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Audience Member
"The first electric Western" is the kind of movie that could have only have come out in 1971.
How else do you explain a musical Western that is based on Hermann Hesse's novels Siddhartha and Narcissus and Goldmund that stars — and has music by — the James Gang (featuring Joe Walsh, playing Job Cain's Band), White Lightnin' (a Cream soundalike band that Old Man's Band), New York Rock ‘n Roll Ensemble (a classical baroque rock group that includes Michael Kamen (who did incidental music for Lifeforce but is probably better known for all those Bryan Adams songs that your mom loved), Marty Fulterman (AKA Mark Snow, who composed the X-Files theme) and Dorian Rudnytsky, plus two rock musicians Brian Corrigan and Clif Nivison, as Belle Starr's band) and Country Joe and the Fish as the Crackers?
This is a movie with no less than five writers**:
Joe Massot: This filmmaker is best known for George Harrison's Wonderwall, as well as starting Led Zeppelin's The Song Remains the Same before being sacked and subbed by Peter Clifton*. Massot was inspired to make this movie when he followed the Beatles to study with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. When he got there, only George*** and John were there, locked in a meditation duel.
Phil Austin, Peter Bergman, David Ossman and Philip Proctor: Better known as The Firesign Theater, who was called "the Beatles of comedy" by no less a source than the U.S. Library of Congress, this surreal comedy group existed to remind us that "Everything You Know Is Wrong." Again, only in the 70s and not today, but they became famous through radio and comedy albums.
After finding a mail-order gun in the desert, Zachariah (John Rubinstein) and his best friend Matthew (Don Johnson) leave behind their small town and decide to become gunfighters. They start to follow the Crackers and Zachariah shows that he's an able gunfighter, but when challenged by the deadly gunfighter drummer Job Cain**** (Elvin James, who played drums for John Coltrane, Charles Mingus and Miles Davis), Zachariah decides to leave behind this life, worried that at some point he and Matthew will end up killing one another.
Zachariah's vision quest takes him to the Old Man who lives alone in the desert and refuses the violence of the west. He tells him of the town of El Camino, a place where pleasure — and Dick Van Patten — is readily available, including the carnal delights of Belle Starr (Pat Quinn, who played Alice in Alice's Restaurant). But hedonism isn't what our protagonist is into either. So he wanders back to the Old Man who teaches him the mantra "Hurry up and die."
On the other hand, Matthew has moved up in the world of crime and has plans of taking over from Cain. He travels to El Camino where he meets Zachariah, who takes up his gun again and angers the Old Man so much that he claims that he will never speak with him again.
The conclusion takes both men into town where the death of Cain — and possibly both of our heroes — hangs over the proceedings. Can Zachariah's love for his friend save both of them?
Director George Englund was married to Cloris Leachman for nearly twenty-five years and also made The Ugly American and produced the post-apocalyptic film The World, the Flesh and the Devil.
I have no idea why people aren't losing their minds over this movie every single day. It's a head film about cowboys who carry guitars along with their guns and where a man — a black man in 1971! — can shoot another man dead before playing a two-minute drum solo. Just imagine if the role went to the musician it was originally intended for, legendary maniac Ginger Baker.
*Strangely enough, Clifton had one of the missing NASA films of Neil Armstrong taking mankind's first steps on the moon. Wait, what? Yes, believe it or not, Clifton has forgotten that he had the film, keeping it for twenty years in a safe as part of his personal film collection. He had originally ordered the film for just $180 from the Smithsonian and had forgotten to return it. The rest of the original NASA tapes have been lost somewhere in the U.S. and the hope is that Clifton's part of the overall library will lead researchers to the rest.
**AFI reports that the Firesigns publicly rejected the film because their original script had been changed so much. Massot, who was to be the director, resigned over artistic differences.
***According to Levon Helm, Harrison discussed making Zachariah as an Apple Films project starring Bob Dylan and The Band. At one point, Cream's drummer Ginger Baker and The Band were also to be the main actors in this movie.
****The sound was so poorly recorded here that New Orleans session drummer Earl Palmer had to play an ADR and hit every single bear. You can hear Palmer play on everything from Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally" and Richie Valens' "La Bamba" to "You Send Me" by Sam Cooke, Jan and Dean's "Dead Man's Curve," "River Deep – Mountain High" with Ike and Tina Turner and Tom Waits' "Whistlin' Past the Graveyard." He was also the session drummer for plenty of TV theme songs like The Flintstones, Green Acres, The Brady Bunch, Midnight Special and Mission: Impossible. At 72 years of age Palmer played with Cracker in the video for "I Hate My Generation." When lead singer David Lowery asked Palmer if he would be able to play along with the songs, he looked at the one-time Camper Beethoven singer and bassist before simply saying, "I invented this sh**."
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/06/23
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Audience Member
One of the best comedy Westerns of all time. Right up there with Blazing Saddles and Rustler's Rhapsody!
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
01/21/23
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Audience Member
Remember the good old days of traveling rock n roll bandits, metal-playing gun slingers, stripper chautauquas and wise ol' coots that live in mountains and teach you about being zen with nature? ZACHARIAH REMEMBERS.
Honestly, this was better than I expected. Country Joe and the Fish cameos are always welcome, the music in this movie in general is pretty killer and the film itself is actually way more coherent than I anticipated.
Then there's its script, co-written by Firesign Theater... well, somewhere in here is a flat out hilarious screenplay that was unfortunately smothered by bad acting/timing and possibly a director who was too high to notice he was missing the jokes. Like, dude gets a mail order gun, shoots a guy and decides "I can't go home" despite the fact that nobody's looking for him/cares. That in itself is a hilarious concept, but unfortunately it's funnier to write out than to watch. There's a buncha amusing shit, from one lines to chase scenes that don't go anywhere, crazy out of place 60s western outfits, silly sets, and that freaking fiddle player who - had he not been Doug Kershaw and instead cast as a comedian - could have been on par with Monty Python's Brave Sir Robin. Alas! Lost potential. It's THERE, you just gotta kinda autotune the comedy in your head if you really want some laughs.
The second half of the film focuses more heavily on messages of peace and being one with nature (though still includes some amusing dialogue had it only been delivered better). "Do you ever look for your bullets after they've left your gun?" is a great line that sort of sums up the point of the entire silly thing; the folly of man, the importance of finding inner peace vs engaging in competition which will lead you nowhere. It's based on Siddhartha and very much in the same vein as Holy Mountain in that respect, though this came out two years earlier!
This was a fun watch though, I'd recommend it if you're in the mood.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/06/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Absolutely ridiculous, yet quite enjoyably so. Inhabiting the same oddball universe as 'El Topo' and 'Greaser's Palace', this is not quite as good as those films, but at the same time it made me laugh more.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
01/25/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Zachariah (John Rubinstein), a young man in the wild west nourish a dream of being a gunslinger. He gets a mail order gun and eventually kills a man in the local saloon. He and his friend Matthew (Don Johnson) then sets out to become gunfighters by joining The Crackers (Country Joe & The Fish), a rock band who are also robbers. Having quickly outgrown The Crackers and having bigger plans, Zachariah and Matthew set out to find new challenges. Before long, they part company and a rivalry grows between them...
"Zachariah"(1971) is loosely based on Hermann Hesse's novel "Siddhartha", surrealistically adapted as a musical Western by Joe Massot and the members of the Firesign Theatre comedy troupe. The band Country Joe and the Fish perform as an inept gang of robbers (more adept as musicians) called "the Crackers," who are always "looking for people who like to draw." In the same vein, Zachariah boasts: "I can think, I can wait, and I'm fast on the draw." This is a parody of Siddhartha's famous line: "I can think, I can wait, I can fast." Underneath the gunplay, the jokes, and the music, an important message is delivered: a life of pacifism, quiet contemplation, male bonding and vegetarianism is preferable to a life of violence. This film is defined as being part of the Acid Western genre. More precisely, in its own publicity releases, it was called, "The first electric western." This was, in no small part, because this film featured several appearances and music supplied by successful rock bands from the era, including The James Gang and Country Joe and the Fish. Fiddler Doug Kershaw has a musical cameo that advances the plot of the film. The movie also features former John Coltrane sideman Elvin Jones as a gunslinging drummer named "Job Cain." Cream's drummer Ginger Baker was originally going to play the part of Zachariah. The Minneapolis group White Lightnin' (an off-shoot of the band The Litter) performs their rock and roll version of the William Tell Overture on the soundtrack. The New York Rock and Roll Ensemble perform Grave Digger on the soundtrack. The soundtrack features songs by the James Gang, Joe Walsh, and Country Joe and the Fish. "Laguna Salada" and "Country Fever", performed in the film by the James Gang, later reappeared as bonus tracks on the 2000 re-release of The James Gang Greatest Hits. This is yet another movie that has been floated around in my head for a long time and finally I have seen it. There´s a slight resemblance to The Who´s rock opera "Tommy" and I do love the crossing of modern rock n roll and the western storyline. Love the music scenes with particularly The James Gang. Yes, the acting is dodgy and the script is partly dodgy but there´s some sort of psychedelic Woodstock charm to it. "Zachariah" stands out for sure and it carries a cult status sign all over it.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/21/23
Full Review
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