Product Details

• Actors: John Rubinstein, Patricia Quinn, Don Johnson, Country Joe and the Fish, Elvin Jones
• Directors: George Englund
• Writers: David Ossman, Hermann Hesse, Joe Massot, Peter Bergman, Phil Proctor
• Producers: George Englund
• Format: Color, Letterboxed, Special Edition, Widescreen, NTSC
• Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
• VHS Release Date: November 24, 1998
• Run Time: 93 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6305262624
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #325,564 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

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

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A movie that was perfect for its time, January 6, 2004

By 

Daniel J. Lape (Brisbane, Queensland Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Zachariah [VHS] (VHS Tape)

"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.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Zachariah, Zachariah, you don't need a gun to die..., August 21, 2006

By 

j michael rowland "j michael rowland" (Watertown, Tennessee, USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Zachariah (DVD)

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

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Story-line based on Herman Hesse's novel "Siddhartha", August 21, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Iowa, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Zachariah [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Despite all the "first electric western" hoopla, there is an eerie truth about awakening conveyed throughout this eccentric, eclectic, perverse adaptation of Herman Hesse's novel "Siddhartha." The characters are all there Siddhartha, Govinda, Kamala (Bell Starr!), the Old Ferryman, and more.