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Zachariah | 
 enlarge | Director: George Englund
Actors: John Rubinstein, Patricia Quinn (ii), Don Johnson, Country Joe And The Fish, Elvin Jones
Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
Category: DVD
Buy Used: $29.97
New (5) Used (10) from $29.97
Rating:  20 reviews
Sales Rank: 123875
Format: Color, Dvd-video, Letterboxed, Widescreen, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Region: 0
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
DVD Layers: 1
DVD Sides: 1
Picture Format: Letterbox
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 93 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
UPC: 013131094596
EAN: 0013131094596
ASIN: B00003ETIU
Theatrical Release Date: 1970
Release Date: January 11, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: All of our used items are 100% Guaranteed to play. Ships 1st class!!
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| 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
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| Customer Reviews: Read 15 more reviews...
 Just like Head June 1, 2008
Gregory Smith (Perth, Australia)
This film is a hoot and is a cult classic, much in the same vein as the Monkees' Head. It's camp, it's corny, yet at the same time poignant, with some stunning cinematography. I just want to know where I can get the soundtrack. Hmmm. I have the LP. I'll have to get someone to digitise it for me.
Jung at heart, but a little Freud at the edges. October 12, 2007
G. Rutherford (Sydney, Australia.)
If you enjoy action, suspense, drug use and pointless violence,
watch this DVD at the same time. The story of a young man wanted
for a crime he was too wasted to commit. A non-stop rollercoaster
ride that explodes from the screen, drinks all your beer, and makes
lewd suggestions to your life-partner. Color by Sandoz Laboratories.
With a gripping climactic scene, reputedly the inspiration for the
Sergio Leone classic: "I KEEL YOUR VEGGIE PATCH", other special
features include the fact that it is not "THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER",
and Alec Baldwin isn't in it. As your attorney, I advise you to
purchase this DVD. OK.
Classic Western Electric January 3, 2007
Allen Phemister (OAK HARBOR, WA United States)
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... August 21, 2006
j michael rowland (Watertown, Tennessee, USA)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
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 August 5, 2006
Pierce Amory (Wainscott, NY United States)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
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?
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