Zachariah (film)

Zachariah
Directed by George Englund
Produced by George Englund
Lawrence Kubik
Written by Joe Massot
Phil Austin
Peter Bergman
David Ossman
Philip Proctor
Starring John Rubinstein
Don Johnson
Patt Quinn
Dick Van Patten
Music by Jimmie Haskell
Mark Snow (song co-composer, "Grave Digger", as "Martin Fultermann")
Michael Kamen (song co-composer, "Grave Digger")
John Rubinstein ("Camino Waltz")
Cinematography Jorge Stahl Jr.
Edited by Gary Griffin
Distributed by Cinerama Releasing Corporation (1971, original) MGM (2004, DVD)
Release dates
 1971
Running time
 93 min.
Country  United States
Language English
Budget $1,200,000[1]
Box office $625,000[1]

Zachariah (1971) is a Western film starring John Rubinstein as Zachariah and Don Johnson as his friend Matthew as two gunfighters journeying through the American West.[2]

Production

The film is loosely based on Hermann Hesse's novel Siddhartha,[3] surrealistically adapted as a musical Western by Joe Massot[2] and the members of The Firesign Theatre comedy troupe.

This film was billed as, "The first electric Western."[2] It features appearances and music supplied by rock bands from the 1970s, including the James Gang[2] and Country Joe and the Fish as "The Cracker Band."[2] Fiddler Doug Kershaw has a musical cameo[2] as does Elvin Jones as a gunslinging drummer named Job Cain.[2]

Cream's drummer Ginger Baker and The Band were originally scheduled to be major players in the film.[4]

Soundtrack

The Minneapolis group White Lightnin' performs their rock and roll version of the William Tell Overture[5][6] on the soundtrack and the New York Rock & Roll Ensemble perform Grave Digger.[5][6] The soundtrack features songs by the James Gang, Joe Walsh, and Country Joe and the Fish.[5][6]

The soundtrack album was released as a vinyl LP by Probe Records, a subsidiary label owned by ABC Records.[6]

Reception

Don Johnson later said in a 2014 interview with The A.V. Club "I was sort of the Govinda character."[7]

Roger Greenspun of The New York Times wrote in a review of the film "It is, at least in my experience, the first movie to parody the Western with the apparent intention of propagandizing homosexual love. I am aware that male relationships are a stock in trade of most Westerns and that, in Andy Warhol's brilliant "Lonesome Cowboys," there has already been a homosexual parody."[2]

The film recorded a loss of $1,435,000.[1]

DVD

Zachariah was released to DVD by MGM Home Video on August 24, 2004 as a Region 1 widescreen DVD.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 "ABC's 5 Years of Film Production Profits & Losses", Variety, 31 May 1973 p 3
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Greenspun, Roger (January 25, 1971). "Zachariah (1970) Screen: 'Zachariah,' an Odd Western". The New York Times.
  3. ↑ Irv Slifkin (2004). Videohound's Groovy Movies: Far-Out Films of the Psychedelic Era. Visible Ink Press. p. 106. ISBN 978-1-57859-155-8.
  4. ↑ Hopkins, Jerry (April 5, 1969). "Baker and Big Pink Sign for Western". Rolling Stone. San Francisco, California: Straight Arrow Publishers, Inc. p. 9.
  5. 1 2 3 Segal, Dave (September 2, 2011). "Don't Look a Gift Zachariah OST in the Mouth". The Stranger.
  6. 1 2 3 4 "Zachariah (Movie Soundtrack)". Discogs.
  7. ↑ Harris, Will (May 30, 2014). "Don Johnson on Cold In July, Dennis Hopper, and auditioning for Miami Vice". The A.V. Club.
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