Zachariah (film)
Zachariah | |
---|---|
File:Zachariah.jpg | |
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
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "ABC's 5 Years of Film Production Profits & Losses", Variety, 31 May 1973 p 3
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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External links
- Pages with broken file links
- English-language films
- 1971 films
- 1970s Western (genre) films
- American films
- 1970s LGBT-related films
- American LGBT-related films
- Homophobia in fiction
- Bisexuality-related films
- Adultery in films
- Musical films
- 1970s musical films
- American rock musicals
- Rock musicals
- Jukebox musicals
- Western (genre)
- Western (genre) films
- American Western (genre) films
- American parody films
- 1970s films
- Metafictional works
- Neo-Western films
- Surrealist films