It came a surprise to find out that Zachariah is supposed to be Siddartha dressed up as a marijuana western, especially because I saw the film only months after reading the book and never caught on. It's an idea that had to be hatched in the office of a Sunset Blvd. agent, with the Firesign Theater people Austin, Bergman and Proctor floating a prefabricated storyline guaranteed to hold water with the touchy and indefinable kid market, the kids that rejected Tora! Tora! Tora! but made Easy Rider a smash. Turn Herman Hesse into a western trip, man, a spaced-out phantasmagoria where gunslingers play electric guitars and time has, like, lost its meaning! (long inhale here).

Perhaps Ken Russell could have gotten away with it by drowning the tale in extravagant visuals, but more likely not. Zachariah's director (the interesting producer of The World, The Flesh and The Devil and producer/director of The Ugly American) cannot do anything with a few costumes, rented horses and lame settings, and relies on his cameraman to dress the film in sunsets and light refractions to make it look like something. The carny set for Belle Starr's sin town looks like a reject from an Up With People revue. Most of the time the show looks like what it is, a bunch of young people dressed up funny and playing around in the desert. The advent of the Easy Rider generation brought the "berserk zoom lens disease" from Italy to the United States, and there are few shots not punctuated by long and artless zooms of the Cinema Killer Kind.

The script is indeed Siddartha. A pair of young wanderers get lost in the secular world of false values and sensual delights. But good ol' Zachariah sticks to his hippie principles, learns from a wise old man (yawn) and comes out smiling. With Country Joe and the Fish in tow as supposed comedy relief, we get lame doper jokes and references to Bonnie & Clyde. Barry Melton is particularly weak as a clownish robber, stealing crates labeled "El Acapulco Gold." Ha ha.

The one actor who survives with his dignity is Elvin Jones as a muscular and intimidating pro gunslinger. He somehow makes a good connection with Spaghetti angst, and comes off as both relaxed and deadly serious at the same time.

John Rubenstein and Don Johnson are pretty boys plain and simple, and with their pouting looks and vacant stares were probably as attractive to gay men as they were straight women. Their talent is almost exclusively their male-model appearance, with Rubenstein approximating the look of Who singer Roger Daltrey and Johnson doing a great impersonation of a blow-up sex doll. Both have been busy ever since although Johnson has had the star career. He must have had a dynamite agent, as he handily survived a trio of awful pictures: The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart and The Harrad Experiment are far worse than this one.

Chalk Zachariah up as a curiosity looksee, a dull attempt to combine an old genre with some executive's idea of the Woodstock appeal. I certainly was curious to see how it held up, so there's no dishonor in giving it a shot.

MGM's DVD of Zachariah looks great, with a richly-colored enhanced image that gives its trendy photography every benefit of the doubt. The music is a rich mono instead of some form of stereo that we'd expect in a 1971 rock picture. I remember seeing an embarrassing trailer for the film, but there are no extras on the disc.

The back cover The Hollywood Reporter blurb points out why Variety was always preferable when it came to film reviews. The Reporter blurb: "Excellent! Touching, Fascinating and Impressive! The Film Commands Complete Attention!"

As Wile E. Coyote would say, Yikes.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Zachariah rates:
Movie: Fair
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements: none
Packaging: Keep case
Reviewed: September 3, 2004