If you have a chance, watch this movie on DVD with an open mind. Know that it is unique in all filmdom, a musical, and every music scene is memorable, especially if you like drums. I saw it in 1972 in a double feature midnight show when everyone else was there for Billy Jack. There's so many ways to praise this movie, especially the cinematography, clever set-design. I always thought Rubenstein was going to be a big star, who knew it would be Sonny Crocket. Here is something a friend recently emailed, for the true connoisseur."I engineered the sound track for the James Gang and some others. Went down to effin calinete, south of El Centro.... for the shoot. People were fainting from the heat and we lived on a very watered diet... soups, salads, soups, fruits, and water. Wow... very hot and liquid. If you watch the film, notice the refractions off the acrylic guitars and the liquid backdrop landscape of the heat, coming up from the ground.We had problems with way off background... a truck in the distance that they did not want in the frames... The mountains seemed to be within walking distance but they were miles away. Many people got very sick from the heat.Good film... I was only there for a small portion of the shoot... George Englund (married at that time to Cloris Leachman) having an affair with a woman named Sydney. Marlon Brando was living at George's house because he was involved with someone (?)...Sad to see the poverty there and within the hotel compound, $$$$...."

I've never seen this movie, but I had to jump in to the defense of the Firesign Theatre, and the popular misconception that they wrote this movie. In reading interviews with various members of the comedy team, the Firesign Theatre wrote *the first draft* of this movie which was meant to be a comedic adaptation of Sidhartha, set in the old west. Then what seems to have happened was that the studio executives assigned another writer to do a re-write (and probably tinkered a bit with the script themselves) and the final product bore only a passing similarity to the original script.I do not think that the Firesign Theatre are in any way proud of this movie and don't mention it on their web-site.

Firesign Theatre has distanced themselves from the film, having spoken of a script they wrote for a comic western "that was never made." But this is a quirky little coming-of-age tale some years BEFORE "Blazing Saddles" that has a lot of fun trying to cram rock and roll, dope and westerns into the same screen. Uneven, certainly, but with a number of rewards. Sort of like a Firesign Theatre album.

I first saw this film on its first run back in '71 or '72. Saw it on a date with a nurse from the hospital where I worked in Plantation, Florida. Had known very little about it beforehand. Was blown away. Spent the rest of the date (at restaurant) explaining Hesse's Siddhartha and all the points of congruency. Also recognized names of Firesign Theater. Was convinced they'd retold Siddhartha, which is Hesse's retelling of the Buddha story of spiritual enlightenment, mixing American West gunfighter myth and rock and roll--two key archetypes/myths of our generation: ingenious premise, well-executed. My conviction was confirmed absolutely when I saw it again later and recognized Zach's response to Belle as verbatim Siddhartha's response to the courtesan in Hesse--trying to avoid spoiler here.Of course the movie is somewhat dated now, 30 years later. But it was clever and even profound in its day and still worth seeing. I'd recommend reading the book first in order to fully appreciate what they were doing.One other comment: I see a parallel between Zachariah's pairing of Old West gunfighters and rock and roll and the Eagles' Desperado song story--especially apparent in the song "Certain Kind of Fool:""I saw it in a window, the mark of a new kind of man; I kinda liked the feeling, so shiny and smooth in my hand; I took it to the country and practiced for days without rest; And then one day I felt it: I knew I could stand with the best."Is "it" a six-gun or a six-string? Yes. Whenever I heard this song I pictured Zachariah out in the desert practicing his shooting.See the film if you can. Enjoy the music. Follow the story. It's worth it.