This little-known curio is better than I expected. I hadn't heard of the source books (Manly Wade Wellman's "Silver John" pulp fictions) before, because they were presumably mostly a Southern regional phenomenon, but now I'm very curious to check them out. The episodic progress, drawn from a couple of Wellman's stories, chronicles the folksy fantastical adventures of a wandering Appalachian troubadour, which include tangling with the Devil and a Ray Harryhausen-like winged monster. The last and least adventure has John managing to somehow free the oppressed black slaves, a "White Savior" scenario that doesn't play too well now. (It probably didn't in 1972, either).
Offbeat and filled with pleasant music, "Hillbilly John" probably had a hard time finding an audience at the time, as it was so out of step with popular taste of the era, and it's certainly been largely forgotten since. But given a cast of mostly imported Hollywood veterans (Severn Darden, Denver Pyle, Harris Yulin etc.) and a director who'd mostly toiled in network TV, it's surprisingly flavorful and "authentic" feeling within its folkloric context. (Though he worked on a lot of major series, John Newland's best-known works were probably the TV-movie thrillers "Crawlspace" and "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark.") Hedges Capers, a handsome young man with a fine voice who never quite hit the bigtime as a recording artist, is appealingly natural in the title role. Sharon Henesy is a weak point as the ingenue, seeming a classic 70s example of casting "somebody's girlfriend" (rather than a talented actor)...but then all she's allowed to do is gaze adoringly at John and hope he'll quit his wanderin' ways, so it's not really her fault she seems superfluous.
Despite its low budget, "Hillbilly John" is fairly well-crafted, although its neglect over the years was reflected in the fact that the YouTube dupe I saw seemed to be from an old VHS tape, and was accordingly low-quality. The nighttime sequences (of which there are many) were very murky. Alas, obscure old indie features like this are highly unlikely to get "restored" to pristine quality, so you take what you can get. Anyway, this is hardly a forgotten classic, but it's an ambitious oddity that is quite enjoyable and merits rediscovery.
Offbeat and filled with pleasant music, "Hillbilly John" probably had a hard time finding an audience at the time, as it was so out of step with popular taste of the era, and it's certainly been largely forgotten since. But given a cast of mostly imported Hollywood veterans (Severn Darden, Denver Pyle, Harris Yulin etc.) and a director who'd mostly toiled in network TV, it's surprisingly flavorful and "authentic" feeling within its folkloric context. (Though he worked on a lot of major series, John Newland's best-known works were probably the TV-movie thrillers "Crawlspace" and "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark.") Hedges Capers, a handsome young man with a fine voice who never quite hit the bigtime as a recording artist, is appealingly natural in the title role. Sharon Henesy is a weak point as the ingenue, seeming a classic 70s example of casting "somebody's girlfriend" (rather than a talented actor)...but then all she's allowed to do is gaze adoringly at John and hope he'll quit his wanderin' ways, so it's not really her fault she seems superfluous.
Despite its low budget, "Hillbilly John" is fairly well-crafted, although its neglect over the years was reflected in the fact that the YouTube dupe I saw seemed to be from an old VHS tape, and was accordingly low-quality. The nighttime sequences (of which there are many) were very murky. Alas, obscure old indie features like this are highly unlikely to get "restored" to pristine quality, so you take what you can get. Anyway, this is hardly a forgotten classic, but it's an ambitious oddity that is quite enjoyable and merits rediscovery.