DEADWOOD ’76. Fairway International, 1965. Arch Hall Jr, Jack Lester, LaDonna Cottier, Arch Hall Sr, Liz Renay and Robert Dix. Written by Arch Hall Sr and James Landis. Directed by James Landis.

EL TOPO. Producciones Panicas, 1970. Alejandro Jodorowsky, Brontis Jodorowsky, and Mara Lorenzio. Written & directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky.

   A few years ago, driven by some irrational but irresistible impulse, I sought out two hard-to-find (then) westerns and viewed them almost simultaneously; I’d watch 10-20 minutes of one, then switch to the other, then back again: Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo (1970) is a respected cult film, laden with symbolism; Arch Hall’s Deadwood ’76 (1965) is a much-maligned B-movie, rife with clichés — but somehow they seemed spiritual twins to me.

   El Topo used to play on college campuses at Midnight, where crowds of young people in various stages of awareness tried to figure out the plot. It has something to do with (SPOILER ALERT!) a mythic gunfighter (played by the director) who rescues a damsel who then sets him three tasks.

   He completes the tasks but loses his self-respect, the damsel and his life, whereupon his body is picked up by trolls and taken to their underground dwelling where, years later, he resurrects himself and frees the trolls from their oppressors after confronting the son he abandoned way back when the movie started.

   Along the way there are references to Christ, Buddha, Zen, Catholicism, Socialism and Fellini, resulting in a film that’s very easy to get lost in.

   Deadwood ’76 played a few dates in drive-ins in the south and grindhouses elsewhere, where kids and drunks threw popcorn and passed out while generally ignoring it. It has something to do with a young drifter (played by the director’s son) mistaken for Billy the Kid, who wanders into Deadwood and is pressured into a gunfight with Wild Bill Hickok.

   Along the way, we get wild Indians, desperadoes, fancy women, silk-shirt gamblers, and beautiful young Indian maidens, all parading around in obvious stage make-up, reading meaningless lines with varying degrees of ineptitude — except for Robert (son of Richard) Dix, who’s really rather good as Hickok.

   Drawing parallels would probably insult both filmmakers, but for some reason these disparate efforts struck me as brothers-under-the-celluloid, as if their creators had picked up whatever symbolism was handy and used it to make a movie. Jodorowsky was influenced by Dali, and Arch Hall by Buntline, but the effect is strangely similar: obvious actors patently playing out a disjointed story using memes and symbols that meant something to somebody once.

   The true difference is that El Topo strives to be obscure where Deadwood ’76 begs to be forgotten. And I kind of liked them both.