However this film has achieved Cult Status and ranks up with One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest as an excellent insight into Mental Illness and how certain members of the Establishment deal with it
From Wikipedia
Colonel Kane (Stacy Keach), a Marine psychiatrist suffering from nightmares, arrives at a castle in the American Pacific Northwest where shell-shocked and insane soldiers from the Vietnam war are being treated.
The castle's staff has been unable to control the patients, many of whom are suspected of faking their illness to get out of combat.
The permissive Kane opens himself up to listen to anything the soldiers have to say to him in an effort to heal them, while at the same time suffering from his own demons.
Captain Billy Cutshaw (Jason Miller) one of the patients, is an astronaut who lost his sanity just before launching into space. After an angry tirade insisting that Kane leave the castle, Cutshaw calms down and agrees to give Kane his saint's medallion. Later that night, Kane writes his notes in red ink and makes a notation about the curative properties of "shock therapy." He then inspects Cutshaw's medallion and grips the chain like a garrote as his expression darkens.
Cutshaw convinces Kane to take him to a church service. Cutshaw interrupts the service with several outbursts. Looking at an altar boy, Kane momentarily sees a Vietnamese boy, but he dispels the illusion with difficulty. Back at the castle, Cutshaw thanks Kane and asks him to send him a sign as proof of an afterlife should Kane die first. Kane promises to try.
SR: The Ninth Configuration starts off with an opening song San Antone is beautiful. It's also the title theme of the movie Rolling Thunder (1977), starring William Devane and Tommy Lee Jones....
We also have memorable and side splitting performances from Joe Spinell (THE GODFATHER) seeking to stage Hamlet with dogs as actors, Moses Gunn as an Officer who thinks he's Superman, Robert Loggia convinced he's an Astronaut exploring a Planet filled with fungus, and Neville Brand as a Major Groper being driven mad by the Patients he oversees and becomes the victim of a hilarious practical joke when the patients send love letters with his signature to a group of butt ugly women....
Richard Lynch is on hand as a member of a Biker Gang who harasses Kane and Cutshaw in a Bar....
Filled with symbolic images such as an Altar Boy changing into a Vietnamese Boy during a Church Service and an Astronaut exploring the Moon's surface coming upon a Crucified Jesus Christ ....
So be prepared to enjoy a film who's tagline reads How Do You Fight A War Called Madness?
Here's Part One to start off......
The Ninth Configuration
kind of a cuckoo's nest but more like 'the prisoner' too in a way ... that weird kind of what exactly is going on here feeling throughout ... as i remember ... been a long time since i've seen it ... thanks for the reminder, maybe there's a torrent of it out there 
