Paint Your Wagon (1969)

Paint Your Wagon is a classic musical set in the mountains of California. A Great cast and pure entertainment. Despite the generally silly plot, the movie provides fun spirited viewing. Besides who knew that Clint Eastwood could sing (well sort of).

2hrs 40mins... 160 whole minutes... Why? What an absolute bore, and a waste, 'Paint Your Wagon' turns into. Why did they make this so long? The plot needn't be that extended, the music doesn't carry it either. It has a few decent parts, but they are surrounded by excess fat. Lee Marvin, Clint Eastwood and Jean Seberg stopped me from hating this, I will say, because that trio are all solid despite the aforementioned. It's amusing, at first anyway, to see Marvin and Eastwood sing, as they aren't the types you'd expect to do so. I'm not saying they can sing per se, but it's comically positive - which is the film's intentional, after all. I wish it was shorter, you could easily take an hour off this and not lose anything. It's a right drag, unfortunately.

This is a fine adaptation of Lerner & Loewe's tale of the escapades of two prospectors on the hunt for gold, whisky and a wife... Clint Eastwood, the slightly more sophisticated tea-totaller, is actually quite a revelation as "Pardner"; yep - he can actually hold a tune alongside the wonderfully curmudgeonly Lee Marvin "Ben Rumson". When a Mormon gent arrives in "No Name City" he decides to auction one of his wives; Marvin makes a purchase and soon there is an uniquely amicable little ménage à trois going on with "their" wife Jean Seberg - the no-nonsense "Elizabeth". The story does take quite a while to get going, but the three principals with the help of some wonderful orchestrations (Nelson Riddle at the helm) of "Wandrin' Star"; "They Call the Wind Maria" & "I Talk to the Trees" all deliver really rather well (if, perhaps not quite so tunefully by Marvin). The actors are having great fun amongst the rain, mud and poverty - and that fun can at times be quite contagious; there are some really enjoyable ensemble scenes/numbers too. The story is, however, strung out far too thinly over what seemed like an age and though there are some quite pithy one liners, the comedy is equally sparsely distributed throughout this all but three hour film. The last ten minutes are quite an achievement for the scenery/props folks as we almost end up where we started... It's entertaining fun....