Paint Your Wagon [HD]

A bad rap...UNDESERVEDLY...
The DVD version of "Paint Your Wagon" is as good as it gets. The 2.35:1 LBX shows outdoor panoramas that are often breath-taking. Lee Marvin had recently won the Oscar, followed it with "The Dirty Dozen", and shows a confidence that carries this film to new heights. He's never been so good, or as good, since. The Lerner & Loewe score is wonderful. Marvin's "Wand'rin' Star" is actually quite touching, and Harve Presnell is here to give justice to the best song in the show, "They Call the Wind Maria". These songs are augmented with excellent support from the chorale of the legendary Roger Wagner. Additional musical ideas came from Andre Previn. What a great effort from the greatest musical icons of the period! Top this off with a screenplay by Paddy Chayevsky (very loosely adapted from the stage show), and it's a bawdy, irreverent and totally fun film. Clint Eastwood was much maligned for his attempt at singing (and NOT so terrible,...

"Pardner" and Ben and Elizabeth Make Three!
This review refers to the Paramount "Widescreen Collection" DVD Edition of "Paint Your Wagon"....

In the gold-mining town of "No Name City"(Clint gets a name in this one but the town doesn't),Ben Rumson(Lee Marvin) and "Pardner"(Clint Eastwood)have a 50/50 relationship all the way. They split the gold they find, they pay each other's debt's off, and pick each other up from druken stupors. Pardner seems to be doing most of the work on that end of things though!

The town is filled with burly men, who haven't seen a woman in quite a while...That is until some Morman's come to town. The husband has one more wife than he needs and auctions Elizabeth(Jean Seberg) off to the men. The winner? Ben Rumson of course. But partners share everything you know...so Ben, Pardner, and Elizabeth become a trio.They just seem to fit right into this town without scruples.

The raucous action, the laughs and the wonderful music by Lerner and Lowe,Andre Previn,...

Wonderful Movie, Mediocre DVD
PAINT YOUR WAGON is maybe one of the first counter-culture musicals, and the fact that it was made by the same director, Joshua Logan, who made SOUTH PACIFIC invites remarkable comparison. Lee Marvin, Clint Eastwood, Harve Presnell, and Ray Walston stand out in the cast, mostly of nonsingers, giving the musical a realistic edge we don't see again until David Byrne's TRUE STORIES. Basically, a city of men in Gold Rush-era California see their standards conflict with those imposed by the introduction of conventional morality to their settlement. The notion that Rumson and Pardner accept being the husbands of Elizabeth as, in her words, "a beautiful, humane solution," saves the main romance from being a run-of-the-mill love story. Marvin's comedic capacity plays well with his foil, Eastwood, and Ray Walston heads the ensemble cast in an impressive way.

Unfortunately, Paramount has released a bare-bones DVD. The picture and sound are much better than the VHS version, of...

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