Paint Your Wagon (1969)

User Rating:

6.5/10   

Director:

Joshua Logan

Writers:

Paddy Chayefsky (adaptation)
Alan Jay Lerner (musical play "Paint Your Wagon")

Release Date:

15 October 1969 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Musical | Romance | Western

Tagline:

Stake Your Claim To The Musical Goldmine of '69!

Plot:

Two unlikely prospector partners share the same wife in a California gold rush mining town.

Plot Keywords:

Gold | Mining | Prospector | California Gold Rush | Prostitute

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 1 win & 2 nominations

US TV Schedule:

Sun. July 12

3:15 AM

TCM

Cast

Lee Marvin	...	Ben Rumson
Clint Eastwood	...	Pardner
Jean Seberg	...	Elizabeth
Harve Presnell	...	Rotten Luck Willie
Ray Walston	...	Mad Jack Duncan
Tom Ligon	...	Horton Fenty
Alan Dexter	...	Parson
William O'Connell	...	Horace Tabor
Benny Baker	...	Haywood Holbrook (as Ben Baker)
Alan Baxter	...	Mr. Fenty
Paula Trueman	...	Mrs. Fenty
Robert Easton	...	Atwell
Geoffrey Norman	...	Foster
H.B. Haggerty	...	Steve Bull
Terry Jenkins	...	Joe Mooney

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for thematic material.

Runtime:

158 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

4-Track Stereo (35 mm prints) | 70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints)

Certification:

Canada:A (Nova Scotia) | Canada:G (Quebec) | Canada:PG (Manitoba/Ontario) | UK:A (original rating) | USA:TV-14 | Australia:PG | Finland:K-8 | Norway:16 | Spain:13 | Sweden:11 | UK:PG | USA:M (original rating) | USA:PG-13 (re-rated: 2001) | West Germany:16 | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Baker, Oregon, USA

Company:

Malpaso Company, The

Trivia:

Released at a time when musicals were rapidly going out of fashion, the film went notoriously over budget .

Goofs:

Anachronisms: Soon after Ben, Pardner, and Mad Jack open their secret "gold mine" underneath No Name City, a young farmer is recruited to help dig. To emphasize the need for secrecy, Mad Jack threatens to shove a stick of dynamite in the farmer's mouth if he blabs. The film is set in 1849 or 1850, before California becomes a state. Dynamite wasn't yet invented (it was patented by Alfred Nobel in 1867).

Quotes:

Pardner: What happens when you get in a fight?
Rumson: Well, if four of anything come at me at one time, you might lend a fist. Up until that I can pretty well take care of myself.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue (2008) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Whoop-Ti-Ay!

A very silly but very fun movie

(No spoilers herein).

My friend sent me this movie wanting to know my comments on it, without telling me even a word of what it was about or what he thought of it. I went and checked out the entry on IMDB and was a touch confused why he was sending me a sort of musical half-western flick, being that neither of those categories would pop up at the top of either our lists.

Needless to say, something about this movie surprised me -- I fully enjoyed watching it ! Right from the start the characters were interesting and the scenes quite absurdly funny. Some of the singing was truly awful (in a funny way), and other songs were actually very toe-tappingly catchy.

There is a whole lot of physical humor in this movie, from the opening scene after they bury the guy, to the ending scenes with the bull. And holy crap the older man drinks a lot. I don't think I've ever seen a movie where a single character drinks so much hard alcohol ! Along with the numerous sexual jokes I certainly wouldn't recommend this movie for children.

As the movie came to a conclusion, I found myself attached to the main characters and wanting to see more of their adventures. The plot had a very natural progression. As silly and ridiculous as it certainly was, the plot made a strange sort of sense.

I rate the movie an 8 out of 10.