Amazon.com video review:
This film and Hello Dolly were
the knockout blows to the studio movie musical, but Paint
doesn't deserve its tarnished name. Ben Rumson (Lee Marvin) takes the
model of a rakish derelict to an unequaled high as a prospector who
teams up with a greenhorn named Pardner (Clint Eastwood), and they
both end up marrying the same scorned woman (Jean Seberg). No-Name
City, the prospecting town they found, is Sodom and Gomorrah without
the camels, and a vision of humanity left to its own devices. The
songs are mostly wonderful melodies from Lerner and Loewe, with
definite high points, notably "They Call the Wind Maria" and
"Wand'rin' Star." Clint Eastwood always gets flack for his versions of
"I Still See Elisa" and "I Talk to the Trees," but that scorn is
equally undeserved. Perhaps Paint's biggest sin, in retrospect,
was trying to combine the aesthetics of the musical with the
aesthetics of the male protagonists' world-weary machismo. Not the
easiest task, but Paint pulls it off. --Keith Simanton
