Paint Your Wagon (1969)

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:

Mining | Gold | Prospector | California Gold Rush | Mining Camp

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 1 win & 2 nominations

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

Color:

Color (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:

This film version bears little resemblance to the Broadway musical on which it is ostensibly based. After the success of several musical films in the 1960s, most notably The Sound of Music (1965), producers went looking for other projects to make, and "Paint Your Wagon" made the list. The original plot, about an inter-ethnic love story, was discarded as being too dated. The only elements retained from the original were the title, Gold Rush setting and about half of the songs.

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:

Horace Tabor: Wait a minute! You can't buy a woman for money.
Mad Jack Duncan: You just try and get one without it.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Boy Meets World: My Best Friend's Girl (#3.1)" (1995)

Soundtrack:

A Million Miles Away Behind The Door

A Nicely Naturalistic Musical

Joshua Logan's screen version of "Paint your wagon" works a treat, perhaps because the original stage version is so little known and apparently has been given something of a make-over by screen writer Paddy Chayefsky. The fact that the leads (Lee Marvin, Clint Eastwood and Jean Seberg) can't sing matters not a jot; they perform with charisma, (even Seberg is less wan than usual) and bring a touch of realism to the proceedings, their songs seeming to evolve naturally from the action. Other singing duties are performed by the splendid Harve Presnell and a rousing, mostly male, chorus for this is a musical western of a more robust kind than "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers". It's plot, which concerns mining for gold, polygamy and the building of a town, fairly races along. Logan handles the whole thing with great aplomb and brings to it some nice, naturalistic touches sadly lacking from his earlier musicals, "South Pacific" and "Camelot". Most critics didn't warm to it, though and it remains largely under-valued.