Paint Your Wagon

Starring: Lee Marvin, Clint Eastwood, Jean Seberg
Directed by: Joshua Logan
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Western, Comedy, Musical
1969

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A prospector (Lee Marvin) and his partner (Clint Eastwood) search for gold at No-Name City, and both fall in love with a frontier woman (Jean Seberg) whom they both end up married to. This causes some unexpected issues in their friendship.

Review:

Tim: Paint Your Wagon is one of two films which is generally regarded with the downfall of the Hollywood musical. While this might not be completely fair, it certainly didn't help matters that this is an overly long, bloated movie featuring marginally decent singing. The film strarts to crumble under its own sheer weight. Now, it also tells an interesting story and I have to like the unique concept of a musical Western. Still, this film does more harm than good.

The best aspect of this film is the cast. The cast make this movie sufficiently better than it would have been otherwise. Lee Marvin is surprisingly good in the lead role of Ben Rumson. He is an alcoholic, gambling prospector yet he has a heart of gold. He is a complex character and Marvin does good work in the role. Marvin isn't exactly the world's best singer, but he has a few pretty strong moments although this voice is a bit rough. I will admit that I cringed a few times. His costar, Clint Eastwood is very good. I loved seeing a softer side of him than we are used to seeing. I know that Eastwood received a lot of criticism for his singing, but I think Eastwood has a fairly decent voice and I genuinely liked most of his singing scenes. More than anything, I just enjoyed the major change of pace, seeing Eastwood being vulnerable enough to sing on screen. Jean Seberg rounds out the cast very well, although I wish she would have done her own singing. Still, Marvin, Eastwood, and Seberg work well together because of their diversity. All three of them interact very well together. You really believe that Marvin and Eastwood are friends, and that Seberg could be in love with both of them.

This movie would have automatically been better had it simply been shorter. I understand that the musical numbers will add to the runtime, but there is truly no reason for this movie to be over two and a half hours long. Usually that is shooting for epic territory, but this movie never approaches that- it feels like a small movie which just keeps going on and on and on. Luckily, the story is interesting enough to negate the feeling of boredom. This movie doesn't feel as much of a chore as you might expect. Still, it takes some effort to get through this.

Paint Your Wagon falls apart because it is too full of contradictions- we are expected to believe Marvin and Eastwood are these tough, macho guys, yet they sing frequently throughout the movie. This is also a smallish, musical that somehow balloons out to nearly three hours. The story is interesting and the characters are well developed, but neither holds out over the length of the movie. I enjoyed Paint Your Wagon because of its uniqueness, but I wish it was a better movie overall.



Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Where Eagles Dare, Coogan's Bluff, Hang 'Em High, Two Mules for Sister Sara