Luke
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CibbuanoPaint Your Wagon
November 30th 2006 08:51
Paint Your Wagon (1969)
The freakiest-deakiest, all-singing, all-prancing, wife-swapping tough-guy western you've ever seen! 'Paint Your Wagon' is probably best known to modern-day audiences as the video picked up by Homer in an episode of the Simpsons. Homer sees the name Lee Marvin on the western film's front cover and assumes it will automatically be violent... he and Bart are extremely disappointed to find that it is in fact a Musical-Western. A few years after I saw this episode of the Simpsons I came to the realisation that this was actually a real film. I saw it sitting on a shelf in the Video Ezy Western section. I couldn't believe it. I had to see it. And yes, it was every bit as 'unique' as that sequence in the Simpsons led me to believe it would be.
Initially based on a 50s Broadway-musical, the film took quite a departure from the text and decided to do it's own thing. The producers, inspired by the success of 'The Sound of Music', were desperate to find a hit musical of their own, and so the long road to production was started. Unfortunately, by the time 'Paint Your Wagon' made it to the screen, both the Musical and Western genres were all but dead. Not a whole lot of people were all that interested to see the film. Looking at it now, it's hard to imagine it as a smash-hit in any era. It's just too odd.
Anyway, the film is about the collaboration of Ben (Marvin) and his partner, 'Pardner' (Clint Eastwood), in the old west and their part in the creation of 'No Name City' - a debauched town of gambling, sex and violence. My kind of town! Anyway, they also fall in love with the same woman - and rather than have their friendship destroyed by it, they decide to share the woman. When the goldmines run out, Ben and Pardner also hit upon a scheme to collect all the loose change and gold dust that falls between the floorboards of the local shops and bars by digging a network of tunnels under the town. These comical shenanigans are indicative of the film's overall feel - it's an irreverant, knee-slapping tale of morality gone askew.
At two hours and forty minutes it's probably a little overlong, and the film is a little slow to start. The most amazing aspect of it though would have to be hearing Eastwood and Marvin sing! Eastwood is actually half-decent, and Marvin is hilarious. Incredulously, the song Marvin sings - 'I Was Born Under a Wandering Star' - went to Number 1 in England!
This is worth seeing just for the oddity-factor. If it wasn't for the presence of Lee Marvin and his energetic, whiskey-soaked, long-johns-wearing performance there would probably be little to reccomend it. As it stands though, it's just one of things you have to see!
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