Paint Your Wagon (film)
| Paint Your Wagon | |
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Original film poster
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| Directed by | Joshua Logan |
| Produced by | Alan Jay Lerner |
| Screenplay by | Alan Jay Lerner Paddy Chayefsky (Adaptation) |
| Based on |
Paint Your Wagon by Alan Jay Lerner Frederick Loewe |
| Starring |
Lee Marvin Clint Eastwood Jean Seberg |
| Music by | Lerner and Loewe Additional song composer: André Previn |
| Cinematography | William A. Fraker |
| Edited by | Robert C. Jones |
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Production
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| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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154 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $20 million |
| Box office | $31,678,778 |
Paint Your Wagon is a 1969 Westernmusical film starring Lee Marvin, Clint Eastwood, and Jean Seberg. The film was adapted by Paddy Chayefsky from the 1951 musical Paint Your Wagon by Lerner and Loewe. It is set in a mining camp in Gold Rush-era California. It was directed by Joshua Logan.
When a wagon crashes into a ravine, prospector Ben Rumson finds two adult male occupants, brothers, one of whom is dead and the other of whom has a broken arm and leg. As the first man is about to be buried, gold dust is discovered at the grave site. Ben stakes a claim on the land and adopts the surviving brother as his "Pardner" while he recuperates.
Pardner is initially innocent and romantic, illustrated by him singing a pining love song about a girl named Elisa ("I Still See Elisa"), who he later sheepishly confesses exists only in his imagination. Pardner is a farmer who hopes to make enough in the gold rush to buy some land, and is openly suspicious of the drunken and seemingly amoral Ben. Ben claims that while he is willing to fight, steal, and cheat at cards, his system of ethics does not allow him to betray a partner. Ben will share the spoils of prospecting on the condition that Pardner takes care of him in his moments of drunkenness and melancholy.
After the discovery of gold, "No Name City" springs up as a tent city with the miners alternating between wild parties ("Hand Me Down That Can o' Beans") and bouts of melancholy ("They Call the Wind Maria"). The men become increasingly frustrated with the lack of female companionship, so the arrival of a Mormon, Jacob Woodling, with two wives is enough to catch the attention of the entire town. The miners claim it is unfair for the Mormon to have two wives when they have none. They persuade him to sell one of his wives to the highest bidder. Elizabeth, Jacob's younger and more rebellious wife, agrees to be sold based on the reasoning that whatever she gets, it can't be as bad as what she currently has.
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Wikipedia