Cheap Paint Your Wagon (DVD) Price

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Customer Reviews of Paint Your Wagon

California Gold Rush
This was a great motion picture when it was filmed, and it remains a great motion picture. Lee Marvin plays the prospector Ben Rumson, a somewhat crude individual, who strikes gold while digging a grave for a man killed in an accident. A mining camp springs up, and Ben acquires a pardner (played by a younger Clint Eastwood, who sings quite well in this role), the brother of the man who was killed. The pardner is known as "Pardner" until a closing scene when Ben says, "By the way, what is your name?" You have to be on your toes to get the significance of that. <
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>Action moves along in an all male town until a Mormon shows up with two wives. Under some pressure, and motivated by avarice, the man agrees to sell his younger wife, Elizabeth (played by Jean Seberg) at auction. Ben, while drunk and not quite himself, puts in the high bid of $800, and the story progresses from there. The $800 bid, even by standards of that day, seems a cheap price for Jean Seberg, but it is a very good film with many original songs including the theme song, "Paint Your Wagon." The motion picture has the spirit of adventure of men (and sometimes women) striking out for the frontier to seek their fortunes. That was, after all, the way the United States was settled. <
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>The story is a love triangle of sorts, and a comedy of sorts. There is some crude language; the corruption/initiation of a minor youth (the son of some pious farmers rescued from the snow) who discovers he likes whiskey, cigars and women; and numerous references to the ladies of a local bordello. It is what one might expect in a frontier mining camp before civilization moves in. The film would probably offend religious fundamentalists. <
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>I would note that this is probably the only motion picture where Clint Eastwood sings. Hollywood could have used him for a romantic lead, but his career went in a different direction. <
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>The original DVD copy I received had a flaw, but Amazon replaced it at no cost. Amazon does guarantee all products purchased from its Web page, including purchases from secondary distributors listed on the page. <
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It Should Have Left Off the "Musical" Part
This film has several things going for it. It is a western. It has some big name stars like Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin. It has plenty of humor. Unfortunately, it loses something along the way by being a musical. Lots of time and energy are devoted to tunes and lyrics that do little or nothing to advance the story. That is my usual criticism of musicals and I understand that there are many who like the songs. In this case, however, there is nothing to like. Except for "They Call the Wind Mariah" there is nothing memorable and that one has less to do with the story than most. Basically, the music is lame. <
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>That aside, it does have its points. It is funny. Lee Marvin plays his role with relish as a scheming gold miner and Eastwood plays his straight man. It also has an interesting premise. Marvin is bombastic and course and Eastwood comes across as a nice guy. The make a good comedy team. <
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>The story takes places during the California gold rush. Lee Marvin finds gold in a grave as he is digging it for the brother of an injured farmer who has set out to make his fortune in gold. He immediately stakes a claim along with Eastwood, the injured but surviving brother. A boom town grows up that has everything your boom town needs except for women. A passing Mormon is the first to attempt to solve this problem. He auctions off his second wife to raise funds for he and his first to continue on their way. Marvin is the lucky winner. <
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>Having the only woman in town leads to hard feelings from the other men. It is particularly tough on his partner. While Marvin is on a special mission to procure some floozies for the town (and peace of mind for himself) Eastwood and the wife fall for each other. This makes things tough since the partners genuinely like and respect each other and the wife genuinely loves them both. Since she came from a Mormon background of polygamous marriage, they come up with the idea of a polyandrous one. After all, the partners have agreed to share everything. <
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>Along with the marriage problems, the central theme of the film is getting rich. Panning for gold in a river is hard work and, when the placer deposits start to run out, not very lucrative. The partners come up with the idea of establishing an actual gold mine. Instead of mining the hills, though, their scheme is to tunnel under the businesses of the boom town. Enough gold dust gets dropped in the course of business to make gathering the droppings from under the floorboards a very rich proposition. <
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>This is not a great movie. It could have been good but for all the silly singing I rate it as fair. <
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