Any hope for "Paint Your Wagon" on Blu (1 Viewer)

[jim_falconer]

A train wreck of the first order, another Joshua Logan bomb, though it does a nifty painting to live action transition at the opening and a good rendition of "They Call the Wind Maria" to recommend it. Otherwise, it's the Heaven's Gate of movie musicals, a real stinkeroo. And I like musicals, film and stage! I even made it through Camelot!

Hah, very true. Seeing this on Broadway a few years back, you know what a mess the film adaption was.

 

[Johnny Angell]

There's a pretty good master of this epic and silly musical Western on Amazon Prime streaming. I've only watched the first few minutes, but it looks pretty good. Check it out. Like you I have a strange fondness for this bizarre disaster of a film, although I only watched it once many years ago. Apparently the $20million or so Paramount spent on this in the late 1960s (which would be who knows how much today) convinced Eastwood to direct in a much more spare and economical style when he got behind the camera.

I'll watch Paint Your Wagon any day over Camelot. Paint Your Wagon is one of a half dozen or so musicals I'll put on myself. I'm not generally a fan of the genre so for me to choose to watch a musical is high praise.

This is a movie I should hate. I really hate it when Hollywood casts for star power and not musical talent for the musical genre. And yet, should I watch now, I would probably smile while shaking my head.

 

[Matt Hough]

The male chorus in this film is ACES. Not just on "They Call the Wind Maria" but also on the bracing title song and "There's a Coach Comin' In." The film is way too long for the meager story it's telling, and the two male stars get through their songs in a tuneless kind of way (Autotune would have been a BIG help to Eastwood who's singing is so sharp on his songs that it's a little torturous.)

Josh Logan was once thought a decent film director, but by the time of Paint Your Wagon, it appears he had forgotten everything he ever knew about directing movies.

 

[Dan_Shane]

It ain't OKLAHOMA!, but I never fail to be entertained when I watch PYW, going all the way back to its original theatrical release. Having never seen the play or heard its score the movie was able to speak to me on its own merit, and I still find it funny, colorful, and yes, musical (in its overblown way).

It may be that I am the kind of person who can accept a director producing an outsized spectacle from simpler roots (RYAN'S DAUGHTER, e.g.), but there have been plenty of well-regarded later films that displeased me when director overkill crept in. (Several seem to have the initials S.S. attached to the producer/director credits.) When handled well I can appreciate being overwhelmed by giant-screen cinematography and outlandish action where most might say it doesn't belong, and the destruction of No Name City works for me in that vein.

Looking at the film with a critical eye PYW on the whole may not be as great as the sum of its parts, but it's far from the worst thing hitting the screen in that era, and I still smile and sing along. A proper Blu-ray would be most welcome in my home.