The Big Picture
- Kino Lorber will release Paint Your Wagon, the 1969 Western musical, in a special edition set this spring, featuring a new 4K transfer and audio commentary.
- The film was adapted from a successful Broadway musical and starred Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin, both of whom did their own singing.
- Paint Your Wagon faced challenges due to changing audience tastes and the decline of the massive studio musical, but it had a lasting impact and influenced Eastwood to become a director.
Paint Your Wagon, the 1969 Western musical that displayed the singing talents of Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin, is headed to 4K and Blu-ray. Kino Lorber will release the film in a special edition set this spring, with a March 26 release date. The sweeping, three-hour-long Paramount musical will be presented in an all-new 4K transfer, shot from a scan of the original 35mm negative.
The disc will also feature an all-new audio commentary by Dwayne Epstein, who wrote the 2013 biography Lee Marvin: Point Blank, and screenwriter/author C. Courtney Joyner, an expert on Western films and a frequent contributor to True West magazine. It will also include the film’s original theatrical trailer. The set can now be pre-ordered at KinoLorber before its release.
Paint Your Wagon was adapted from a successful 1951 Broadway musical of the same name, which featured songs by legendary songwriting duo Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe (Camelot, Gigi, Brigadoon). It boasted an impressive creative team – it was directed by accomplished director Joshua Logan (Picnic, Bus Stop, South Pacific), and was adapted for the screen by legendary screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky (Marty, Network, Altered States). It starred silver screen tough guys Marvin and Eastwood (both of whom do their own singing) as prospectors Ben Rumson and Pardner, who head to California during the gold rush. There, Ben buys a wife, Elizabeth (Jean Seberg) from a Mormon traveler who has another to spare. Elizabeth, Ben, and Pardner end up in an unconventional polyamorous arrangement. As that relationship begins to fray at the seams, the boomtown that sprang up around them descends into vice and sin. The film also stars Harve Presnell (Fargo) and Ray Walston (Fast Times at Ridgemont High).
What Went Wrong With ‘Paint Your Wagon’?
Paint Your Wagon came along at a time when the massive studio musical was on its last legs. While movies like Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music were mega-hits earlier in the decade, by the late 1960s, audiences’ tastes had changed, and it was becoming harder for a movie with the bloated budget and runtime of a studio musical to recoup its costs. Musical misfires like Doctor Doolittle, Finian’s Rainbow, and Man of La Mancha were seen as tired relics of the past, as a new generation of directors began taking American movies in new directions. Paint Your Wagon cost a then-astronomical $20 million USD to make; although it made over $30 million at the box office, that wasn’t enough to turn a profit.
The film did have a significant legacy, though. Eastwood was so frustrated making the film that he resolved to become a director himself. Furthermore, Marvin’s bizarre rendition of the song “Wand’rin’ Star” became a #1 hit single in the UK. The movie was also homaged in “All Singing, All Dancing”, an episode of The Simpsons in which Homer is horrified to learn the Western movie he’s rented is a peppy musical.
Paint Your Wagon will be released on 4K UHD & Blu-ray on March 26, and is now available for pre-order. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates, and watch the trailer for Paint Your Wagon below.
