Line #29 Film/PaintYourWagon


1	[[quoteright:302:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Pobarvaj-si-voz-Paint-Your-Wagon-DVD-_8305.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:302:Does this DVD cover, by chance, remind anyone of that film ''Film/HeavensGate''?]]
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4	This somewhat obscure 1969 movie musical was based on the [[Theatre/PaintYourWagon Broadway musical of the same name]] by Creator/LernerAndLoewe (the authors of ''Theatre/{{Brigadoon}}'' and later ''Theatre/MyFairLady''), with which it shares a number of characters and songs but not much plot. It was the last film to be directed by Joshua Logan, and the only film produced by Alan Jay Lerner, who wrote the screenplay based on a new story by Creator/PaddyChayefsky.
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6	The story takes place during the California Gold Rush. When a wagon crashes into a ravine, {{prospector}} Ben Rumson (Creator/LeeMarvin) rescues the surviving occupant (Creator/ClintEastwood). The two form a partnership, and Ben dubs the survivor "Pardner". By the riverside where the wagon crashed, gold is discovered, and a boomtown called "No Name City" promptly crops up.
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8	The population of No Name City is initially all-male, and the said men get horny. They are thus delighted when a Mormon with two wives rides into town one day. He is convinced to sell one of them, Elizabeth (Creator/JeanSeberg), to the highest bidder. Ben, in a drunken stupor, wins the bid.
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10	A cabin is constructed for Ben and Elizabeth and the two settle into a happy marriage. But the remaining men are still horny, and Ben starts to get overprotective of Elizabeth. So the men concoct a scheme to kidnap six prostitutes from a neighboring town. Ben heads the mission, leaving Elizabeth in Pardner's care. Whilst he is away, the two fall in love. When Ben gets back, the scheme a success, Elizabeth convinces him and Pardner to enter a polyandrous marriage with her.
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12	With the abduction of the prostitutes successful, a brothel is established. Men come from miles around for a lay, and No Name City grows into a thriving town. Presently, a preacher named Parson arrives and decries all the gambling and hooking, claiming that God will make the earth swallow the town. As it happens, Ben and his cohorts dig a maze of tunnels beneath the town to collect the gold dust that falls through the floorboards of the buildings above. It looks like Parson might turn out to be correct...
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14	!!This film provides examples of:
15	* ActorAllusion: "Pardner"'s real name is unknown to everyone until he is asked about it at the end of the film. This hints at Creator/ClintEastwood's prior recurring role as "The Man With No Name"
16	* AllMenArePerverts
17	* ArtisticTitle: Featuring watercolor illustrations of the cast.
18	* BoomTown: No Name City.
19	* TheCassandra: The Parson's warnings about the town being swallowed up by sin come to literal fruition.
20	* ChivalrousPervert: 'Mrs.' Rumson is treated with scrupulous respect even if the men do look at her like children at a candy display.
21	* CityWithNoName: Lampshaded with No Name City, though it was probably chosen to represent the countless [[BoomTown Boom Towns]] and [[GhostTown Ghost Towns]] left by the gold rush.
22	* CrowdSong: Most of them, actually.
23	* DeadpanSnarker: The town's resident sign-painter, clearly. No Name City moves from "Population: Male" when the town has no women to "Population: Drunk" when both women and whisky appear in sufficient abundance.
24	* DeliberateValuesDissonance: The film manages (with hilarious results) to contrast the looser or outright upended morals of a remote, sex-starved frontier settlement where the only law in operation is the "Mining Law" of recognized claims, and the strait-laced, puritanical morality of "respectable", Christian 19th century society... ''both'' of which contrast with the norms of more "modern" audiences, who are pretty much expected to roll with it. To the men of No Name, it seems perfectly reasonable to shrug their shoulders and, say, let a passing Mormon with two wives (not practiced by mainstream Mormonism today) auction off his "spare" wife to the highest bidder... and yet with their still-patriarchal values the idea of the same woman taking on another husband weirds them out ''even more'', albeit our protagonists quickly accept the arrangement.
25	* FashionDissonance: Very much averted with the local hippies who were used as extras for the film (this ''was'' made in TheSixties, remember). Their clothes and hair were already so in tune with the Gold Rush aesthetic that they didn't even need costumes or makeup.
26	* FastTunnelling: Ben and "Mad Jack" effortlessly tunnel under No Name City to get at the hidden gold dust. [[spoiler:It bites them in the ass as it leads to the city's eventual collapse.]]
27	* FireIsMasculine: The movie has a song called "They Call the Wind Mariah", the lyrics of which gives names to the rain, fire and wind. The wind is named Mariah, the rain is named Tess and fire is named Joe, one of the most common male names to ever exist.
28	* FortyNiner / {{Prospector}}: Most of the characters.
29	* GirlfriendInCanada: Pardner admits that his "love" back East was made up.
30	* GoldFever: The motivation behind most of the hilarity that ensues, especially for Ben Rumson.
31	* InNameOnly: Only two characters from the stage musical appear in the film; furthermore, the plot of the film bears almost no resemblance to that of its stage counterpart.
32	* MarryThemAll: Elizabeth suggests that Ben and Pardner both marry her once they realize they've both fallen in love with her.
33	* NeverTrustATitle: No actual wagon painting takes place in the film.
34	* NoNameGiven / EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: Ben's Pardner (until the end, anyway).
35	* NoWomansLand: No-Name City has no women in it until a Mormon arrives with his two wives.
36	* {{Polyamory}}: Well, they tried it, at least.
37	* RealIsBrown
38	* SettlingTheFrontier: the settling of No Name City.
39	* SoiledCityOnAHill: No Name City.
40	* SparedByTheAdaptation: Ben, who dies at the end of the stage version.
41	* WanderlustSong: "Wandering Star" in the graveltastic voice of Lee Marvin. "Elisa" and "They Call the Wind Mariah" is a good counterpart to this, dealing with the loneliness of a wandering life.
42	* WelcomeToHell: No Name City, Population: Drunk. (Even noted on the welcome sign: "The Hell-thiest Spot in the West".)
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45	''In answer to the above caption; yes. Creator/RogerEbert [[http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19810101/REVIEWS/101010302/1023/ compared the two movies too.]]''

Context Film / PaintYourWagon