6.4 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
A rascally old prospector and his youthful partner share a gold claim and a wife as they establish a prosperous brothel in a California boom town.
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Lee Marvin, Jean Seberg, Harve Presnell, Ray WalstonWestern | 100% |
Musical | 60% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.35:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 5.0 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Quick: name a musical that played on Broadway in the fifties which highlighted a starcrossed romance between two would be partners with differing ethnicities who might be broadly described as either Caucasian or Hispanic / Latino, leading to unforeseen (or, realistically, foreseen) difficulties. Easy, right? West Side Story, of course. Except not in this instance. Lerner and Loewe are one of the most storied writing teams in the annals of American Musical Theatre, though that legendary reputation was really burnished by properties that had their stage or film debuts some years after Paint Your Wagon arrived on Broadway in late 1951, ultimately eking out a one season run of fewer than 300 performances, so not a "blockbuster hit". In fact until My Fair Lady arrived on the Great White Way in 1956, followed by the film Gigi in 1958 and then the Broadway mounting of Camelot in 1960, productions which helped to cement Lerner and Loewe as the primary competitors to Rodgers and Hammerstein, the pair's reputation relied almost entirely on Brigadoon, with Paint Your Wagon's relatively short run doing little to burnish their renown. That may be just one reason why the film version of Paint Your Wagon is markedly different from the original stage conception, including the fact that the film completely jettisoned one of the more interesting subplots of the Broadway (and, later, West End) mountings, namely a romance between the daughter of white gold prospector Ben Rumson (Lee Marvin in the film) and an itinerant Mexican worker who (along with that aforementioned daughter) is nowhere to be found in the 1969 film extravaganza.
Paint Your Wagon is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. I utilized the 4K UHD release for purposes of this review, and the back cover of that release states this is a "brand new HDR / Dolby Vision master from a 4K scan of the 35mm original camera negative", and even without the blandishments of HDR / Dolby Vision in this 1080 version, the results are pretty spectacular, with the large format source delivering some really fulsome detail levels even in some of the widest shots. Logan was sometimes criticized with a perceived overuse of close-ups (one of the "problems" often mentioned with regard to Camelot), but he and Fraker deliver some generally expert framings here that support really precise detail levels on practical items like sets and costumes, as well as other elements like those bristly muttonchops Lee Marvin sports. If fine detail in particular does enjoy an uptick in Kino Lorber's 4K version, I really don't think anyone is going to be seriously disappointed with detail levels throughout this 1080 version. There is some zoom material that is a bit fuzzy at times, and just a few of the establishing shots, especially in the very early going, don't offer the same robust densities that are frequently on display. As I mention in our 4K review, I frankly found relatively little difference in the palette between the 1080 and 2160 presentation despite the 4K UHD's disc HDR / Dolby Vision, and this 1080 presentation offers some really gorgeous hues in a lot of the outdoor material in particular, where greens are especially resplendent looking, and where the typical Pacific Northwest dreary rain (the film was shot in Baker, Oregon) actually looks rather evocatively beautiful a lot of the time. Grain is very tightly resolved throughout this presentation.
Paint Your Wagon features DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 and DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 options. I was frankly initially a little surprised by the 5.1 track because one of my fondest memories of the soundtrack recording was the deliberate separation of all the foreign languages in "I'm On My Way" as the film starts, something I either remember or am making up about my "memories" of having seen this film theatrically with multitrack sound, but all of those voices are pretty much front and center in this version. That passing qualm aside, there's a really appealingly full bodied sound on tap throughout both of these tracks, with the 5.1 version nicely opening up the really sumptuous choral work and in particular Nelson Riddle's fun orchestrations (for some of his arranging expertise, stay tuned through the rather long vocal medley exit music, which has a kind of comically swingin' big band version of "Gold Fever", one of the Previn-Lerner tunes from the score). The glut of outdoor material provides a wealth of ambient environmental sounds which noticeably engage the side and rear channels. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.
Lovers of musicals would do well to give a listen to the Original Broadway Cast recording of Paint Your Wagon to get some idea of how radically reimagined this property was for its film version. This is big, pretty bawdy, entertainment, and it offers Marvin, Eastwood and Seberg all rather good showcases for their talents (trivia lovers may know that Marvin's rendition of "Wandrin' Star" rather improbably made it to Number 1 on the charts in the UK). Technical merits are solid, and Paint Your Wagon comes Recommended.
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Warner Archive Collection
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Limited Edition to 3000 - SOLD OUT
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Warner Archive Collection
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