Author Archives: Dazzling Erin

So, I Watched Paint Your Wagon (1969, Dir. by Joshua Logan)

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

Lisa Marie asked me to review Paint Your Wagon for Clint Eastwood’s birthday and, being a good sister, I agreed.  I have to learn to stop doing that.

Paint Your Wagon is a musical western starring a bunch of people who have done a lot of westerns but who still have no business singing, at least not in a movie.  If they want to sing in private, that’s fine.  Ben Rumson (Lee Marvin) and “Pardner” (Clint Eastwood) discover gold in a muddy creek and soon, the incredibly ugly town of No Name City springs up.  Because everyone in the town is a dude, everyone’s really lonely.  Then a Mormon shows up with two wives and the miners convince him to sell his youngest wife, Elizabeth (Jean Seberg) to the highest bidder.  Ben is always drunk but he still manages to buy Elizabeth.  Elizabeth says that she’s not going to marry Ben unless he builds her a cabin and also lets her marry Pardner as well.   Hello, polyamory. Eventually, a bull gets loose in the mines underneath No Name City and the entire town collapses but that’s okay because it was an ugly town and no one’s going to miss it.  Ben sings about how he was born under a wandering star so that means he can’t stay very long in once place, even if he does have a polyamorous marriage to look forward to.  Pardner sings that he likes to talk to the trees so he doesn’t need a town to live in.

My first thought on Paint Your Wagon is that it was really, really long.  It had a two and a half hour running time but it felt more like five or six.  My second thought is that movie looked really bad, like it was filmed through a mud filter.  It wasn’t just the buildings in the town that looked bad.  The entire movie looked dirty, oppressive, and depressing.  I like my musicals to have more color to them.  This movie looked like it needed an antibiotic.  My third thought was that, for a musical, none of the songs made much of an impression.  After the movie was over, I didn’t find myself humming any of them.  I can’t even remember what most of them were about.  Even if they had been better, Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood shouldn’t have been singing them.  Lee Marvin’s singing voice sounded like whiskey being poured out over cement.  Clint Eastwood’s voice was thin and he got stuck with all the sappy songs.  I’ll take old and grumpy Clint Eastwood over singing and sappy Clint Eastwood any day.  This was like watching a community theater production where you’re not supposed to care about how bad the performance is because you know everyone in the cast.  Finally, I thought that there wasn’t enough wagon painting.  The entire town was unpainted.  It wasn’t just the wagon that was being neglected.

The funniest thing about this movie is that was advertised as being “the comedy goldmine of 69.”  Nice.

I didn’t like Paint Your Wagon but don’t worry.  I’ll be watching Trouble With The Curve later today.  Now that one, I do like!

 

 

 

Song of the Day: Ragged Old Flag by Johnny Cash

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

“I thank God for all the freedom we have in this country, I cherish them and treasure them – even the right to burn the flag. We also got the right to bear arms and if you burn my flag – I’ll shoot you. But I’ll shoot you with a lot of love, like a good American.”

— Johnny Cash

I walked through a county courthouse square
On a park bench an old man was sitting there
I said, your old courthouse is kinda run down
He said, naw, it’ll do for our little town
I said, your old flagpole has leaned a little bit
And that’s a ragged old flag you got hanging on it

He said, have a seat, and I sat down
Is this the first time you’ve been to our little town?
I said, I think it is
He said, I don’t like to brag
But we’re kinda proud of that ragged old flag

You see, we got a little hole in that flag there when
Washington took it across the Delaware
And it got powder-burned the night Francis Scott Key
Sat watching it writing say can you see
And it got a bad rip in New Orleans
With Packingham and Jackson tuggin’ at its seams

And it almost fell at the Alamo
Beside the Texas flag, but she waved on though
She got cut with a sword at Chancellorsville
And she got cut again at Shiloh Hill
There was Robert E. Lee, Beauregard, and Bragg
And the south wind blew hard on that ragged old flag

On Flanders field in World War one
She got a big hole from a Bertha gun
She turned blood red in World War Two
She hung limp and low a time or two
She was in Korea and Vietnam
She went where she was sent by Uncle Sam

She waved from our ships upon the Briny foam
And now they’ve about quit waving her back here at home
In her own good land here she’s been abused
She’s been burned, dishonored, denied, and refused

And the government for which she stands
Is scandalized throughout the land
And she’s getting threadbare and wearing thin
But she’s in good shape for the shape she’s in
‘Cause she’s been through the fire before
And I believe she can take a whole lot more

So we raise her up every morning
We take her down every night
We don’t let her touch the ground and we fold her up right
On second thought, I do like to brag
‘Cause I’m mighty proud of that ragged old flag

Two Images For Memorial Day

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

“No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks.”

— St. Ambrose

It can be difficult to know how to observe Memorial Day, especially in these times when people are so divided and there are so many voice out there saying that there are no more heroes.  For me, though, these two vintage images sum up what Memorial Day is about.  It’s not day for celebrating war.  It’s a day for honoring those who lost their lives fighting for this country and it’s a day to hope for peace.  It’s a day to give thanks and to pledge that their sacrifice will not have been in vain.

Music Video of the Day: Just A Dream by Carrie Underwood (2008, Dir. by Roman White)

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

This is a very powerful music video.  I don’t have much to say about it other than that.  It’s not a political song or as political music video.  Instead, it’s a tribute and an appreciation of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice and the loved ones who were left behind.