Ep. 12 - Paint Your Wagon
What happens when a multiple Oscar-winning screenwriter and a Pulitzer Prize-winning director adapt a musical by one of the most successful Broadway duos of all time? An absolute disaster.
Adam and Nate force themselves to watch Paint Your Wagon (1969), an infamous musical flop and part of the hilarious wraparound for Simpsons musical clip show, “All Singing, All Dancing” (S9E11).
Original poster for Paint Your Wagon by artist Peter Max.
Also in this episode:
An attempt to capitalize on 1960s counterculture with a cowboy throuple and folk music
How Alan Jay Lerner’s back-seat directing derailed the production and drove Joshua Logan insane
An uneasy combination of westerns and musicals, realism and slapstick
Lee Marvin’s alcoholic antics and the tragicomic on-set affair between Clint Eastwood and Jean Seberg
Why did anyone think this was a good idea in the first place (seriously)?
Next time, Adam and Nate check out a blockbuster that barely exists, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982).
Follow us @simpsonsfilmpod on Twitter and Instagram.
Every Reference to Paint Your Wagon on The Simpsons
By our count in The Simpsons Movie Reference Database, Paint Your Wagon has only been directly referenced in 1 episode of the first 13 seasons of The Simpsons. The only reference is a scene-long musical parody in “All Singing, All Dancing” (S9E11) from 1998, 29 years after the release of the movie.
Scene Parodies
All Singing, All Dancing (S9E11): The Simpsons first musical clip show begins with Bart and Homer renting Paint Your Wagon from the video store expecting a bloody Western shootout. What they find instead is a goofy musical starring Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin—which actually exists. Unfortunately, the songs in the original are not nearly as catchy as the one made up for the Simpsons parody.
Extra Credit
Looking for more like this or an interesting double feature? Here are our recommendations.
From Adam: Burlesque (2010)
From Nate: For a Few Dollars More (1965) & The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)
On the Watchlist: Annie Get Your Gun (1950) & Cat Ballou (1965)
Further Reading & Viewing
Article: Roger Ebert, “Interview with Joshua Logan,” The Chicago Sun-Times, April 30, 1967.
Article: Howard Thompson, “Studios Again Mining Gold With Lavish Film Musicals; Hollywood Again Mining Gold With Lavish Movie Musicals,” The New York Times, October 26, 1968.
Video: “No Name City“ (behind-the-scenes featurette), 1969. Posted by jleepixprod on YouTube, February 28, 2010.
Article: Roger Ebert, “Reviews: Paint Your Wagon,“ The Chicago Sun-Times, October 31, 1969.
Article: Roger Ebert, “‘Who's gonna get me a beer?’ An interview with Lee Marvin,“ Esquire, October 10, 1970.
Book: James Robert Parish, Fiasco: A History of Hollywood’s Iconic Flops, Wiley, January 2006 (available for free at Archive.org).
Video: “Paint Your Wagon: Musical Hell Review #30,” Musical Hell, September 1, 2014.
Article: Jake Lee Hanne, “The Brutal Bull-and-Bear Fights of 19th-Century California,“ Atlas Obscura, October 23, 2017.
Article: Michael Coate, “The Musical Goldmine of ’69: Remembering ‘Paint Your Wagon’ on its 50th Anniversary,“ The Digital Bits, October 15, 2019.
Article: Stefan Kyriazis, Jean Seberg's affair with Clint Eastwood on Paint Your Wagon 'left her traumatised',” Express, January 3, 2022.
