Clint Eastwood regrets his most unconventional western

In 1967, Clint Eastwood’s career took off suddenly Screenings in US cinemas “A handful of dollars” “A Few Dollars More” and “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.” Directed by the brilliant Sergio Leone, this trilogy of newfangled spaghetti westerns transformed Eastwood from a TV cowboy (as Rowdy Yates on CBS’s “Rawhide”) antihero shooter. The genre was reborn and Eastwood was suddenly John Wayne for the baby boomer generation. He expanded his range and solidified his popularity the following year, switching genres from the western “Hang ‘Em High” to the cop film “Coogan’s Bluff” to the World War II spy thriller “Where Eagles Dare.” By the time 1969 rolled around, he could do anything – and do the unexpected.

Although musicals and traditional Westerns were on the wane, Paramount felt it could give them both a shot with an adaptation of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Lowe’s popular 1951 musical Paint Your Wagon. Set during the California Gold Rush, this gorgeous show is filled with catchy tunes and colorful characters. With veteran music director Joshua Logan (South Pacific and Camelot) at the helm, it seemed like a safe bet to at least break even commercially; at most, it could turn out to be a box office hit and a top Oscar contender.

Casting was key, and this is where Logan turned a safe bet into a gamble. Instead of casting musically inclined actors in the lead roles, he chose non-singing actors such as Clint Eastwood, Gene Seberg, and Lee Marvin. The result wasn’t a disaster in itself, but Eastwood regretted it nonetheless.

In a 2017 interview with Empireperhaps Eastwood credits the excess of newly earned credibility as the reason he chose to star as Gold Digger Pardner opposite Lee Marvin’s hellish Ben Rumson. “I was crazy enough to try anything,” Eastwood said. “I was always interested in music, my father was a singer and I had some knowledge of it. Although what I did in that picture was not singing.”

Technically it was. Aesthetically, it was not entirely pleasing. While Logan’s leads couldn’t quite carry the tune (Marvin is much worse), Jean Seberg was dubbed by belt veteran Anita Gordon to keep moviegoers’ ears from bleeding.

Eastwood saw trouble coming and tried to quit the production before filming began, but Lerner and Logan flew to the set of Where Eagles Dare to convince him to stay. Eastwood relented, but regretted the decision. Paint Your Wagon took six months, an eternity, to shoot an effective actor-director known for delivering films ahead of schedule and on budget. Although “Paint Your Wagon” eventually found an audience, it is still remembered as the odd duck of a musical.