Paint Your Wagon

In the California gold fields of the 1840s, before the territory became a state, a Michigan farmer and a prospector named Ben Rumson strike up a partnership after Ben saves the younger man's life. Their mining camp grows into a rowdy boom town, and the two take part in a scheme to bring women west, sharing one of them, Elizabeth, between them. The arrangement grows complicated as both men develop feelings for her, and the arrival of a respectable family in town unsettles the community's rough ways.

Paint Your Wagon is a musical western directed by Joshua Logan, the eighth of the eight features listed for him, following Camelot. Alan Jay Lerner wrote the screenplay and produced; the large credited cast of twenty-six includes Lee Marvin as Ben, Clint Eastwood as Pardner, Jean Seberg as Elizabeth, and Ray Walston, Harve Presnell and Tom Ligon.

Released in October 1969, the film runs 164 minutes and was a big-budget Paramount production made in part through Malpaso Productions. Against a budget of about 20 million dollars it took in roughly 32 million worldwide. On IMDb it holds 6.6 from about 16,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.3 from a much smaller sample of 289. A film critics' rating of 4.8 from twenty reviews places it below both audience scores.