Clint Eastwood Wishes He Never Made One Of His Most Memorable Movies
Clint Eastwood regrets making Paint Your Wagon, a cheesy western musical back in the 60s.
Clint Eastwood made his name in westerns in the 1960s, playing tough, gritty, no-nonsense, morally-ambiguous antiheroes who aren’t afraid to resort to threats, intimidation, and violence. Movies like A Fistful of Dollars and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly cemented his image with that of the iconic “Man with No Name” — a character that he would draw upon (and often subvert) in movies he went on to direct, such as High Plains Drifter, Pale Rider, and Unforgiven. And then there’s Paint Your Wagon, the high-spirited western musical that Clint Eastwood wishes he never made, according to a report by Far Out Magazine.
Starring Clint Eastwood and The Dirty Dozen actor Lee Marvin, Paint Your Wagon follows a pair of prospectors who find gold, stake a claim, and build up a tent city around the claim — one that’s completely devoid of women. The movie follows the prospectors as they seek out love in a world where the simple arrival of a woman is an event that gets the entire town in an uproar.
In an earlier interview with Empire, Eastwood admitted that, back in the 60s, he was “crazy enough to try anything,” which led to him accepting the role in the film. He felt he would be good in Paint Your Wagon because his father, Clint Eastwood Sr., was a singer. He thought his knowledge of singing would help him in the film — though he admits that the result was less-than-stellar — or even adequate, for that matter.
The musical was originally pitched as a gritty musical with controversial themes. It was originally meant to feature an interracial romance, which made Clint Eastwood want to sign on to Paint Your Wagon in the first place. However, that romance was removed, and the grittiness was smoothed into the typical campiness of an old Hollywood musical, with the only thing making the film stand out is the presence of Clint Eastwood himself.
But stand out it did. Seeing Clint Eastwood sing (or attempt to sing) in Paint Your Wagon is an unforgettable experience, even if it’s not a good experience. The movie has a 33% on Rotten Tomatoes — one of the lowest-rating films in Eastwood’s entire acting career — but it ended up being one of Paramount Pictures’ biggest successes at the time.
For Clint Eastwood, however, the experience of making Paint Your Wagon was flat-out miserable. The script’s rewrites ruined the movie he had envisioned when he signed on, and filming for far longer than originally planned.
According to Clint Eastwood, watching Paint Your Wagon after it was finished made him want to quit acting altogether. He described sinking lower into his seat as the film went on and telling his wife about his plans to quit the industry.
Of course, Clint Eastwood didn’t quit after Paint Your Wagon was released. It’s a good thing, too, since his later directing career includes some amazing films such as The Mule, and some of his most memorable films, such as Escape from Alcatraz, Play Misty for Me, and Dirty Harry — were made after the film’s release. All said, Paint Your Wagon is a movie nobody will ever forget — regardless of whether Eastwood wants you to remember it.
