The Legend of Clint Eastwood
Paint Your Wagon, 1969
With four of the previous eight top Oscars going to musicals, and with The Sound of Music reigning as the all-time top box-office hit, studios of the late '60s were transporting every possible Broadway show to the screen. Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's 1951 Paint Your Wagon boasted two hit songs ("They Call the Wind Maria" and "I Talk to the Trees") and a Western setting. Eastwood, fresh from his Leone hits, and Lee Marvin, who won an Oscar as the boozy gunfighter in Cat Ballou, were cast as Gold Rush prospectors who share everything, including a wife (Jean Seberg). All three stars were non-singers, though Marvin at least had the baritone bombacity to sell his numbers. Clint is genial enough, and never handsomer, but performs his numbers timidly, as if for once he's on the other end of a tough guy's loaded gun. Entrusted with "I Talk to the Trees," he truly whispers the song, seemingly afraid someone might hear him. Few did; the movie was an expensive flop.