M (PG-13) | 2h 44min | Comedy, Drama, Musical | 15 October 1969 | Color, ws
Director: Joshua Logan
Stars: Lee Marvin, Clint Eastwood, Jean Seberg, Harve Presnell, Ray Walston.
Jack Baker ... choreographer: "Gold Fever" and "Best Things"
Watched on AmazonPrime.
13 songs in the Soundtracks. Favorite: They Call The Wind Maria. (You'd think me-rye-a would have a different spelling.)
I like this ok, but just ok.
It's too long, as usual nowadays.
CE has a sweet voice; he should have sung in more musicals at that age, because he's extremely handsome, and has matured past his incredibly young looks a decade earlier.
I really never understand what Harve Presnell is doing in this story, except lend his voice to 2 songs that require more than the stars can deliver.
LM does sing, but has a limited range, and doesn't sound great. Then again, he's staying in character, so maybe he has more than we hear here.
JS is dubbed, but her vocal alter is compatible.
The marriage to 2 men is interesting, but not explored fully. It seems only to go sour when outsiders have to stay with the trio, and so they cover up the triangular marriage. (It's not actually bigamy, because they never make the second husband legal.)
The "gold fever" for easy pickings, dust that falls between the floor boards of commercial establishments, undoes the whole town. Although we see the underground tunnels with large wooden beams shoring them up, these men are not engineers, and they aren't digging in a mountain, so it seems to be just dirt, not stone they are shoring. Of course, with the vast network they created, and the speed of creation of the latest spoke of the net, they made a weakness that causes disaster. I suppose as a sight gag it's funny to see the town collapse and everyone scramble during the event, but it didn't move me in any way. Then again, I've seen this before and knew it was coming, so I didn't really watch that this time.
Lovely music, but just not an appealing film for me.
distr. Paramount, dir. Logan; 6
