Thursday, December 22, 2005

Christmas Past

I've been thinking about Christmas's past and one of ones that stands out was 68,or 69, or maybe 70. P was still pretty little. The movie "Paint your Wagon" was being released on Christmas Day. I got tickets for the whole family as our Christmas Day treat. We were all alone on Christmas that year no relatives around.

When I was a young married in my fathers music store had racks and racks of albums. One of the albums was "paint you wagon" with the original stage sound track. Now when Lerner and Lowe wrote that musical it didn't get rave reviews, in fact it was a great flop. The music was beautiful and I'll admit I had never heard of any of the artists that were singing on the record. I took one of the albums home and it played on the stero all the time. My kids grew up with that wonderful music. So I was really anxious to see the movie, yes I knew it had been re-writen but they had to keep all that beautiful music. Well the movie was funny and can you beleive they even had clint eastwood singing "I talk to the trees" such a great song to be mudered by him. "They call the wind Mariha" The kids loved the movie but I think we were all disappointed that a lot of the music was lost.

Now there is another movie coming out on Christmas I am anixous to see "The Producers" We are talking about doing a family Christmas movie once again.

I'm wondering if my kids the remember the movie? and the circumstances of seeing it? It has been on TV since then.

1 comment:

P M Prescott said...

I have the movie on Video and have the soundtrack. Clint and Marvin really did ruinate their songs, but Harve Presnell does a wonderful job on Maiah and the chorus songs are really good. I showed it one night to L's parents. Ed wasn't very impressed until Ben rips open Elizabeth's bodice. That got his attention.
I showed it to my U.S. History class one year when we covered the American West, but I replaced it the following year with Little Big Man and showed it for years, most of the other teachers at my school borrow my copy and show it too. (LBM)
I remember going to see the movie, because it was at the Sunshine Theater. The premier movie palace at the time. Such a shame they've turned it into a nightclub and put in a multiplex next to it. Not that anyone in their right mind goes downtown after dark anymore.