- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Contributors
- About the Companion Website
- Introduction
- ‘And I’ll Sing Once More’: A Historical Overview of the Broadway Musical on the Silver Screen
- Refashioning Roberta: From Novel to Stage to Screen
- Getting Real: Stage Musical versus Filmic Realism in Film Adaptations from Camelot to Cabaret
- The Party’s Over: On the Town, Bells Are Ringing, and the Problem of Adapting Postwar New York
- Into the Woods from Stage to Screen
- Li’l Abner from Comic Strip to Hollywood
- Fidelity versus Freedom in Miloš Forman’s Film Version of Hair
- ‘An Elegant Legacy?’: The Aborted Cartoon Adaptation of Finian’s Rainbow
- Little Shop of Horrors: Breaking the Rules All the Way to the Big (Enormous, Twelve-inch) Screen
- The Fascinating Moment of Godspell: Its Cinematic Adaptation in the Shadow of Jesus Christ Superstar and Leonard Bernstein’s Mass
- Adapting Pal Joey: Postwar Anxieties and the Playmate
- ‘Too Darn Hot’: Reimagining Kiss Me, Kate for the Silver Screen
- ‘A Humane, Practical, and Beautiful Solution’: Adaptation and Triangulation in Paint Your Wagon
- ‘A Great American Service’: George M. Cohan, the Stage, and the Nation in Yankee Doodle Dandy
- Cole Porter’s List Songs on Stage and Screen
- Loud, Pretty, Strong, White [Repeat]: The Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy Operettas at MGM (1935–1942)
- ‘Is This the Right Material, Girl?’: How Madonna Makes Us Like Eva, but Not Necessarily Evita
- Brigadoon and Its Transition to MGM Dance Musical: Adapting a Stage Show for Star Dancers
- ‘I’m Once Again the Previous Me’: Performance and Stardom in the Barbra Streisand Stage-to-Screen Adaptations
- The Shifting Sand of Orientalism: The Desert Song on Stage and Screen
- ‘You Will Know That She Is Our Annie’: Comparing Three Adaptations of a Broadway Classic
- The Many Faces of Rio Rita
- Lost in Translation: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel on the Silver Screen
- Carol Burnett and the Ends of Variety: Parody, Nostalgia, and Analysis of the American Musical
- Flamboyance, Exuberance, and Schmaltz: Half a Sixpence and the Broadway Adaptation in 1960s Hollywood
- The Producers and Hairspray: The Hazards and Rewards of Recursive Adaptation
- Rescoring Anything Goes in 1930s Hollywood
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Abstract and Keywords
This chapter deals with sexuality in the much-maligned film adaptation of Lerner and Loewe’s Paint Your Wagon, the least popular of the team’s three 1960s film adaptations (My Fair Lady and Camelot are the others). Situating the movie in the sexual revolution and second-wave feminism of the 1960s, the chapter examines the characterization of Elizabeth and her only song, ‘A Million Miles Away Behind the Door,’ as well as her polyandrous marriage to Ben and Pardner. The chapter also reflects on not only how adaptations change the source but—due to changing social conventions and expectations—why they must. In the case of Paint Your Wagon, the film matches Lerner’s depiction of triangular relationships in My Fair Lady and Camelot, deletes Jennifer and Julio, the principal romantic couple of the stage version, omits the Mexican American perspective represented by Julio, adds the new character Pardner, and places Ben Rumson into a polyandrous relationship with Pardner and Elizabeth. Thanks to the shift from the Production Code to the Ratings System in 1968, Paint Your Wagon could portray a more liberal sexual situation than would have been the case over a decade earlier when the stage version appeared, and the screenplay exploits this possibility in a variety of ways, thereby reflecting its time.
Keywords: Paint Your Wagon, Lerner, Loewe, polyandry, Ratings System
Megan Woller, Assistant Professor of Fine Arts, Gannon University
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- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Contributors
- About the Companion Website
- Introduction
- ‘And I’ll Sing Once More’: A Historical Overview of the Broadway Musical on the Silver Screen
- Refashioning Roberta: From Novel to Stage to Screen
- Getting Real: Stage Musical versus Filmic Realism in Film Adaptations from Camelot to Cabaret
- The Party’s Over: On the Town, Bells Are Ringing, and the Problem of Adapting Postwar New York
- Into the Woods from Stage to Screen
- Li’l Abner from Comic Strip to Hollywood
- Fidelity versus Freedom in Miloš Forman’s Film Version of Hair
- ‘An Elegant Legacy?’: The Aborted Cartoon Adaptation of Finian’s Rainbow
- Little Shop of Horrors: Breaking the Rules All the Way to the Big (Enormous, Twelve-inch) Screen
- The Fascinating Moment of Godspell: Its Cinematic Adaptation in the Shadow of Jesus Christ Superstar and Leonard Bernstein’s Mass
- Adapting Pal Joey: Postwar Anxieties and the Playmate
- ‘Too Darn Hot’: Reimagining Kiss Me, Kate for the Silver Screen
- ‘A Humane, Practical, and Beautiful Solution’: Adaptation and Triangulation in Paint Your Wagon
- ‘A Great American Service’: George M. Cohan, the Stage, and the Nation in Yankee Doodle Dandy
- Cole Porter’s List Songs on Stage and Screen
- Loud, Pretty, Strong, White [Repeat]: The Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy Operettas at MGM (1935–1942)
- ‘Is This the Right Material, Girl?’: How Madonna Makes Us Like Eva, but Not Necessarily Evita
- Brigadoon and Its Transition to MGM Dance Musical: Adapting a Stage Show for Star Dancers
- ‘I’m Once Again the Previous Me’: Performance and Stardom in the Barbra Streisand Stage-to-Screen Adaptations
- The Shifting Sand of Orientalism: The Desert Song on Stage and Screen
- ‘You Will Know That She Is Our Annie’: Comparing Three Adaptations of a Broadway Classic
- The Many Faces of Rio Rita
- Lost in Translation: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel on the Silver Screen
- Carol Burnett and the Ends of Variety: Parody, Nostalgia, and Analysis of the American Musical
- Flamboyance, Exuberance, and Schmaltz: Half a Sixpence and the Broadway Adaptation in 1960s Hollywood
- The Producers and Hairspray: The Hazards and Rewards of Recursive Adaptation
- Rescoring Anything Goes in 1930s Hollywood
- Select Bibliography
- Index
