Say the names Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood and you think of tough guy films like The Dirty Dozen, the Killers, Dog Day, Dirty Harry, Rawhide, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Ungorgiven, or a host of spaghetti westerns of the 1960s. Between them these two actors contributed to more than 240 films or TV shows (and some of those TV shows ran into hundreds of episodes), between 1950 and today. Marvin died in 1987 aged 63, while Eastwood continues to work at 94.
Given their tough guy images I have always found it odd to think that in 1969 the two of them appeared in the musical comedy film Paint Your Wagon. Even stranger for me is that fact that the song from the film "Wand'rin Star" where Marvin sings in this gravelly voice "...I was born under a wand'rin star...", should be a number 1 hit in the UK for three consecutive weeks in March 1970.
What has this to do with wargames, figure painting, making terrain or anything else I usually write about? Well nothing really. I just needed a title for this post and when I thought of Paint Your Wagon it sent me down one of those memory rabbit holes.
What this post is really about is to show this nice French Napoleonic supply wagon that I finished on Monday. I had been looking at this model on the Perry site for some time now and it has been added and removed from my orders half a dozen times. The hull is a nicely detailed resin casting that needed minimal cleaning.
It is fabulously over loaded with all kinds of clutter, trunks, chests, boxes, bags, blanket rolls and no doubt a fair amount of loot. It comes with a removable cover.
There is a vivandiere and a rather grim faced driver seated at the front.
This piece will feature at the centre of a game in the not too distant future.
Lovely little model and very well painted, like the idea you can have it covered or not, very handy for different scenarios.
ReplyDeleteThanks Donnie. It's a fun piece to be sure. I have a number of these fun sets in the queue.
DeleteThe really is a great model there Mark, with lots of nice details in terms of the baggage etc, plus it's good that it has a removable cover too, allowing for a bit of visual variety. As for that song, it is now an ear worm that is likely to last all day in my head!!!
ReplyDeleteAh the old ear worm...I had one the other day. Some lovely little kid threw a rock through one of my windows and I said to someone that I would have to take a leaf from the Blues Brothers and install chicken wire. He told me to stop singing country songs and that was it, I had "Stand By Your Man" in my head the rest of the day.
DeleteGood job on painting your wagon. For a bit more nostalgia, the movie, “Paint Your Wagon” was filmed in a small mining town 70 miles from my hometown where I grew up as a young kid. I remember the filming was a really big deal at the time with occasional Star Sightings.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jonathan it is a nice piece.
DeleteSplendid looking French supply wagon, I've got a 3d print from the people who did my limbers in the queue but Perry's are still best and a lovely finish!
ReplyDeleteBest Iain caveadsum1471
Thanks Iain...I am looking at a few more 3D print additions to the supply train myself.
DeleteNice wagon, the driver is probably worried about Cossacks or partisan activities. The Perry's have a few of these gems in the line up. You will have fun painting these up, a nice break from rank and file.
ReplyDeleteThey have some nice equipment sets, and I own a fair number of them. There is one more piece that I want, but it is out of stock.
DeleteIt looks really cool Mark, and I can imagine a skirmish level game where it could play a prominent role! I don't know what the driver has to be looking so grumpy about, with a buxom vivandiere as a travelling companion!
ReplyDeleteI think she might have said "keep your hands to yourself!"
DeleteNice addition to any game, a wagon like that. I was struck by your opening vignette about "Paint Your Wagon": for some reason, that movie made a deep impression on the young me during the days of over the air television (before the earth cooled), Lee Marvin's character in particular. I know better than to watch it again and dispel the memory, though!
ReplyDeleteThanks Ed. Your last sentence reminds me that I got into this hobby after watching "Custer of the West" as a 10 year old and the opening scenes of Custer leading charges in the Civil War hooked me. Forty-odd years later I saw it for $5 on Amazon and snapped it up for nostalgia - that childhood memory was quickly crushed.
DeleteIt is a lovely piece. The collection of baggage under the canvas looks great. Did it come with the rope traces? It is always a nice touch when they are part of the model.
ReplyDeleteYes it is nice...keen to do more now. The traces did come with it, but the connection to the front bar is very fragile. I used to like rope traces that came with the old Hinchliffe models, they had quite an effective way of fastening them.
Deletewagon came out rather well.
ReplyDeleteI have to go youtube Lee Marvin singing now. 😁
Don't do it! You will never get it out of your head!
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