the old west was very, very gay
1969’s Paint Your Wagon is possibly the best movie ever.
Right, so it’s the musical version of the California gold rush, and it starts with a nice dose of hurt/comfort when wandering prospector Ben (Lee fucking Marvin) declares a wounded Clint fucking Eastwood (thereafter referred to by the entire town as Pardner, because everyone knows which way the wind blows there) his partner in regard to the gold they’ve just found in his brother’s recently dug grave, and nurses him back to health. Mostly while carrying him piggyback.
An all-male town springs up, where there’s orgiastic cheek-to-cheek dancing, after which Pardner happily takes up the partnership duties Ben assigned him, ie, picking his drunk ass out of the mud post-orgy and keeping him company through his melancholia - at which point Pardner confesses his life has been woman-free.
A Mormon passes through town with his two wives and agrees to auction off one (…because, yeah). Ben drunkenly makes the highest bid, and is cleaned up and literally carried by Pardner through the wedding ceremony (answering “I do” for both bride and groom) and into the nuptial bed. Eventually, she declares her love for both of them and insists the little town is immoral enough no one will blink at her having two husbands, and Ben is hugely enthusiastic about the idea. Pardner gets drunk enough to pass off his enthusiasm as booze-fuelled, and yay, we have in-canon OT3!
And that’s only intermission!
Post-intermission, things are less awesome, despite a good fifteen minutes of happy cohabitation and emphasis on a single bed in the cabin. The wife catches respectability and kicks Ben out, boooooo! But Ben emotionally demands they go back to their “happy triple,” and tries to get Pardner jealous by corrupting a pretty blond farmboy into whiskey, cigars, and ladies of negotiable affection! And Pardner leaves with him! For a while, anyway, until Ben’s off after a new gold stake and Pardner succumbs to the siren song of heteronormativity.
It’s…it’s just a thing of beauty.
Also, has there been DNA proof that Tom Waits is not in fact a Son of Lee Marvin?