MovieChat Forums > Paint Your Wagon (1969) Discussion > Who sang They Call the Wind Mariah in th...

Who sang They Call the Wind Mariah in the movie?


Probably someone from the Broadway show?

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Harve Presnell. He was the lead in The Unsinkable Molly Brown

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He is, and when he sang I'll Never Say No To You, I wanted just exactly that kind of man for a husband..Still do, and he doesn't even have to be a good singer..~smiles~

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Here's a bit of trivia. The singer Mariah Carey was named for this song. The movie came out only a few months before she was born.

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Interesting that the official name of the song spells the name "Maria," inviting confusion with songs from *West Side Story* and *The Sound of Music*!

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Harve Presnell still acts, but he sure doesn't look like the same guy.

I was 9 in 1969, so I don't look the same, either.

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Don't worry...none of us do!!!!!

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He was Ms. Parker's father in "The Pretender".

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He's probably best known these days as Wade Gustafson in Fargo. A connection I never would've made without the odd spelling of Harve.

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He also played General George C. Marshall in 'Saving Private Ryan'.

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He still has a lovely resonant speaking voice, though.

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And William H. Macy's father-in-law in "Fargo".

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But who does the background singing?

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The boys in the chorus.

"It ain't dying I'm talking about, it's LIVING!"
Captain Augustus McCrae

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It's an older English pronunciation of the name Maria, when the sound of I changed from "ee" to "igh".

You still hear it in the word "blackmaria" which means hearse. You also hear it in Queen Mary's Latin name, which is Maria Regina. (and Regina rhymes with vagina)

The H on the end of Mariah has nothing to do with anything. It's just a pretense.

The correct title of the song is "They Call the Wind Maria."

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I think I've read this whole thread. Yes, Harve Presnell sang the song. The part that I see no one else saying is that Presnell played Rotten Luck Willie in the movie.

As a sidenote, I think the only dubbed singing voice was Jean Seberg.

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I fell for him in the movie 'The Glory Guys". A western that rarely gets shown on tv. Then he and debbie Reynolds were fantastic in "The Unsinkable Molly Brown".As someone else said him singing "I'll Never Say No" was awesome.

Sidewalks have rights too! They refused to be stepped on anymore!

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I learned "They Call the Wind Mariah" at summer camp in the mid-1960's and had no idea where it originated till I saw the movie in the mid 70's. I also bought the LP of the Broadway Musical version. For those of you not from that era LP stood for Long-Play Record. I still have it somewhere. It was always one of my favorite songs and even named my dog after it in the late 70's. Harve Presnell was an incredible singer and fortunately they used him in this version. I believe he was also in the Broadway version.

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This movie gets a lot of criticism, but the handsome young Harve Presnell's dramatic and moving rendition of this song, accompanied by scenes of the raging wind and pouring rain, makes the movie worth watching if for no other reason.

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