‘Paint Your Wagon’ and ‘The Iron Claw’ Blu-ray and 4K movie reviews

Here’s a look a pair of movies loaded with testosterone and ported over to home entertainment disc formats.

The Iron Claw (Lionsgate Home Entertainment, rated R, 132 minutes, 1.85:1 aspect ratio, $24.99) Writer and director Sean Durkin’s biographical drama from late 2023 that explored the triumph and tragedy of a professional wrestling dynasty debuts in the Blu-ray format.

Specifically, viewers are exposed to the plight of Texan Fritz Von Erich and his adult sons as they hone their craft and succeed in the World Wide Wrestling Federation with an unbelievable level of tragedy in tow.

The lives of Kevin (Zac Efron), David (Harris Dickinson), Kerry (Jeremy Allen White) and Mike (Stanley Simons) come to light as they pummel opponents in regional and national events.

The senior Van Erich (Holt McCallany), who happened to own World Class Championship Wrestling, filled his household with toxic levels of machismo. He openly ranked his sons as favorites, always pushing the boys to extremes where failure was never an option.

Throughout, they built on father Fritz’s legacy and delighted fans using the signature submission move of the clan, the Iron Claw, in which a wrestler grabs an opponent’s brow and attempts to crush his skull.

Mr. Durkin’s chronicle descends into an unrecoverable body slam as the Von Erich boys crumble, unable to rally from a string of terrible events.

Mr. Efron dominates the second half of the film with one of the best performances of his career. His muscle-bound body is nearly unreal as he performs dangerous acrobatics.

The high-definition release with a screen-filling presentation brings to life the gritty world of pro wrestling with a welcome clarity in the ring as the production design reproduces the grit of the 1970s to 1980s but equally does a visual justice with a colorful warmth of any of the outdoor scenes in the southwest.

Best extras: Fans get a 30-minute featurette covering the production of the movie, touching on script origins, costumes, actors learning to wrestle, location design and the recreation of the championship belts. This extra item includes interviews with the director, key cast and crew as well as plenty of screen time with the real Kevin Von Erich.

Equally worth watching is a 20-minute question-and-answer session from December 2023 moderated by Variety editor, Jenelle Riley, featuring Mr. Durkin, Mr. Efron, Mr. White, Mr. Simons, Mr. McCallany, Maura Tierney (who played the family matriarch Doris) and Kevin Von Erich.

Paint Your Wagon (Kino Lorber, rated PG-13, 165 minutes, 2.35:1 aspect ratio, $39.95) An unlikely duo of legendary tough guys starred in director Joshua (“Camelot”) Logan’s excessively long Western musical comedy back in 1969, and the cult classic now debuts in a restored 4K disc format.

Adapted from a 1950s Lerner and Loewe Broadway musical, the movie teamed up Lee Marvin as cantankerous, alcoholic prospector Ben Rumson and Clint Eastwood as his strait-laced partner Sylvester Newel (aka Pardner) in a story about the early gold rush in California.

As “No Name City” grows around a mining area staked by the pair, a Mormon named Jacob Woodling and his two wives show up in need of money. Ben, in a drunken stupor, offers the winning bid on Woodling’s Elizabeth (Jean Seberg) and marries her.

That leaves about two hours of song and no dance to resolve how Rumson keeps the other guys away from his wife, especially Pardner, who is developing deep feelings for her.

Sylvester persuades the town leaders to bring a brothel’s worth of French prostitutes to the locale to satisfy their needs and turns the town into a vice-filled mecca — until the gold runs out and all chaos breaks loose as “No Name City” collapses in one of the strangest endings I have seen.

The film’s musical highlight is a rousing version of the familiar tune “They Call the Wind Maria,” but for those who can stay awake through the bloated plot, the moments that will make jaws drop are the two stars actually singing. Note Mr. Eastwood’s brutal rendition of “I Talk to the Trees” and Marvin’s participation in the forgettable “Hand Me Down That Can o’ Beans” for an ear-splitting experience.

Fans of cinema scores will appreciate the work of Batman’s favorite conductor, Nelson Riddle, orchestrating the proceedings.

The ultra-high definition restoration of the Technicolor source delivered from a 4K scan of the 35mm original camera negative shines often.

Best extras: Viewers only get a new optional commentary track with the team of Marvin biographer Dwayne Epstein, film historian Henry Parke and screenwriter/author C. Courtney Joyner.

They gush often about original screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky and offer plenty of anecdotes on Marvin including his passing on “The Wild Bunch” for “Paint Your Wagon,” urinating in the director’s shoes and his excessive drinking on the set.

Most impressive is the trio actually talk nonstop, all of the 165 minutes, even if they go off on tangents such as covering the relationship between James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart, mentioning a surly encounter with Quentin Tarantino and the various emotional states of Burt Lancaster on movies sets.