The Beguiled

I watched this at home on a DVD set of 7 Clint Eastwood movies from my public library. Seeing this was especially timely because 2017 saw the remake of this movie. Pretty much the same story in each, with minor character changes, with pretty much the same ending.

Having seen both of them within a month I can say this 1971 version is clearly the more interesting movie. Part of that is Eastwood as the injured Union soldier taken in by the ladies and girls of a school in plantation Louisiana. We've seen him in so many action roles we sometimes forget what a good actor he is.

The outdoor scenes were filmed south of Baton Rouge at Belle Helene plantation in Geismar, Louisiana, built in the 1840s. In more recent times, the 1990s, the plantation was bought by Shell Chemical Company and restored. Most interior scenes were filmed on a set in California.

Clint Eastwood is the injured Union soldier, John McBurney, a duplicitous man. By use of brief flashbacks we see that he lies to the ladies about his past. He is a coward and wants to heal and stay at the school as a handyman until the Civil War is over. He ends up leading most of the ladies and older girls on, pretending he loves each one.

Geraldine Page is really good as the school mistress, Martha. As well as Elizabeth Hartman who was the teacher, Edwina. (Tragically Hartman suffered from depression and killed herself not many years later by jumping off a building.) As well as Jo Ann Harris, about 20 during filming, as 17-yr-old vixen Carol, aggressively pursuing McBurney's affections.

This original version of the story is much more sinister and works better than the remake, but the ending is very similar in each.

This powerful drama centering around the effect which the arrival of a wounded civil war soldier has on a house full of women is probably Don Siegel's finest achievement, and is yet another example of Eastwood's willingness to break new ground and tackle new genres. It is also, perhaps, the finest acting performance of his career. His presence in the house releases not only deeply repressed sexual urges in the women who are helping him to recover from his wounds, but a sexually competitive frenzy which becomes ever more dangerous and frightening.

"The Beguiled" is one of my favorite Clint Eastwood films, and a departure from his typical early roles. Directed by Don Siegel, with whom Eastwood collaborated on several films, it was made a year before Eastwood's directorial debut with "Play Misty For Me". An alternate title considered for the film was "Pussy-Footing Down At The Old Plantation", which thankfully was not used, otherwise I am sure raunchy jokes about the fact that it takes place at a girls' school would be difficult to avoid. I first saw this movie in one of my college film classes in the mid-1970's, and was immediately taken with it. I only had an old battered VHS tape of it until I recently purchased the widescreen DVD, which also includes the hilarious, awful trailer that makes the film come across as a "Peyton Place" soap opera, and conveys none of the creepiness of the film.

Interesting notes: Eastwood and Siegel had to battle with Universal Pictures to keep the original ending, and they won out; and, the film was billed as a standard Eastwood western, which it certainly is not. It is a Gothic tale of deception and horror set in the time of the Civil War, with an underlying tone of eroticism and sexual tension running throughout.

I'm not putting any spoilers in this review, and if you want to see the film as it should be seen, then be careful of looking it up on the internet, as spoiler reviews of it do abound.

Clint Eastwood portrays John McBurney, a Union soldier who is shot on Confederate ground and discovered by a young girl from a nearby girls' school. She rescues him and takes him back to the school, but instead of notifying the local patrol of his presence so that he will be taken to prison, the headmistress, Miss Martha (Geraldine Page), her assistant Edwina (Elizabeth Hartman), their black servant Hallie (Mae Mercer), and the mostly teenage girls take him in, heal him, and fall under his spell. The film sets its tone of creepiness and Gothic horror right from the titles, as it shows real battleground shots from the war, while Eastwood's voice is heard quietly singing a funereal song of the time.

The opening scene of his encounter with the little girl who saves him sets the tone of his character, and the tone of the entire movie. To say any more than that would spoil the surprises in that first scene. To say much more about the film itself might ruin it for anyone who hasn't seen it...if you are into creepy, Gothic tales, find it and rent it. Eastwood is excellent in the film, and it is interesting to see him in an early role, or any role, where he portrays a character that is for the most part very unsympathetic.

Geraldine Page had a plum role in the film as the headmistress, and I cannot imagine another actress of the time being as good in the role; a long shot could have been Piper Laurie, but I don't think Laurie could have embodied the role in the same manner as Geraldine Page.

Elizabeth Hartman (whose wonderful performance in the film "A Patch of Blue" as a blind girl who falls in love with Sidney Poiter's character is another high point in her short career) is at her prime here, delicate and masterful at the same time. Unfortunately, her delicacy on film was also a part of her real life; she committed suicide at age 45.

I end this review with this observation: one manipulative, lying Yankee man is no match for a houseful of deceptive and libidinous Southern belles.

Anybody who hasn't seen this film is truly missing something special. Though it may not necessarily be for everyones tastes. This film may possibly break more 'sexual taboos' than any other, and it is another wonderful example of the early 70's trend of high creativity and barrier's being broken like no other time. It is haunting and unusual, both erotic and disturbing. Lalo Schifrin's music is superbly "dreamy" and dark, the photography and imagery are equally so. A very intelligent, groundbreaking inventive film.

Another well done moral ambiguity pieces where the anti-hero makes it hard to decide who to root for.

If nothing else "The Beguiled" silenced anyone who said there were no good parts for actresses in movies-at least in 1971. There were four excellent parts for actresses in this film and all were well cast and well executed.

Pamelyn Ferdin did a fine job as Amy and would go on to play "Wanda June". This must have been the first time an adult male box office star shared an extended kiss with a twelve-year-old girl on camera, wonder if there was much controversy about this at the time. It was probably Polanski's favorite scene. Given the fate of Amy's turtle "Randolph", it is no surprise that Ferdin grew up to be a hardcore animal rights activist.

Geraldine Page was likewise excellent, playing a complex character with just the right amount of restraint. It is interesting that she died just three days after Elizabeth Hartman committed suicide (throwing herself through a fifth floor window) as they had also worked together in "You're a Big Boy Now".

Hartman (who looks like she could be Blair Brown's sister) was wonderful as Edwina and should have gotten an Oscar (no other performance was even close that year), but given what we now know about her you wonder just how much of her performance was a studied effort and how much just came from inside her. Edwina shows such raw pain it is difficult to watch. Like Marilyn Monroe's incredible performance in "The Misfits", the viewer is probably seeing a whole lot of her own demons in the character she is playing.

Finally there is Jo Ann Harris who is stunningly perfect as the flirty Carol. For my money Harris was the sexiest actress of the 1970's, combining sensuality with intelligence and humor. She was the best reason to watch the "Most Wanted" television series and the only reason to watch "Wild Wild West Revisited". Hard to believe that someone who could bring all that to the screen never became a big star.