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THE BEGUILED
A macabre Civil War set study of repression and murder from the seventies, echoing the works of writers like Poe, Tennessee Williams and Ambrose Bierce, and starring...CLINT EASTWOOD?!?
The Package
Clint Eastwood, who made this film in 1970 at the height of his tough guy
period (his next project was DIRTY HARRY), isn’t the only one who seems out of
place: its director Don Siegel was a legendary noir/action specialist NOT known
for making stately gothic dramas, which is what THE BEUGILED most certainly is.
Unsurprisingly, this attempt at giving Eastwood something to do “besides just
gunning people down” wasn’t much of a success financially (a performance
replicated by most of Eastwood’s subsequent attempts at “something different,”
from PLAY MISTY FOR ME to WHITE HUNTER, BLACK HEART), and has developed
something of a bad rep over the years. The film’s been dubbed corrupt and
misogynistic by quite a few critics who’ve apparently never read anything by Poe
or Bierce and don’t seem to get that while the women of THE BEGUILED are
presented as backstabbing murderers, the men don’t come off particularly well,
either.
Certainly no other film Eastwood has made (except perhaps THE BRIDGES OF
MADISON COUNTY) more enthusiastically and perversely demolishes his carefully
wrought image of a soft-spoken tough guy. Here he not only spends the entire
movie crippled, but is outfoxed and ultimately killed by a bunch of girls.
The Story
Corporal John McBurney, a Union soldier, is badly wounded and finds himself
confined to a bed in a Confederate girls’ boarding school. Being a crafty
person—and, at heart, a bit of a scumbag—McBurney manipulates his way into the
good graces of the school’s various residents. To the black maid, he claims,
“we’re both prisoners here,” while he’s caring and nurturing to a young girl and
inflames the perverse nature of the school’s uptight headmistress, who has a
somewhat sordid past. His lies are intercut with snippets showing his
contradictory actions (i.e. him burning fields as he babbles about how he
never took part in any violence). For a time it seems like he’s successful in
his deceptions: the women take to him and the headmistress even turns some
Confederate soldiers away who are looking for shelter (and, it’s implied, a
little something else from these nubile females) in order to keep him
hidden. Ultimately, McBurney underestimates his female companions, who amputate
his wounded leg and, despite his continuing attempts at making the situation
work to his advantage, eventually do him in with poisoned mushrooms.
The Direction
Although THE BEGUILED is somewhat
dated with its melodramatic flashbacks and insistent Lalo Schifrin score, it’s
quite an impressive achievement overall and must be counted as one of Don
Siegel’s finest films. The period details are richly, even obsessively designed
and the acting is top notch from everyone, most notably the veteran Hollywood
starlet Geraldine Page, who Siegel somehow convinced to smooch another
woman(!). The crisp cinematography by Bruce Surtees adds immeasurably to
Siegel’s carefully wrought atmosphere of sexual repression, encapsulated by an
extremely creepy dream sequence containing the aforementioned woman-on-woman
kiss. And watch out for that nasty leg cutting, conveyed entirely via
shadows on a wall and some truly hideous sound effects, which remains one of the
decade’s most nerve rattling sequences.
Vital Statistics
THE BEGUILED
Universal Pictures
Director: Don Siegel
Producer: Don Siegel
Screenplay: “John B. Sherry” (Albert
Maltz), “Grimes Grice” (Irene Kamp)
(Based on a novel by Thomas Cullinan)
Cinematography: Bruce Surtees
Editor: Carl Pingitore
Cast: Clint Eastwood, Geraldine Page, Elizabeth Hartman, Jo Ann Harris, Darleen
Carr, Mae Mercer, Pamelyn Ferdin, Melody Thomas Scott, Peggy Drier, Pattye
Mattick, Charlie Briggs, George Dunn, Charles Martin, Matt Clark, Patrick
Culliton, Buddy Van Horn