The Beguiled (1971)

Directed by Don Siegel. Starring Clint Eastwood, Geraldine Page, Elizabeth Hartman, Jo Ann Harris, Pamelyn Ferdin, Mae Mercer. [R]

Wounded Union soldier Eastwood is taken in by the remnants of a girls’ school in Mississippi, where they shelter him, heal him, and, eventually, bewitch him; this, inevitably, results in jealousy, reprisal, and clumsy Freudian imagery. Southern Gothic melodrama is a change of pace for both the star and director; it’s not among the best work for either, but it rates better than mere career novelty. The simmering bodice-ripper atmosphere and hell-hath-no-fury gradients that spill over in the final act border on camp, but those late episodes also build an inferno out of the casually rampant misogyny, and it provides a good message years before the comic book creation of post-adolescent sewer dwellers engaged in ninja training—don’t mess with turtles. Its muddled anti-war message can easily get lost beneath its nigh-parodic take on sexual revolution and repression, but despite some overwrought stylistic choices, it creates a palpable mood that can carry even impatient viewers through its deliberate slow-build. Scripted by Irene Kamp and Albert Maltz from a Thomas P. Cullinan novel. Remade in 2017.

70/100