Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: The Beguiled (1971) - Intense, erotic Civil War kammerspiel thriller

3/24/2014

The Beguiled (1971) - Intense, erotic Civil War kammerspiel thriller

♥♥♥♥♥

A strangely broad-headed Clint Eastwood on the poster for Don Siegel's The Beguiled

QUICK REVIEW:

The Yankie-soldier McBurney gets rescued half-dead into safety by a 12 year-old girl to the girls' school that she attends. Here he convalesces slowly and constitutes an attraction and danger for the members of the opposite sex ...
The plot is a 100 % solid and is at the same time spellbound by a wonderful literary quality; it is an adaptation of the Southern Gothic novel A Painted Devil (1966) by Thomas P. Cullinan. The end of the film offers more than one surprise.

Clint Eastwood (Gran Torino (2008)) bites the apple as a world champion charlatan for the first 2/3 of Beguiled. In the last third, the suspense really takes off, and particularly Geraldine Page (Sweet Bird of Youth (1962)), who plays headmistress Martha, does outstandingly.
Great American director Don Siegel (Escape From Alcatraz (1979)) has said that Beguiled has themes of sex, violence and vengeance, and that it is based on "the basic desire of women to castrate men." - This makes for an exciting movie!

Eastwood has talked very interestingly of his character in Beguiled and the characters he plays in general:

"Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino play losers very well. But my audience like to be in there vicariously with a winner. That isn't always popular with critics. My characters have sensitivity and vulnerabilities, but they're still winners. I don't pretend to understand losers. When I read a script about a loser I think of people in life who are losers and they seem to want it that way. It's a compulsive philosophy with them. Winners tell themselves, I'm as bright as the next person. I can do it. Nothing can stop me."

Geraldine Page and Clint Eastwood in Don Siegel's The Beguiled

The film was shot mostly on location near Baton Rouge, Florida. Unfortunately, Universal had difficulties marketing it, and, in consequence, it suffered a very undeserving flop, although it was hailed in France.
The Beguiled is an utter joy of a film with ripe performances, vivid imagery and juicy themes and meanings.

Related reviews:

Clint Eastwood: Tightrope (1984) - An undervalued Clint Eastwood sex killer thriller
Any Which Way You Can (1980) or, More Monkey Business!
A Fistful of Dollars (1964) or, Killer in a Poncho

Watch the trailer here, which seems strangely dated and old hat. - The film is anything but

Budget: Unknown
Box office: Less than 1 mil. $ (US only)
= Flop

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

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Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

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Philip Baker Hall has died

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