# Beguiled, The (1971)

### reviewed by
Shane Burridge

    The Beguiled (1971) 105m.

A chamber piece of Southern Gothic by director Don Siegel. It marks an intersection point between his films with Clint Eastwood and his made-for-television horror movies. It's also interesting to note that even though Westerns dominated Eastwood's screen persona for many years, he and Siegel only ever made one such film together. That aside, some Western motif would usually work its way in to the Siegel-Eastwood productions: in COOGAN'S BLUFF Eastwood wears a cowboy hat; in DIRTY HARRY he is the modern-day equivalent of a marshal determined to clean up his town. THE BEGUILED also has the feel of a Western to it: there are armed horsemen, shootouts, a feeling of lawlessness, and an opening montage of sepia photographs titled in the lettering we associate with Wells Fargo, saloons, and wanted posters (in this film Eastwood is a 'wanted' man in more ways than one).

THE BEGUILED is set during the last days of the Civil War. Eastwood plays against type as a disheveled Union soldier hiding from rebel patrols. He makes his way to the remnants of a girls' school which harbors a few students, two teachers and a servant, all female. The severity of his wounds confine Eastwood to a bed and crutches for practically the entire film; despite this he tries to exercise some control over his environment. Eastwood is obliging, assured, and laconic, as we would expect him to be, but none of his screen adversaries to date could have prepared him for the trouble he has in store. The school is a powderkeg of repression: he attracts the interest of a woman with an incestuous past, a sexually active teen flirt, a 12-year old with an irrational crush, and an inexperienced young woman who yearns for true love. Crippled by his injuries and unable to leave the school, Eastwood begins playing one off against the other, delivering all sorts of false promises. We're used to Eastwood playing a hero, so we accept his casual words and silky delivery without really questioning it. He is, after all, a wounded enemy soldier doing what he can to stay alive. But soon it becomes apparent that we don't know if Eastwood is capable of ever speaking the truth, even with the most incidental of remarks.

Despite the obvious sexual politicking going on in the film I don't see Eastwood's character as being misogynistic so much as opportunistic. He turns brutish only after he gets drunk one time, and then becomes apologetic soon after. By this time, however, we've become so accustomed to his convincing 'sincerity' that it's too late for him to earn any further credibility with either us or the rest of the characters in the film. The story's ending isn't exactly problematic - it's almost a foregone conclusion - but while we don't feel sorry for what happens to Eastwood, we don't feel satisfied either. It's this ambivalence, and the fact that Eastwood doesn't play an action hero, that caused cinema audiences to pass this by upon first release. Siegel's direction and Bruce Surtees' lighting (diffused and pretty outside, unobtrusive and dim inside) make this look like a Hammer horror movie - that's probably to prepare you for one scene, late in the film, that will make your toes curl. I like to imagine the odd goings-on in this house taking place just down the road apiece from an oblivious Scarlett O'Hara who is meanwhile preoccupied with her own romantic problems. Maybe she should have dropped in on Eastwood, too.

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