The Beguiled

Dir:  Don Siegel - 1970

"If this war goes on much longer, I'll forget I ever was a woman..."


1970's The Beguiled, the first financial flop of Eastwood's career, also heralded his first important step in steering himself away from the laconic, tough action-adventure films that had made him a major success.   A peculiar though riveting hybrid of art-house movie, western and gothic melodrama, The Beguiled is perhaps more daring, startling and uncharacteristic a piece than Eastwood or Siegel would ever attempt again.   Universal studios, baffled as to how to market the film, mis-sold it as an action movie; audiences, baffled as to how to approach it, stayed away.

A sense of confidence, audacity and extreme care is evident right from the opening credits:  a doleful drum sounds over a series of authentic civil war photographs, complete with eerie sound effects.   We then move to a forest.   Colour literally bleeds into the picture and we meet a small girl, Amy, gathering mushrooms in what appears to be a magical neverland, a world away from the grim scenes of conflict that we have just witnessed.   Hell is not far away though; coming across the bloody leg of wounded Union soldier Corporate John McBurney, Amy is forced to hide from oncoming soldiers with the weakened McBurney.    He forces her to kiss him while the soldiers pass on, a sure sign that the picture is already taking us into dark and troubling territory.  

The narrative properly begins when McBurney makes it back to the Seminary from which she has come, run by the formidable Miss Martha Farnsworth and her delicate assistant,.Edwina Dabney.  The place has a run-down, decaying quality, much like the women living within it.   The very few pupils who remain include the  voluptuous siren Carol and the Union-despising Doris, along with Amy herself.   What follows is as much a portrait of masculinity in crisis as it is femininity in crisis, and a subtle battle of wills develops between the beleaguered women and their handsome and manipulative male guest.  Not overkeen on being handed over to the South as a prisoner of war, the cunning, deceitful McBurney deploys all the masculine weapons at his disposal (his charm, his beauty and finally his superior physical strength and vengeful wrath) in order to prolong a comfortable stay at the Farnsworth Seminary.

The women remain the real focus of The Beguiled.   They first appear to us almost as the living dead, going through the deadened routines of french and etiquette classes, routines which have long since ceased to have any meaning in their lives.   The war has stripped them of all femininity and purpose: "If this war goes on much longer, I'll forget I ever was a woman" intones the frail voiceover of Miss Martha early on.   The sudden masculine presence of McBurney has a dangerous effect on these women, who begin to experience harrowing feminine emotions that have long been buried.   McBurney, like all the soldiers roaming around on the outside, is in one sense "the enemy", representing a sexual as well as a physical threat.  Yet he is the enemy with a beautiful face and a lithe body (Eastwood was never more beautiful than in this picture) and they are unable to resist his devious, rough-hewn charm.   For much of the middle third of The Beguiled, McBurney is seen in a white night gown which once belonged to Martha's brother, giving him an angelic appearance, as if he has come to bring divine salvation to the women.    But McBurney's over-confidence is also his undoing, and he finds himself at the mercy of the women, having made the fatal mistake of going to the bedroom of the wrong woman....

The Beguiled is put together with an expert's eye for mood and detail.   Chilly feminine voiceovers are used sparingly but effectively.   Dream sequences are boldly incorporated into the centre of the film, the hinge at which the more leisurely first half gives way to the far more harrowing second.   Bruce Surtees's sepia-tinged cinematography perfectly suggests a series of old photographs that have come to life.   Lalo Schifrin's thoughtful score, incorporating ghostly organs and flutes, maintains the sense of dread and unease.   The performances from the whole cast are spot on, with Eastwood coming over particularly well in an uncharacteristically unphysical part.   Geraldine Page and Elizabeth Hartman provide solid support as the strong-willed Martha and the fragile Edwina respectively.   At an hour and forty minutes, the film is perfectly paced and is not a minute longer than it needs to be.

As a dark, claustrophobic and increasingly unsettling portrait of sexually confident man becoming unravelled by the dangerous emotions of a powerful female foil, The Beguiled would dovetail perfectly into Eastwood's next movie, his directorial debut, Play Misty For Me.