Wonderful Westerns: ‘The Beguiled’ (1971)
Back in my High Plains Drifter article I had cited that weren’t that many horror/Western films. Well, that’s not particularly true — there just aren’t many good ones. Depending on what your definitions of Western and horror are, there are others that could count. For example, Tremors (1990) could be counted as a horror/Western, given that it takes place in an almost ghosttown in the desert, and features a lot of gunplay. Today’s topic is… not about giant worms (sad I know), but about the horrors of humans themselves.
The Beguiled (1971) is the third collaboration between Clint Eastwood and director Don Siegel, and don’t let the poster fool you, this is not a shoot ’em up action film. Eastwood does hold a gun in the film at one point, but there’s no big shootout where at the end he asks a guy to “make his day” or if the guy feels lucky. No, this movie is a Southern Gothic thriller that is straight up chilling. In a lot of ways, it’s kind of Hitchcockian.
The plot: In the closing years of the American Civil War, a severely injured Union soldier finds himself in the care of an all-girl boarding school in the Louisiana swamps after being discovered near death. While there, he begins to charm a lot of the girls so that he doesn’t get turned over to the Confederate soldiers, but the film begins to show that not everything is as it seems.
The movie also shares a lot of similarities with another film that came out around the time, Clint Eastwood’s first directorial film Play Misty for Me (1971), a film in which a character played by Eastwood is threatened by a girl in some way. Also, both films feature Eastwood in a role unlike his other macho characters. In this particular movie, Eastwood is basically bedridden throughout the entirety of the film.
On the surface, one might see The Beguiled as a (if you’ll pardon my crude vernacular) “bitches be crazy, yo” movie. Because no, this movie doesn’t give women the best portrayal in the world. but then again, no one is given a good portrayal. Mr. Siegel didn’t exactly make his movies about the “sunshine and lollipops” parts of life, from his grim and bleak portrait of World War II in Hell is for Heroes (1962) to his less-than-romanticized version of cops and robbers in Dirty Harry (1971). And in this film, the charming and “honorable” soldier played by Eastwood may not be as great as he says he is. Keep the film’s title in mind while watching it.
But what about the girls? Well, they live in a very secluded area and have a very sheltered life. Almost every girls gets somewhat charmed by the stranger, but each holds some sort of resistance towards him in one way or another as the film draws closer to the end. Throughout the film we also get hints of certain demons in their past that may have traumatized them and make them draw closer to losing their sanity.
Make no mistake, people, no one is safe in this movie. Siegel does not pull punches and that’s why the film works for me. Add in some great and chilling performances from the cast — especially from Geraldine Page and Elizabeth Hartman — the creepy Southern Gothic atmosphere, and a tight and wonderful script, you’ve got a top-notch film.
This Halloween, if you’re looking for something a little different in your horror-movie marathon, I recommend The Beguiled.
