THE BEGUILED
If you would ask me ”Who is the greatest human being who´s ever lived?”, I know who I would answer… hands down! The answer would be “Clint Eastwood”. I´m not joking. When it comes to Clint Eastwood, I never joke. Ever. I´m dead serious. Every boy, guy, or man has at one time watched a Clint Eastwood-movie and wished “Why can´t I be more like him?” If they tell you otherwise, they´re lying! I know I have wished that. I still do. I wish I could squint like him, have a gravelly voice like that and be a lot more stoic in real life. The thing is that I can´t. I´ve tried and I can´t keep my mouth from running. If I tried to act like Eastwood: squinting, raising my eyebrow and quietly mumbling, people would probably think that I had become retarded or something.
But anyway, I think that Eastwood´s managed to build an incredible body of work. One of my earliest movie watching-memories is watching “Dirty Harry” after my mother had fallen asleep. I basically grew up watching his films and I can find something I like about each and every one of them. He´s managed to steer clear of the horror genre, however. He´s flirted with the serial killer genre in movies like “Tightrope” and “Blood Work” but those films are definitely more thriller than horror. However, there is one film in Eastwood´s filmography that stands out. When I saw it in my early teens, I was pretty confused afterwards. Well, I was pretty confused before watching it too, come to think of it. After all, puberty was taking its toll on me. The film I´m talking about is “The Beguiled” and it´s as close as Eastwood´s ever come to make a horror film. It´s quite a bizarre film and I think it´s safe to say that it was ahead of its time. After all, this sucker was made back in 1971! I´m not quite sure what the term “psychosexual” means but I know it has something to do with Freud and he was a pretty weird guy, so I´m gonna use that term about this film. It´s psychosexual! I know that the term has something to do with our sexual drive but I´m too lazy to look it up but let me tell you: there´s a whole lot of sexual drive or libido going on in this movie!
Here´s the deal: During the civil war, injured Yankee soldier, John McBurney (played by Eastwood, who despite fighting in the civil war back in the eighteenth century manages to maintain a hairdo that is suspiciously 1970´s) is rescued on the verge of death by a teenage girl from a southern boarding school. She manages to get him back to the school, and at first the all-female staff and pupils are scared. As he starts to recover, one by one he charms them and the atmosphere becomes filled with jealousy and deceit.
That dirty old bastard! Basically, Eastwood treats the boarding school´s girls like a smorgasboard of females in different ages. Some of these girls are definitely jailbait, but that doesn´t stop a bedridden, horny, Yankee soldier. Anything goes. But wait a minute, this doesn´t sound like an Eastwood movie at all! And it´s directed by the guy who did “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” and the first “Dirty Harry” movie? That´s right, fiends. This makes it all the more bizarre. Imagine the audience wandering into this one back in ´71. Apparently, the movie was marketed as a western so probably the masses were expecting something along the lines of Eastwood´s “Dollar”-films. What they got instead was a creepy-as-hell, Gothic western steeped in repressed sexual tension, where almost nothing happens, with almost no likable characters and a pretty bleak and downbeat ending. It´s a pretty nasty film, actually. There´s a sense of dread and creepiness that runs through the whole film. It never lets up and that is one of the film´s strengths. The opening scene is unforgettable: the girls carry the wounded Eastwood back to the school while we hear Eastwood´s voice on the soundtrack, singing some weird, old funeral hymn. It´s one of my favorite opening scenes ever! It sets the tone for the whole film to come. This is a film that actually manages to be both erotic and perverse at the same time. A warning: you may feel the need to take a shower after viewing this film. I know I did when I saw it the first time, but like I mentioned: puberty was raging, so give me a break!
This proves that while Eastwood is one of the few filmmakers working in Hollywood today that has the guts to make adult films, he did the same thing way back then. This is a very adult film and that´s why I like it. I´m not saying that to brag. I´m not particularly adult. There are many aspects of my life that have something obscenely immature about them, but I think I´m qualified enough to say that this is an adult film (not in the “adult”-way I know you´re thinking of, you pervs!). After all, I have managed to sit through almost all of Ingmar Bergman´s films and actually liked some of them. How´s that for adult, kids? You remember that book that was so popular a couple of years back, “Women are from Venus and men are from Mars”? After watching this movie, it is obvious that the guy who wrote that book didn´t have a clue. I´d rather trust the Clintster when it comes to life lessons and according to him and hard-guy director Don Siegel, you can´t forget about Venus. It´s a god damn battlefield, fiends! There´s a battle of the sexes raging and you better get in the trenches or take cover. What´s it gonna be? I´ve been missing in action in that damn war since the middle of the 90´s so I´m not gonna be able to help yout on that one…
So why did I bring this film up here? It´s not a horror film, is it? Well, it kinda is. It´s creepy enough and if you have the energy and willpower to sit through a film that was made before the nineties (I´m looking at you, Dr. Bonzzo!), you should definitely give this one a chance. I´ll guarantee that it is unlike anything you´ve ever seen. You gotta admire Eastwood´s guts for making the film. Instead of this one he could´ve just made another western along the lines of “Hang ´Em High”. I´m very happy that he didn´t choose that route. When you look back at Eastwood´s career, it´s pretty obvious now that “The Beguiled” was a turning point for him. After this one it seems that he tried to choose more mature films. For instance, that low-key drama where he travels around the United States, listening to sad country songs with his only friend, Clyde the magnificent ape (or orangutan or whatever he is)… Heavy stuff! All kidding aside, he really did make more mature and darker films after this so this actually an important film in American film history. Shortly after this, Eastwood and Siegel did “Dirty Harry” together but if I´m gonna be honest with you (which I always try to be, dear readers), John McBurney is a much more interesting character than the classic Harry Callahan. McBurney is not a nice man. He´s pretty conniving, his moral compass is waaay off center and he seems to be too horny for his own good. You never saw Harry Callahan in a situation like this, even though he was the one who earned the nickname “Dirty”. Hmmm… weird!
Whenever I watch this one, I´m always reminded by Peter Weir´s classic “Picnic at Hanging Rock” (1975). He must´ve watched this one before setting out to make his eerie tale of boarding school girls tangled up in weird shit. So give it a go, fiends! I think you might enjoy this off-beat, creepy, semi-horror tale. It wouldn´t hurt to give it a try. It´s worth seeing for the final scene alone (which I won´t spoil for you here). One thing is for certain, however… that southern hospitality that you keep hearing about is obviously a big bowl of bull!
Until next time: take scare & stay ghoul, fiends!
Thomas
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