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The Beguiled
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The Beguiled is a 1971 drama film directed by Don Siegel. It was based on the 1966 Southern Gothic novel written by Thomas Cullinan, originally titled A Painted Devil, and the script was written by Albert Maltz.
Contents
- 1 Plot
- 2 Cast
- 3 Trivia
- 4 External links
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Plot
During the American Civil War, injured Yankee soldier John McBurney is rescued on the verge of death by a teenage girl from an all-girl boarding school in Louisiana. At first the all-female staff and pupils are scared, but as John starts to recover, he charms them one by one and the sexually repressed atmosphere becomes filled with jealousy and deceit.
After rejecting the headmistress for a younger girl, McBurney gets his comeuppance in the form of some painful
Freudian symbolism — his infected leg is amputated. He reforms and announces his intention to marry one of the teachers, but it is too late; he has alienated the youngest girl, the one who first found him, by killing her pet turtle after throwing it aside in anger. In response, she picks mushrooms that the headmistress and girls use to poison him.
Spoilers end here.
Cast
Trivia
- Made right before Dirty Harry, this was a bold early attempt by Eastwood to play against type. It was not a hit, likely due to uncertainty on Universal's part concerning how to market it, eventually leading them to advertise the film as a hothouse melodrama: “One man...seven women...in a strange house!" "His love... or his life..."
- Eastwood had recently signed a long-term contract with Universal but became angry with the studio because he felt that they botched its release. This eventually led to him leaving the studio in 1975 after the release of The Eiger Sanction, which he directed as well as starred in. He has yet to work with Universal since.
