The Beguiled (1971)

Release date: 1971-01-23
Country: USA
Language: English|French
Director: Don Siegel (as Donald Siegel)
Production Co: The Malpaso Company
Genre: Drama, Thriller, War
Rating: 7.2/10
Length: 1h 45min

Storyline

As the costly American Civil War still rages on, a twelve-year-old student of the forgotten Miss Martha Farnsworth's Seminary for Young Ladies in warm and humid Mississippi stumbles upon a gravely wounded Union soldier, Corporal John McBurney (Clint Eastwood). Taken in to recover from his injuries, McBurney is imprisoned in a small room inside the mansion. However, before long, the seductive and unwanted guest will manage to take advantage of the female inhabitants' wartime-subdued desires. But is McBurney really in control over the situation?

Plot Keywords

leg amputation, american civil war, sexuality, womanizer, seduction, crutches, girls' school, based on novel, threesome, mutilation, fatal attraction, deception, captivity, unrequited love, southern gothic, jealousy, civil war, 1860s, held captive, captive

Short Review

The story may sometimes come off as a ribald soldiers' tale that Siegel ... had been awaiting a sexual revolution to tell; still, his intense, intelligent breakdown of the film's wild outbursts reveals subtleties of love, despair, and shame ...