Movies From the Hat 7 – #7 – Luke’s Pick – The Beguiled (1971)

This is my 3952nd Review

Thanks to Luke of Oracle of Film for this recommendation.

Here are his thoughts on the film.

“Mr. Yankee, there was enough iron in your leg to shoe a horse!” – Hallie

Number of Times Seen – 1 (10 Apr 2018)

Brief Synopsis – During the Civil War, a wounded Union soldier is captured by a group of young women in a boarding school who must decide whether to turn him over to the Confederates or not.

My Take on it – This is an enjoyable film that I wasn’t sure I was going to like.

They are able to take a low level of tension and by raising the level little by little the suspense keeps the viewer on the edge of their seat.

Clint Eastwood is quite good here as a character where we never quite know what his true intentions are as he does all he can in order to escape to freedom despite being incapacitated by his injuries.

He is able to take the kind of action characters we are familiar with his playing and show a deep and sometimes dark character who not only needs to use what little strength he has but also his wits in order to try and stay alive.

The characters are all great because no one is purely good or purely evil and this allows them to constantly change their motives and actions.

This film does a great job of making the characters constantly turn on one another over and over showing how things can go places we never expect.

The storyline stays unpredictable the entire time and it’s so easy to incorrectly guess what direction things will turn as things constantly keep changing as the story moves along.

Bottom Line – Enjoyable film because it keeps raising the level of tension and suspense along the way.  Eastwood is quite good in a role of a man who we never really know what his true motives are. The way that this film makes the characters turn on one another over and over works quite well because it takes us places where we don’t expect to go and can’t predict the path things will take at any point along the way. Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – Don Siegel said that the film was commercially a failure because Universal Studios released it with advertisements that suggested it was an action movie. And the result disappointed the die-hard fans of Clint Eastwood’s usual films. (From IMDB)

Rating – Globe Worthy (8/10)

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