Twenty years before Kathy Bates was swinging an ax at James Caan, Clint Eastwood braved the wrath of sexually overheated teachers and students at a Confederate girls’ school in The Beguiled.
Eastwood plays a Yankee soldier who lands wounded near the school’s gate. The girls take him in with the intention of handing him over to Confederate soldiers, but he manages to charm the bloomers off of them. Ahem.
Eastwood eventually gets his comeuppance, but not before he unleashes a flurry of pheromones. This film is pure smut of the variety usually relegated to romance novels. It transfixed me when I was 11, so I watched it again last night to see what had held my interest.
The first 15 minutes covers pedophilia, incest and rape. As the story unfolds, it shows two girls kissing. Granted, this was in a dream sequence – probably the only way to get it past the censors in 1971. I’m amazed it made it past my mother, who allowed me to watch this astonishingly cheesy libido fest. She was probably too stunned to send me to bed.
I think I might have enjoyed it almost as much the second time around. But don’t tell anyone.
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My mother WOULDN’T let me watch me at the time (even though I told her it was Civil War history and very educational…). Thanks for reminding me about it — I’ve slipped it discreetly into my Netflix queue.
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