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MOVIE OF THE DAY: THE BEGUILED

post #1 of 27
9/27/10 at 6:51pm
Thread Starter 
Finally brought my number one obsession over here.

http://chud.com/articles/articles/25...LED/Page1.html
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post #2 of 27
9/27/10 at 7:14pm
I feel bad for this article today. I will try to rewatch tonight in your overshadowed honor and post like mad in here.
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post #3 of 27
9/27/10 at 7:18pm
I got this in a Universal Collection dvd set that also had Play Misty For Me, and The Eiger Sanction.

I had never seen it before, but it's a really underrated film and is the first and only time that Clint's ever played a bad guy. I'm surprised that more people don't talk about it. Although come to think of it, it probably has to do with the really dark subject matter. Nevertheless it's a really great film and deserves to be seen by more people.
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post #4 of 27
9/27/10 at 7:18pm
Thread Starter 
The article didn't turn out as well as I hoped, so it may be for the best.
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post #5 of 27
9/27/10 at 9:11pm
Seemed dandy enough to me. Half the fun of the MOD is the film choice anyway, and you've probably got the most consistently interesting MOD picks, Rappe. Skol.
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post #6 of 27
9/27/10 at 9:18pm
I don't know I thought it was a pretty good write-up.

Watched this a few weeks ago without knowing much about it and was surprised by how weird, dark, and sexually charged it was. I did not see the three-way coming at all.

I liked the movie a lot but the narration during the film bothered me, it just seemed unnecessary in most instances.

Quote:
No one is especially sympathetic in this (except maybe the turtle and the school's pet crow), and everyone gets a turn being victim or villain
Wha? The little girl is totally right at the end of the movie. Eastwood fucking destroys that turtle, he deserves what he got.
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post #7 of 27
9/27/10 at 9:24pm
Great timing...I just DVR'd this a week ago. Nice write-up!
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post #8 of 27
9/27/10 at 11:30pm
I'd never even heard of this film before reading the chapter on it in Siegel's autobio and then sought it out because it just sounded so fucked up (same with "Riot on Cell Block 11," which he seemed to also consider one of his best). It's weird to think about this one in concert with "Dirty Harry" because of all the weird sexual shit in that. Seems like Scorpio WISHES he was McBurney - but can't help but rape and bury alive his underage girl.

Great MOD.
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post #9 of 27
9/28/10 at 2:58am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tim Long View Post

Wha? The little girl is totally right at the end of the movie. Eastwood fucking destroys that turtle, he deserves what he got.
Well, I was trying to avoid spilling the end in the piece -- but I would totally agree he deserves it for killing poor Randolph. I was equally mad at Amy for putting her turtle in a dangerous position. When a guy is waving a pistol and threatening rape, don't run up to him with a turtle....

I also agree about the narration, but it's so hilariously bad that I almost like it again.
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post #10 of 27
9/28/10 at 2:59am
I love this movie more than most people.

What makes it even more curious is that Don Siegel slid so easily out of the Dirty Harry mode for it.
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post #11 of 27
9/28/10 at 3:22am
Thread Starter 
Well, I'm glad everyone dug it! I always wince the morning after an all night piece. But someone I'd been pestering to watch "The Beguiled" for years actually emailed me and said "I want to watch this now!" so it must have been an intense description.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Smilin' Jack Ruby View Post
I'd never even heard of this film before reading the chapter on it in Siegel's autobio and then sought it out because it just sounded so fucked up (same with "Riot on Cell Block 11," which he seemed to also consider one of his best). It's weird to think about this one in concert with "Dirty Harry" because of all the weird sexual shit in that. Seems like Scorpio WISHES he was McBurney - but can't help but rape and bury alive his underage girl.

Great MOD.
It's an incredibly weird contrast with "Dirty Harry" although Harry taking time out to enjoy a 3-way in his binoculars feels like a creepy nod to it!

I've constantly wondered about the Siegel-Eastwood relationship. There's not a doubt in my mind it was the straightest friendship in cinema. But between "Coogan's Bluff", "The Beguiled" and the nude scene / attempted shower rape in "Escape From Alcatraz", it's like Siegel was constantly telling (or agreeing with) Clint he had it going on. "Two Mules for Sister Sara" is like the most innocent of the bunch.

It was probably Siegel reflecting Eastwood's own sexual confidence -- it takes a cocky man to have a teenager openly proposition his grizzled self in "Pale Rider."
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post #12 of 27
9/29/10 at 8:20pm
I watched this last night thanks to your MOD write up. I was suitably impressed by the whole shebang. I liked the voice over stuff actually. It was an interesting use of the technique that really does set itself apart from say, the way Scorsese uses voice over in some of his films. I really like the opening shots of the little girl in the forrest- very Grimm's Fairy Tales. And the flash cuts of Clint perpetrating attrocities while spinning his actions in his favor were swell. I've never seen anything like this in Clints filmography. Last thing: the opening and closing song sung by Eastwood is CREEPY! It's almost like his final song over the credits in Gran Torino is a shout out to this little gem. "Almost" shit, it almost definitely IS. Great, great, great!
Thanks for getting me to watch this! Great article!
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post #13 of 27
9/29/10 at 9:15pm
I'm blanking on which exec it was, but there's some bit in Siegel's auto-bio where he proudly recounts a story about a woman in a studio meeting giving him notes about a rape scene in something he was working on saying that it wasn't realistic. Siegel responded by leaping across the table and making as if to strangle her. Something just totally crazy and over the line, which terrified her. And it was somebody who became a name producer - a Kathleen Kennedy or Gale Anne Hurd or Dawn Steel - but there was Siegel writing about how he "showed her!"

I may be misquoting the incident a bit, but even back with the interrogation scene of Angie Dickinson in "The Killers," Siegel seemed to come from a certain school in how women were presented in his flicks which might be why he had no idea what he was doing with "Jinxed" and killed his career dead.
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post #14 of 27
9/29/10 at 9:31pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Judson View Post
I watched this last night thanks to your MOD write up. I was suitably impressed by the whole shebang. I liked the voice over stuff actually. It was an interesting use of the technique that really does set itself apart from say, the way Scorsese uses voice over in some of his films. I really like the opening shots of the little girl in the forrest- very Grimm's Fairy Tales. And the flash cuts of Clint perpetrating attrocities while spinning his actions in his favor were swell. I've never seen anything like this in Clints filmography. Last thing: the opening and closing song sung by Eastwood is CREEPY! It's almost like his final song over the credits in Gran Torino is a shout out to this little gem. "Almost" shit, it almost definitely IS. Great, great, great!
Thanks for getting me to watch this! Great article!

Awesome! Thank you -- and I'm so glad you liked it.

I was afraid I came off too breathy and fangirlish with the piece, and did a disservice to such a trippy film. But if lures anyone in, I'm happy, so who cares!

I too love the scene where he tells Martha he's a Quaker medic, and then it flashes to what he really did in the battle. He's a complete misanthrope. Only in the 1970s could you get away with a character like that.

I've tried to find the book this is based on without much success -- apparently it's quite different (happy ending, even) and Siegel and Eastwood really upped how awful McBurney was. I'm sort of curious how this story could be tame....
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post #15 of 27
9/29/10 at 9:36pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Smilin' Jack Ruby View Post
I'm blanking on which exec it was, but there's some bit in Siegel's auto-bio where he proudly recounts a story about a woman in a studio meeting giving him notes about a rape scene in something he was working on saying that it wasn't realistic. Siegel responded by leaping across the table and making as if to strangle her. Something just totally crazy and over the line, which terrified her. And it was somebody who became a name producer - a Kathleen Kennedy or Gale Anne Hurd or Dawn Steel - but there was Siegel writing about how he "showed her!"

I may be misquoting the incident a bit, but even back with the interrogation scene of Angie Dickinson in "The Killers," Siegel seemed to come from a certain school in how women were presented in his flicks which might be why he had no idea what he was doing with "Jinxed" and killed his career dead.
I'm going to have to track down the autobiography...

I've always excused Siegel as coming from that hardboiled noir school -- less of a Madonna/Whore thing than Frank Miller, but still there. It works for the genres he favored, but it's definitely not nuanced.

I guess Eastwood had enough hippy in him to temper it a little bit, though Siegel is all over "Play Misty For Me"

Man, I should see Jinxed one of these days.
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post #16 of 27
9/29/10 at 9:40pm
Still one of the weirdest movies I ever saw as a young teen while flipping channels in the afternoon. The Beguiled, The Hotel New Hampshire and Phase IV are at the top of this personal category.

My sister got the Clint Eastwood box-set for her birthday and I was really disapointed that this film wasn't in it because she's never seen it and I know she'd get a real kick out of seeing Eastwood perving those young girls.
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post #17 of 27
9/29/10 at 10:24pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Alexor View Post
Still one of the weirdest movies I ever saw as a young teen while flipping channels in the afternoon. The Beguiled, The Hotel New Hampshire and Phase IV are at the top of this personal category.

My sister got the Clint Eastwood box-set for her birthday and I was really disapointed that this film wasn't in it because she's never seen it and I know she'd get a real kick out of seeing Eastwood perving those young girls.
Buy her this next time:

http://www.amazon.com/Eastwood-Ameri...5809763&sr=1-7

It's often on Netflix Instant Watch.

Color me jealous, no one bought me that box set for my birthday. I didn't even get one to review, but that's a whiny story for another time.
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post #18 of 27
9/29/10 at 10:53pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elisabeth Rappe View Post
Buy her this next time:

http://www.amazon.com/Eastwood-Ameri...5809763&sr=1-7

It's often on Netflix Instant Watch.

Color me jealous, no one bought me that box set for my birthday. I didn't even get one to review, but that's a whiny story for another time.
Nice! None of those are in the box set! I'll get it for her for Christmas.
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post #19 of 27
9/29/10 at 11:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elisabeth Rappe View Post
I'm going to have to track down the autobiography...
If you wander around online, it's all expensive and out-of-print with copies occasionally going for $50. The Samuel French bookstore on Sunset has a stack and a half of them in their "deep discount" room for something like $7.99 a piece so I just stop by there any time I need to get anybody a birthday present.

It's a great book. The Charles Bronson stuff on "Telefon" is cool, but the chapters on "Charley Varrick" and "The Shootist" are worth the piece of admission alone.
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post #20 of 27
9/29/10 at 11:38pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Smilin' Jack Ruby View Post
If you wander around online, it's all expensive and out-of-print with copies occasionally going for $50. The Samuel French bookstore on Sunset has a stack and a half of them in their "deep discount" room for something like $7.99 a piece so I just stop by there any time I need to get anybody a birthday present.

It's a great book. The Charles Bronson stuff on "Telefon" is cool, but the chapters on "Charley Varrick" and "The Shootist" are worth the piece of admission alone.
What's the title of the book?
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post #21 of 27
9/29/10 at 11:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Alexor View Post
What's the title of the book?
"A Siegel Film." But fuck this. I'll see if they have anymore tomorrow and just mail them to people in this thread who want one. It's like "From Cowboy to Mogul to Monster: The Neverending Story of Film Pioneer Mark Damon" by Mark Damon. One of those Hollywood auto-bios that anybody who likes film will find ridiculously entertaining. I should've bought the whole stack years ago.

And hell, I'm in Montreal at the end of next week so I could mail yours LOCAL. #save$$$itsarecession
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post #22 of 27
9/29/10 at 11:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Smilin' Jack Ruby View Post
"A Siegel Film." But fuck this. I'll see if they have anymore tomorrow and just mail them to people in this thread who want one. It's like "From Cowboy to Mogul to Monster: The Neverending Story of Film Pioneer Mark Damon" by Mark Damon. One of those Hollywood auto-bios that anybody who likes film will find ridiculously entertaining. I should've bought the whole stack years ago.

And hell, I'm in Montreal at the end of next week so I could mail yours LOCAL. #save$$$itsarecession
I'll pay whatever your cost, I'd love to get this!
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post #23 of 27
9/30/10 at 6:36pm
Thread Starter 
Same here!
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post #24 of 27
10/1/10 at 3:47pm
There were only two copies left - both buried under two tons of remaindered Hume Cronyn autobios. DM me your addresses and I'll mail.
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post #25 of 27
10/25/10 at 12:44pm
I finally got around to watching this last night. What a fantastic movie from start to finish. I loved how little glances or quick lines of dialog conveyed huge amounts of character information. Brilliant film.
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post #26 of 27
10/25/10 at 5:38pm
Thread Starter 
I'm glad you liked it! It warms the cold cockles of my heart to see people talking about this movie. Good Halloween viewing too.
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post #27 of 27
10/27/10 at 11:11am
I haven't thought about this movie in years, but this is one that I'll have to revisit. I saw this a dozen times on cable back in the 80's, but I have no memory of some of the scenes you've mentioned. It must have been heavily edited for prime time TV.
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