During the Civil War an injured corporal , Clint Eastwood , is taken by the women of a girls' school to recuperate himself . As the Southern school is run by a housekeeper , Geraldine Page , and there appears a teacher : Elizabeth Hartman and six students and an African-American servant . The soldier becomes the catalyst for twisted situations with incidents full of hatred and jealousy among its inhabitants . He arranges to seduce both , a pupil -Jo Ann Harris- and a teacher -Elizabeth Hartman , but things go wrong.

Offbeat , rare and well paced psychological melodrama by the great team formed by Eastwood and Siegel , though disappointed the spectators faithful to his ordinary action films . Maybe the stranger , yet spellbinding combination of two genius -Clint and Donald- ever made , being based on the 1966 novel , "The Painted Devil" by Thomas P. Cullinan . The flick soon develops into a kind of full blood drama , smouldering with intrigue , suspense , tragic events and suppressed passions ; and all of them lead to an unpredictable and startling conclusion . Clint gives a nice acting as a squinty-eyed soldier who arrives in a seminary for young ladies and who soon reveals his opportunist nature . Excellent interpretation from Geraldine Page as zealous ruler , she is a fading Southern woman , brooding over the past , and Elizabeth Hartman as a naive South belle who falls for Eastwood .

Atmospheric and attractive musical score by Lalo Schifrin , including song sung by Clint Eastwood himself . Colorful and evocative cinematography by Bruce Surtees . This daring change of pace for director Donald Siegel was compellingly and methodically made . Being an unusual Donald fare , but for patient audiences a rewarding , rich movie and Siegel's favorite of all his movies . However , being commercially a failure because Universal Studios released it with advertisements that suggested it was an action movie . Siegel directed good films of all kinds of genres as Invasion of body snatchers , Madigan , Charley Varrick , The Shootist , Ríot in cell Block 11 , Flaming star , Big steal , Black Windmill , Private hell , Rough cut , and a lot of movies starred by Eastwood as Escape from Alcatraz , Two mules for Sister Sarah , Coogan's bluff and Dirty Harry

This film has an odd and very difficult to believe plot. It's set during the Civil War. Clint Eastwood plays a Yankee soldier who is injured badly. A young girl from a nearby girls school comes upon him and brings him back to the school to be treated. Now here's the crazy part, the headmistress does NOT turn him in--fearing that he's quickly die in a prisoner of war camp. After Eastwood starts to recover, he begins to manipulate the ladies. He compliments them and encourages them to indulge their sexual fantasies about him, as in this film Eastwood to women is like cheese to a box of hungry mice! What will happen next? Tune in and see...though considering how silly the plot is, I wouldn't rush to do this!

Apparently Don Siegel loved this film and thought it was the best of his collaboration with Eastwood. While I do appreciate that it's different and not a standard violent film, it just came off as ridiculous. Eastwood is not THAT sexy and the whole plot, when you think about it, just doesn't make sense. Believe me, it only gets weirder and sillier as the film progresses.

By the way, you may recognize young Pamelyn Ferdin, as she was a frequent guest star on various TV shows of the day. Aside from playing Felix's daughter on "The Odd Couple", she also gained some fame as a voice actress--providing the voice for Lucy Van Pelt in the Charlie Brown films (such as in "A Boy Named Charlie Brown") and Fern on the original "Charlotte's Web". I wonder whatever happened to her?

The Beguiled may have been the closest Clint Eastwood got to the horror genre in his career. In fact I think if he and director Don Siegal had played those up a little more the film would have been better for it.

As it is Clint may think he's landed in a soft spot so he can opt out of the Civil War, but he is a Union soldier wounded and found by one of the girls at Geraldine Page's finishing schools and brought there. They're not fond of Yankees in that area of Mississippi, but the women there do have tender hearts.

They also have unfulfilled sexual desires and this was in a day where those sort of things just weren't talked about in polite company. Still they're hearth fires banked down low as was said in The Philadelphia Story and Clint's just the guy to bring them to a fever pitch. At least with those old enough to have libidos.

Which include Page, Elizabeth Hartman, and coquette JoAnn Harris. In fact Harris has the most interesting part in the film. She was one beautiful and sexy player, I'm surprised she did not have more of a career.

In the end of course the girls aren't willing to share Eastwood and after one climatic night literally, Page takes some interesting vengeance out on him. Or did she? You have to watch the film to see what I mean.

The Beguiled is an interesting work that doesn't quite come off, but still the loyal fans of Clint Eastwood will appreciate it.