(Don Siegel, US 1971, 105 min., 35mm)
Clint Eastwood often cites director Don Siegel as one of his major influences. (Eastwood’s final western, Unforgiven, was dedicated to Siegel.) Yet, of the five films they made together, only two could be classified as westerns: Two Mules for Sister Sara and The Beguiled. While the former is more of an adventure-comedy, The Beguiled stands apart in both filmographies. Eastwood plays Corporal John McBurney, an injured Union soldier who happens upon a Mississippi girl’s boarding school, which takes him in with the expectation of healing him before turning him over to Confederate soldiers. From the start, however, McBurney begins to exert his sexual agency over the isolated girls and women, pitting them against each other and working through them with an idea to escape. This psycho-sexual gamesmanship is supported by a haunting score from Argentina-born composer Lalo Schifrin, who uses contemporary instruments to express both the military landscape as well as the inner turmoil of the characters, all in time for Hispanic Heritage Month.