The Beguiled (1971) on Netflix
During the Civil War, Amy finds a badly wounded Union soldier, John McBurney, near her Mississippi girls' school. The headmistress, Martha Farnsworth, has him brought inside to heal.
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Trailer
Plot summary
In 1863 Mississippi, Amy, a young student at Martha Farnsworth's seminary for young ladies, comes upon a gravely wounded Union soldier, John McBurney, and helps him into the school's gated grounds. Martha first intends to hand him over to Confederate troops, then decides he should be nursed back to health instead. He is kept locked in the music room and watched. Edwina, the teacher, and Carol, a student, each show an interest in him, and he goes on to win over everyone at the school, among them Hallie, who is enslaved there. His attentions stir rivalry, and the school's stifled atmosphere fills with jealousy and deceit.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Beguiled (1971)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Jeanne Moreau was considered for the domineering headmistress Martha Farnsworth in The Beguiled, but the role went to Geraldine Page. Elizabeth Hartman, Jo Ann Harris, Darlene Carr, Mae Mercer and Pamelyn Ferdin were cast in supporting roles.
SPOILER
Albert Maltz drafted The Beguiled with a happy ending in which Clint Eastwood's soldier and the girl live happily ever after, but disagreements led to an uncredited revision by Claude Traverse and Maltz being credited under a pseudonym. Eastwood and director Don Siegel wanted the book's ending, in which Eastwood's character is killed, for a stronger anti-war statement.- Angry that Universal botched the release of The Beguiled, Clint Eastwood left the studio in 1975 after directing and starring in The Eiger Sanction, and he did not work with Universal again until 2008's Changeling.
- Universal wanted Don Siegel to film The Beguiled on a studio at Disney Studios Ranch, but he preferred the antebellum Ashland-Belle Helene Plantation near Baton Rouge in Ascension Parish, Louisiana, a historic house built in 1841 that was the estate of Duncan Farrar Kenner.
