A Returning Visitor: Comparing the Two Versions of The Beguiled | Features

I was initially drawn into the movie not because of its leading man, a pre-grizzled Clint Eastwood whose “Dirty Harry” later that same year and with the same director (Don Siegel) would take him to the next level as an action hero, but because of the ethereal presence of Elizabeth Hartman, an actress that I was crazy about after seeing her in two very diverse roles in “A Patch of Blue” and “You’re a Big Boy Now.” Her teacher, Edwina (played by Kirsten Dunst in the Coppola version), is the most relatable and sympathetic character on screen and has the most “normal” romantic relationship with the film’s only male character. But once I caught wind of the premise of “The Beguiled”—females in various states of arousal and jealousy over the presence of the handsome male prisoner in their midst—me and my incubating libido couldn’t stop watching.   

Years had gone by since I thought about my first and only encounter with this overheated if highly watchable potboiler. But the arrival of a new “Beguiled” gave me permission to revisit it on DVD. Surprisingly, I found myself riveted by the opening credits, which I am sure I missed the first go-round: sepia-toned photos of soldiers in violent combat are shown while a military drumbeat is heard on the soundtrack. Those images dissolve and we see a barefoot young girl (Pamelyn Ferdin, a ubiquitous child actress at that time) with a basket slung on her arm, looking for all the world like Little Red Riding Hood as she plucks mushrooms along the way through the forest. Her Big Bad Wolf shows up soon enough in the form of Eastwood’s Union soldier, swooning from loss of blood. We learn he is Corp. John McBurney. He asks his savior, Amy, how old she is. “Twelve. Thirteen in September.” Replies McBurney, “Old enough for kisses,” and he helps himself to her lips.

Whoa, I did not see that coming. Needless to say, such underage liberties do not exist in Coppola’s opening scene, where Colin Farrell’s McBurney bonds with Oona Laurence’s Amy—whose brother died in battle—in a more sibling-like fashion. He isn’t initially in the same league as Eastwood’s wounded warrior when it comes to being a master manipulator, either. It takes him time to figure out each female’s soft spot to guarantee his safety and usefulness.

But what the 1971 intro establishes—partly thanks to the jittery rat-tat-tats provided by Lalo Schifrin (creator of the “Mission: Impossible” theme) and the gun-powder-hazy visuals amid Spanish moss by ace cinematographer Bruce Surtees—is a world in chaos, where normal societal rules don’t necessarily apply. With cannon fire within earshot, the girls go through the motions of learning French and proper manners. When Amy finally drags the half-dead McBurney to the school, one of the older students fears the enemy soldier might “rape every one of us.” That threat will be alluded to again in the form of other potential male attackers who pass by outside the school’s gates and come knocking on the door in the dark. Meanwhile, spinsterish head mistress Martha (Geraldine Page) is heard thinking as she gazes upon the wounded man, “If this war goes on much longer, I’ll forget I was a woman.”

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