Les Proies

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

I watched this at home on a DVD set of 7 Clint Eastwood movies from my public library. Seeing this was especially timely because 2017 saw the remake of this movie. Pretty much the same story in each, with minor character changes, with pretty much the same ending.

Having seen both of them within a month I can say this 1971 version is clearly the more interesting movie. Part of that is Eastwood as the injured Union soldier taken in by the ladies and girls of a school in plantation Louisiana. We've seen him in so many action roles we sometimes forget what a good actor he is.

The outdoor scenes were filmed south of Baton Rouge at Belle Helene plantation in Geismar, Louisiana, built in the 1840s. In more recent times, the 1990s, the plantation was bought by Shell Chemical Company and restored. Most interior scenes were filmed on a set in California.

Clint Eastwood is the injured Union soldier, John McBurney, a duplicitous man. By use of brief flashbacks we see that he lies to the ladies about his past. He is a coward and wants to heal and stay at the school as a handyman until the Civil War is over. He ends up leading most of the ladies and older girls on, pretending he loves each one.

Geraldine Page is really good as the school mistress, Martha. As well as Elizabeth Hartman who was the teacher, Edwina. (Tragically Hartman suffered from depression and killed herself not many years later by jumping off a building.) As well as Jo Ann Harris, about 20 during filming, as 17-yr-old vixen Carol, aggressively pursuing McBurney's affections.

This original version of the story is much more sinister and works better than the remake, but the ending is very similar in each.

By no means a typical Clint Eastwood movie this odd bordering on weird Civil War drama is worth viewing for the interesting collection of actresses assembled and its rather schizophrenic air of suppressed sexual hysteria. A definite mood piece that takes it's time getting were it going but not without interest or merit. Elizabeth Hartman didn't make many films but always had a distinctive presence, her intensity adds quite a bit to the overall tenor of this. Clint and the great Geraldine Page are an fascinating match although they apparently didn't hit it off too well behind the scenes leading to Miss Page's rather caustic quote "Yes I have acted with Clint Eastwood. Or rather, I have acted opposite Clint Eastwood."

Clint Eastwood in a soap opera? You bet! Gothic melodrama is what a real critic would most likely call it. Wounded Yankee soldier Eastwood is rescued from the field by several southern school girls. He finds himself in an isolated all girls school surrounded by young ladies from about 10 years old up to the middle aged school mistress. Kinky! Crushes and jealousy kick in as Eastwood attempts to get as much mileage out of his situation as he can. He's a nasty man, but these are some nasty girls. I remember when this came out at the drive-in. No one really knew what to make of it. A few months later "Dirty Harry" was released and this out of step Clint Eastwood movie just disappeared. That's a shame. It's something really different. Directed by Eastwood's longtime collaborater Don Segal, the film has a highly stylized look and feel to it. It's just plain creepy and that feeling never lets up. There are no good guys or bad guys, just nasty people trying to take advantage of other nasty people who in turn grow nastier and nastier as the movie progresses. It doesn't cover all the ground the book did. (I read it during a tour of jury duty some years ago.) But it moves at a good pace and it's sometimes complicated plot stays reasonable easy to follow. (The book was very hard to keep straight!) Creepy and nasty and very different. Well worth a look, especially by Eastwood fans.

This Don Siegel/Clint Eastwood strange and hypnotic drama was left by the wayside in 1971 and what a pity. A fascinating character study with some great women for Squint to deal with. Geraldine Page was one of our supreme actresses and she's perfectly cast. Young Jo Ann Harris is a flirty minx, and Elizabeth Hartman (who died too young) is undeniably repressed.

A 7 out of 10. Best performance = C. Eastwood. Released the same year as DIRTY HARRY, this did no business, beside getting some good reviews. Seek this out unless you're only into "Explosion" films. Very subtle and frightening, this piece will stick with you.