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As old as Boccaccio, the war within the war. A descending crane through Spanish moss locates the Brothers Grimm forest in 19th-century Louisiana, the pigtailed moppet (Pamelyn Ferdin) searches for mushrooms and stumbles upon the Union soldier (Clint Eastwood) bleeding in the bushes. At the Seminary for Young Ladies the headmistress (Geraldine Page) reigns primly and the schoolmarm (Elizabeth Hartman) teaches etiquette, the blue-belly is boarded up in the music room. "I surrender to the prettiest Confederates..." A flattering impostor, the wounded intruder quickly steadies himself and turns his cunning on the fears and desires of this matriarchal universe, an atmosphere so heavy with repressed lust that even the skeptical slave (Mae Mercer) can't help doting over his stripped torso. Abrupt flashback inserts, feverish POV spirals, and floating inner thoughts slash the lyrical antebellum canvas. Survival is a matter laid out before him as two unlocked doors in the corridor, then there's the eager filly in the attic (Jo Ann Harris). "You must got rooster blood in you!" The bursting corset and the genteel patch by the battlefield, Don Siegel one year ahead of Bergman (Cries and Whispers). The interrogation of macho guile has the star at the height of his sensuality in a stark storybook analysis: He kisses Little Red Riding Hood and invokes Sleeping Beauty, at the end Prince Charming is but a twisted-mouthed ogre. The broken-winged crow and the turtle in the shoebox are part of the pulpy menagerie ("Did the ant kill the caterpillar?"), the rich phantasmagoria of an action director contemplating the coven of women's lib. (Surely the macabre Pietà with Page and Hartman was in the back of De Palma's mind when casting Carrie.) "Why the hell didn't you just castrate me?" Eastwood inherits the inquiry with Play Misty for Me. Cinematography by Bruce Surtees. With Darleen Carr, Melody Thomas Scott, Peggy Drier, Pattye Mattick, Charlie Briggs, and Matt Clark.
--- Fernando F. Croce |