In a morbid and unforgiving time a Yankee Soldier finds himself half dead in a forest. Bound for death, if not for the circumstance of a little girl. Who upon finding the man brings him back to her home. A large Georgian style house turned into an all-girls school for those wayward ladies who have no home.
The women and girls of the school do their best to keep Clint Eastwood alive. All the while debating what to do with him. He's a Union soldier in Confederate territory. All protocol suggest that he should be handed over the Confederacy at once.
But they figure in his immediate condition handing him over to the Confederate Army would mean his immediate death.
It's also made abundantly clear that some of the women fancy Clint Eastwood. Having no significant men in their life and living in an isolated territory. Eastwood notices this early on and uses this tension and romantic confusion to his advantage, playing on their sentimentality.
This inevitably lead to Clint Eastwood's demise as he moves from woman too woman creating jealousy and spite between each other, before causing his own downfall.
It's a real solid character drama. Every character who's interested in Clint Eastwood has their own unique reasons for wanting him. Martha (Geraldine Page) is looking for a companion to replace her brother (and yes it sounds as weird as it is). Edwina (Elizabeth Hartman) is looking for some naive form of true love and ultimately pays the greatest price and Deals out the worst damage. And Carol (Jo Ann Harris) is just looking for sex. She's a young sexually active girl and it's very mysterious. It makes scance that she and Eastwood should end up with each other in certain points.
It's one of those odd moment when you feel sympathetic and disconnected from the character is at the exact same time. You want to wish everybody well overall. They're decent people but their actions and deeds are so deplorable and vulgar that you can't help but lack sympathy for them.
Except for Amy (Pamelyn Ferdin). She's a victim in all of this and ultimately didn't do anything wrong*. In fact she's the most kind-hearted person the whole movie and she suffers depression and personal danger as much as anyone else.
It's a very good movie that was mismanaged by corporate Executives at Universal who produced an incredibly horrible trailer that tried to show the film off as some sort of action extravaganza. And creates this weird sexist vibe to warrant the main characters in the film that's just aren't present in the actual movie. Moral of the story is: ''Don't watch trailers for films. They'll either give away the story or give you incredibly incorrect expectations.''
So I'm usually not squeamish when it comes to special effects and overly brutal executions in movies. I've enjoyed the Hellraiser series and various zombie films throw out the years. But there's something about Clint Eastwood's broken gangrene leg getting cut off that is just so disturbing to me. It's incredibly well shot and executed scene and it made me Flinch multiple times.
*Okay she does pick the poison mushrooms in the end, but only because she was told to do so while in a moment of personal rage at the death of her personal pet. and I don't think a twelve-year-old should be held to such an extreme situation when putting such a horrible position.
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