Considered Siegel's most extraordinary film, among the relatively small group who have seen it (despite the box-office power of Clint Eastwood), and called by Siegel in 1972 “the best film I have ever done, and possibly the best I will ever do,” The Beguiled is a measured but kinky story set in the Civil War period, mixing Southern Gothic with black humor to create a haunting parable of innocence, evil, and the power of sexual repression. Clint Eastwood plays a Union soldier recovering from his wounds in a Southern ladies' seminary, where Geraldine Page is headmistress and Elizabeth Hartman a young teacher. When sexual bounds are overstepped - by all concerned - what is served up to Eastwood in the way of punishment is too horrid to be true. But there are those who swallowed it - Judith Crist called it a “foul film,” and Andrew Sarris “more perverse...than profound” - and others who digested it: “The Beguiled, a film of psychological suspense laced with humor that is a triumph of style...so stunningly adapted and directed - so much of a piece - that it allows for all kinds of serious implications....” --Kevin Thomas, L.A. Times