Some time back, I bought a box set of Clint Eastwood films, which was technically a mash-up of two other box sets, one of four Eastwood dramas and one of three Eastwood westerns. Recently, I watched Two Mules for Sister Sara off the set, and see that it's also going to be on StarzEncore Classics tomorrow morning at 7:07 AM.
Eastwood plays Hogan, who as the opening credits run is on his horse riding through the wilderness somewhere in northern Mexico, like a whole bunch of other westerns. But he soon comes along a woman who it looks like is about to be raped or killed by some bandits, and he saves the young lady by shooting the bandits. At this point he discovers that the woman he's saved is... Sister Sara (Shirley MacLaine), a Catholic nun who is actually wanted by the French Army.
These are the days in the late 1860s when the French had installed Emperor Maximilian in Mexico (thus explaining the presence of the French army), with Benito Juarez fighting against this with a bunch of guerilla forces known as Juaristas. Sister Sara has been giving clandestine support to the Juaristas, which is why the French are after her, and now after Hogan. As for Hogan, he's a mercenary who has a deal to help the Juaristas by enabling them to attack a French garrison; in exchange, he'll get a substantial sum of money.
The two set off together, being unlikely partners in that Sara is a rather naïve nun who doesn't seem to know that much about surviving in the harsher conditions of the Mexican wilderness. Hogan finds that Sara is an unlikely nun in that she seems to have some life experience that he wouldn't expect from a nun, like a knowledge of bawdy language and some experience having drunk whiskey. But in any case, it's more important to esacpe the French and get to the camp of Col. Beltrán (Manolo Fábregas) for the attack on the garrison.
Along the way, the pair has to evade the French by staying in an abandoned village infested with rattlesnakes. Then they get ambushed by a group of Yaqui, the people who were the subject of 100 Rifles although that's set 40-some years after Two Mules for Sister Sara. There's also an operation to destroy a rail trestle as a train carrying French troops crosses it. In some ways, this is a victory for Hogan and Sara. But it's a Pyrrhic victory too. The original attack on the garrison was supposed to occur on Bastille Day, July 14, when the expectation was that the French would all be quite drunk celebrating their national holiday. But with the attack on the trestle, everybody is on high alert, so no drinking.
As I was watching the movie, I couldn't help but think of Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr in Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison, for several reasons, starting with a largely two-character film about a man and a nun facing enemies. It turns out that I'm not the only person to have made the connection; indeed, this was apparently deliberate on the part of Budd Boetticher, who wrote the original story (although he didn't do the screenplay or direct).
The acting in Two Mules for Sister Sara is appealing, as are the set pieces. However, to me the movie felt like it was running a bit slow at times. It's a 113-minute movie that probably could have come in around 100 minutes or so. Other people probably won't have any pacing issues. Add in nice cinematography and the movie is a winner that's definitely worth watching.
1 comment:
I suspect that it would have been better for Mexico if the Emperor had won - he was an honest and liberal minded man. Instead Mexico got a series of dictators. But Maximillan did not really want power (he wanted to be a Constitutional Monarch) - so he might well just have been overthrown later, as the Emperor of Brazil was.
On the film - of course there is a twist in the tail, but I will not spoil it for people by saying what it is.
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