Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970)
Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970), directed by Don Siegel.
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Sister Sara: We'd better hurry. I've never seen a train blown to hell and gone before.
When Clint Eastwood is running explosives to Mexican revolutionaries and encounters a bunch of drunks about to rape a naked nun in the desert, you can be sure the villains do not need to make any long term plans.
We have several genres combined:
The light adventure story, not too serious, but with action, humor and romance.
The "blowing stuff up in Mexico" genre, which would include The Professionals (1966) and 100 Rifles (1969), for example.
The wry comment on spaghetti westerns, with Eastwood in the Man With No Name clothes and the great goofy Ennio Morricone score.
The tough guy frustrated by an inaccessible female traveling companion.
The joke is on Clint this time: the audience learns long before he does that Sara ain't no nun. This is a bit irreverent: we get the same church music for both madonna and whore.
Misc notes:
The title is also a joke: Clint is her second mule.
Does that guy love dynamite or what?
Notice how Mexico can be a land of ancient ruins?
Now and then we get the rare close-ups of the anonymous extras, as in the pain and sadness in the eyes of the firing squad as they march away after an execution.
I've read that both Siegel and Eastwood were intimidated by Shirley MacLaine; she can be fierce. The characters have a nicely relaxed chemistry, not very passionate but that's not his style anyway.
The original story was by the great western director Budd Boetticher, who wanted to make it himself with Deborah Kerr and Robert Mitchum, more or less reprising their roles from Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957). It was taken away from him, rewritten and somehow found its way to Liz Taylor, who offered it to Eastwood. Then she couldn't be in it.
Available on Blu-ray and pretty fine looking.
