I have read several posts on here about him dying from the mushrooms, but actually he DID NOT die from them. notice at the very end, when they are lacing him up, one of the girls says something to Amy about it, and Amy replies, "did you really think I could tell a good mushroom from a bad one?"
this changes things for me. I wonder why they added that? did he die from the loss of his leg??
My take on it was he did die from the mushrooms. However,the school mistress was putting a better 'spin' on his death so that all of them, but especially Amy, wouldn't feel guilty in the future for conspiring to kill the man. If he died from his wound it wasn't really their fault - lots of people died from wounds back then - it wasn't a mortal sin like murder.
After all, during dinner, the only woman who attempted to eat any of the mushrooms was the corporal's girlfriend, and the schoolmistress couldn't help but scream at her to not eat them, so she could spit the mushrooms out and not die. Clearly all the other women at the table knew they were poisonous.
Everyone is guilty of making up history to avoid thinking about horrible things they did, and to mentally shift the blame from themselves to others. Hopefully not many people do over murder, though.
thanks. it is possible that the headmistress was downplaying the mushrooms to the girls. that would make sense. this was a pretty deep movie. I like that they left the disappearance of the brother up to the viewers interpretation as well.
shareI agree with Happyhoix.
The school mistress was putting a sugar-coating over what the truth really was.
When Amy angrily asks "You think I can't tell poison ones from good ones?", she is pointing out that indeed, she CAN tell the difference. She then grins in an evil way towards Corporal McBee, commenting on how delicious they were.
Happyhoix,
Yes, agree with your take completely. I've never seen the Beguiled in full; for some bizarre reason, whenever it's on tv, I usually catch it mid-way etc. But when I saw it again, there is a scene, earlier in the film before the amputation, where the girls & McBurney eat at the table and mushrooms feature on the menu quite prominently as if to prefigure the end.
A terrific film for being so unusual and distinctive, esp the use of sudden flashbacks. It reminded me slightly of 'Black Narcissus' and the effect, Mr Dean, the agent, has on the nuns.
Mcrawford also raised an interesting point about the brother, the flashback between him and Hallie in the barn, sudden and so disconcerting. It was better that this side of the story (suggested/implied but never clearly stated) was left up to the viewer's interpretation.
I thought it was entirely possible that Amy and the mushrooms had nothing at all to do with McBurney's death but that Edwina did.
When Martha relates her idea of giving the corporal a nice supper, she does not explicitly tell Amy to pick poison mushrooms. She gives hints, but all in all she ASSUMES that the girl knows what she's getting at. At the time of the supper, Martha assumes that the mushrooms are poisonous, which is why she shouts, "No!" when Edwina begins to eat them.
But was Amy, at her age, capable of extracting Martha's true meaning? Furthermore, we saw how Edwina is capable of great rage against McBurney, albeit that can quickly change to great pity and tenderness.
During the supper scene, I had a suspicion that Edwina had already taken matters into her own hands. When she went to McBurney's room after his drunken outburst, did she play him just as he had played her? I wondered if she herself had somehow begun poisoning him, maybe giving him an overdose of wine and laudanum. (As an opium preparation, perhaps laudanum is fatal if the wrong dosage is ingested with alcohol).
The film is so ambiguous and subtle in emotion, that one can't be sure positively. Edwina seems genuinely horrified when it appears that McBurney is dying. Perhaps she's simply shocked by Amy's complicity. Or perhaps she's shocked at what she herself was capable of. Or maybe Edwina never did contemplate murder, but instead seduced McBurney into elopement as an act of self-sacrifice -- a way to protect the school from the dangers McBurney posed by leading him away from it. All this was at great risk to both of them, since either could be captured or killed if they came upon soldiers of the wrong stripe.
It's all so hard to pigeonhole, which gives the film its aura of mystery. Martha's comment about the corporal's weak heart, Amy's resentment at the suggestion she'd brought home tainted mushrooms, Edwina's motives (self-sacrificing or self-serving?) all serve to make me wonder, "Was it really the mushrooms?"
Those are excellent points, and I appreciate the fact that end ending was ambiguous. The little girl's comment doesn't necessarily absolve her, and the "weak heart" statement may have been a red herring. I very much doubt he died of natural causes, though other substances may have killed that weak heart.
There were three, maybe four, females with motives here, and who's to say that they didn't all have a plan? Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of women?
I always felt that Amy wanted him, too - just because she is young doesn't keep her from wishing to keep Mr. McB. to herself.
shareAnd who could blame her? It Clint Eastwood, after all. HELLO! (I hate when people do that, but it's Clint Eastwood, after all.)
shareYes, especially around that time...YIPES! That HAIR, I could die for that hair ;)
shareIndeed. I love the beard too. HELLO!
shareI think we saw this at the drive-in - probably another one I was supposed to be sleeping by then :D (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was another).
Yes, I concur, the beard, too. I think Clint is the only guy who is sexy without even trying. :) He seems very not interested in being sexy...or is he just that great an actor? :D
You were lucky to see "The Beguiled" at the drive-in. This film was totally off my radar until very recently, and I finally saw it a few weeks ago. I think I saw "Dirty Harry" at the drive-in in the late '70s, maybe with "The Gauntlet" or "Every Which Way But Loose."
And yes, Clint seems totally oblivious to his machismo. But really, how can someone that smart be that clueless? It's an act, I suppose, but I'll still buy it if he's the salesman.
I think I saw it there, if not it was late night TV - really late! Either way I did see it a long time ago :)
I have a 3way tie for fave of Clint's - this, Play Misty for Me and Coogan's Bluff.
:)
How's that for a weird bunch? :D
And yes, he's just sexy, what can we say? Maybe he knows but tries to keep it to himself, I've known a few guys like that...they are RARE!
That's an interesting and eclectic bunch of Clint faves! I still haven't seen "Coogan's Bluff." In fact, there are significant gaps in my Clint-ography. I'd probably put "Dirty Harry" at the top.
After that, "The Eiger Sanction" and "Play Misty for Me" would be up there, along with this film and possibly "Unforgiven" and "Magnum Force," "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot" and maybe even "In the Line of Fire." Curse you, Eastwood: You're too prolific!
So today I made my home made pizza - including mushrooms...had to worry who might have picked them and if they wanted me dead.. ;)
shareI still can't believe how ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS he was at this time....Oh my freakin god! This is one of his best parts EVER!!!
the planet is fine; the people are f@cked!!
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I just saw this today for the first time. Loved it. It's got so much sexual tension and the flashbacks are really unexpected.
But I hate to say it... I kept thinking how he and Hugh Jackman looked alike with that 'Wolverine' hair. I hate it when something in the movie takes me away from the story without meaning to. It was like they were twins or something!
Fascinating discussion on a truly beguiling film. I saw this superb film after its theatrical run when it first appeared on tv. I was in high school and more gullible than aware. Of all the scenes in it, it was this denouement 'poison' scene that has stuck with me through the years due to at the time the underrated actor Eastwood and the expression of abject horror on his face as he realizes he was poisoned. The violin music rises in such tight anxiety it sounds the strings are going to pop. As the credits rolled I had thought he wasn't poisoned after all, but was lead to believe he was by the suggestive leering smile and denial from Geraldine Page. And it was that belief which gave him--as she told the girls--a most unfortunate heart attack. If this is what the screenwriters had intended with her character, then they would render her in perhaps an even more sinister light than had she outright poisoned the hapless soldier. Also, if clouded memory serves, I believe Mr. Eastwood sings the appropriately haunting theme song.
shareThe mushrooms appear very near the start of the film actually. When he's lying helpless on the forest floor, just to the right of his head grows a clump of the mushrooms that later will be used to kill him.
After watching this many times, I still believe Amy was guided toward picking the wrong mushrooms but didn't really need the hint to do it. I agree with others: She's grown enough to want him herself. She doesn't volunteer the "McB" nickname, for example; he does give her her first kiss; and she later sneaks in to kiss him later. However, he kills her turtle and betrays her with other females, so she gets her revenge. I think everyone knew about the mushrooms except McBurney and Edwina~which is why they cry out, warning her and alerting him that he has been poisoned.
~~MystMoonstruck~~
"Soundin' like they makin' you a coffin." (as they secure the shutters)
i don't think anybody who is evil enough to kill someone with poisonous mushrooms would feel guilty at ANY time in their life. i also doubt the school mistress would give 2 hoots and a holler about who might feel guilty later on in life. i haven't seen this film yet but common sense tells me that. these women are all evil, and yes women love making up history (excuses) for the ugly things they've done, but not because they feel guilty but because they wouldn't want people to see them in a certain light. women are the queens of "shifting the blame" to somebody else, and some dummies actually buy it sometimes.
shareIt appeared to me that McBee was definitely poisoned. The room was spinning from his innermost point-of-view.
Amy wanted revenge on him for killing Randolph. Before that, McBee had seemed shocked when he realized Amy was a child but still mature enough to have romantic feelings for him (how she confronted him about Carol). He had betrayed her trust in him twice. She was happy to get even with him.
Edwina says she loves him from the perspective of her innermost self. I believe she was truly in love with him and always would be. Her fear and lack of trust in men had been tragically justified, however.
They were proper women at a charm school. Charm is all about an illusion of truth, not always truth itself. Everything should be neat and tidy.
@jeffasch
Oh,please---don't act as if men aren't capable of doing the same exact thing, because they do it too.
Wow, can't believe how everyone is OVERTHINKING this. YES, he died from eating poisoned mushrooms, they couldn't have made it any more obvious, unless Geraldine Page had said, "Don't anyone else eat this food, because it is poisonous and we are trying to kill McB".
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Check the trivia, this is one of only three films in which Eastwood has died.
Bored now.