Two Mules for Sister Sara **** (1970, Shirley MacLaine, Clint Eastwood) – Classic Movie Review 6170

Director Don Siegel’s minor but involving and entertaining 1970 comic Western is quirkily adapted by screen writer Albert Maltz from a story by Fifties cult director Budd Boetticher. It comes over as a slightly offbeat oddity and a one-off, and that’s good.

It stars Clint Eastwood as drifter-mercenary Hogan who saves a rather dodgy nun, the titular Sister Sara (Shirley MacLaine) from three cowboys, and then helps her to cross the Mexican desert. It turns out she is a nun on the run, but she doesn’t tell Hogan why.

With both Eastwood and MacLaine on good form, it is wittily acted, stylishly photographed in Technicolor by Gabriel Figueroa on ravishing Mexican locations, and capably directed by Eastwood’s mentor Siegel (though at times rather slackly and sprawlingly).

The meandering comedy is broken up with bursts of exciting action and, despite the mostly comic tone, there is some unpleasant violence, with a gruesome rape scene at the start and a brutal finale.

Also in the cast are Manolo Fabregas, Alberto Morin, Armando Silvestre, John Kelly, Enrique Lucero, David Estuardo, Ada Carrasco, Pancho Cordova and José Chavez.

It is produced by Martin Rackin and Carroll Case, scored by Ennio Morricone, and designed by José Rodriguez Granada.

Eastwood sings again! Hogan sings Sam Hall, a ballad about a cowboy hanged for burglary in 1701, as Sara operates on his shoulder wound when the arrow is removed.

It is said that MacLaine and Siegel did not see eye to eye.

The title is a slight puzzle, though. Sara has a mule (and later a donkey), and tells Hogan ‘You’re as stubborn as my mule’, later calling him Mr Mule.

MacLaine gets top billing in the film’s credits.

MacLaine recalled acting with Eastwood: ‘His horse was acting up. This is when I knew he’s a true Republican. He got off the horse, looked at the horse, and socked him.’

Eastwood wears the same gun belt and holster as he wears in the Dollars Trilogy.

Lee Marvin was to star in Boetticher’s planned version.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6170

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