11 Safe Good Guy Actors Who Should Have Played More Villains
3. Clint Eastwood
Went Bad In... The Beguiled (1971) Eastwood's most memorable early roles weren't necessarily bound by the same moral conventions that some of his more recognisably virtuous later roles would be, particularly in the Dollars trilogy, but they invariably remained on the light side of the divide, despite some less than savoury methods. Recently, Eastwood has moved fully into the patriarchal role on screen, inevitably and successfully fathering younger characters as a wise old guide, but back at the start of the '70s, director Don Siegel clearly saw enough in the star's disarming charm, and rugged sexual appeal to suggest that he could play the sexual predator to end all sexual predators. As injured Yankee soldier John McBurney, who is nursed back to health in a prim and proper girl's school, Eastwood takes all of the elements that made his previously heroic turns successful, and fashions a sleazy, but utterly charming womaniser, who is basically a walking erection who doesn't care who he treads on to get his end away. He seduces pretty much everyone in the school (including a few of the girls, the devil) with Eastwood showing his commitment to playing "winners" by conquering everything in sight with his self-consciously wayward wiener. Eventually he goes too far (by replacing the headteacher with a younger model and killing a turtle in a rage) and is poisoned to death by mushroom, but not before committing a performance that was vastly better than Universal's fudged marketing campaign suggested. Later of course Eastwood would channel the darker elements of his on-screen persona into making his heroes more complex and mysterious, particularly as Harry Callahan, but it's a disgrace that Eastwood was never challenged to take on another decidedly evil role after The Beguiled flopped.
Went Bad In... The Beguiled (1971) Eastwood's most memorable early roles weren't necessarily bound by the same moral conventions that some of his more recognisably virtuous later roles would be, particularly in the Dollars trilogy, but they invariably remained on the light side of the divide, despite some less than savoury methods. Recently, Eastwood has moved fully into the patriarchal role on screen, inevitably and successfully fathering younger characters as a wise old guide, but back at the start of the '70s, director Don Siegel clearly saw enough in the star's disarming charm, and rugged sexual appeal to suggest that he could play the sexual predator to end all sexual predators. As injured Yankee soldier John McBurney, who is nursed back to health in a prim and proper girl's school, Eastwood takes all of the elements that made his previously heroic turns successful, and fashions a sleazy, but utterly charming womaniser, who is basically a walking erection who doesn't care who he treads on to get his end away. He seduces pretty much everyone in the school (including a few of the girls, the devil) with Eastwood showing his commitment to playing "winners" by conquering everything in sight with his self-consciously wayward wiener. Eventually he goes too far (by replacing the headteacher with a younger model and killing a turtle in a rage) and is poisoned to death by mushroom, but not before committing a performance that was vastly better than Universal's fudged marketing campaign suggested. Later of course Eastwood would channel the darker elements of his on-screen persona into making his heroes more complex and mysterious, particularly as Harry Callahan, but it's a disgrace that Eastwood was never challenged to take on another decidedly evil role after The Beguiled flopped.