Sunday afternoon at Western Spirit: Scottsdale's Museum of the West, Your Humble Narrator had the honor to introduce the "Reel West Sunday" showing of my favorite Clint Eastwood western, Don Siegel's 1970 Two Mules for Sister Sara...
...and lead the lively Q&A afterwards. (I brought in my LP of the Original Soundtrack Recording for Show and Tell.)
This one looks like a Spaghetti Western and it certainly sounds like a Spaghetti Western, but it's not a Spaghetti Wesern; it's a Universal picture shot entirely in Mexico. Eastwood plays a Man With a Name this time--Hogan--and he shows a litttle more humor and lewdness and likable life than usual. Shirley MacLaine, who's top-billed, is Sara, who Hogan devoutly (and understandably) wishes wasn't a nun.
The two of them are working--he cynically; she idealistically--for the Juaristas during the Second Franco-Mexican War. Despite the sexual tension and gritty violence, this is more like an episodic buddy comedy; it feels almost like a two-hander despite the capable Mexican supporting cast. The stars have a fine rapport, and the script, by Albert Maltz from a story by Budd Boetticher, has some edge and complexity. Best of all: Ennio Morricone's music, with its braying leitmotif; it may be my all-time favorite movie score.
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