Tagline aside, this film stars Clint Eastwood, not Bill Clinton. He plays a Union soldier wounded in a battle with confederates. He is found by a young girl (apr. 12) who is a student at a southern girls' school run by a strict school mistress with very patriotic (Confederate) sympathies. Eastwood manages to persuade the girl (with a kiss) not to raise an alarm and notify the Confederate soldiers in the area. He further manages to charm the women at the school into helping to heal him and delaying reporting his presence to the authorities.

Eastwood manages this feat by telling each of the women and girls what he thinks they want to hear. He can appear pious, loving, patriotic, amorous or any other way that will appeal to whatever woman he comes into contact with ranging from the schoolmistress to the slave woman who helps out around the place. He manages to convince each of them that she is his primary interest. When things begin to go bad, they go very bad indeed and the women realize that they have created a monster. Their method for dealing with the monster is fairly monstrous itself.

This is an interesting drama that is usually hailed as one of Eastwood's better films but I would not classify it as such. It is worth viewing but is not one of my favorites.
Tagline aside, this film stars Clint Eastwood, not Bill Clinton. He plays a Union soldier wounded in a battle with confederates. He is found by a young girl (apr. 12) who is a student at a southern girls' school run by a strict school mistress with very patriotic (Confederate) sympathies. Eastwood manages to persuade the girl (with a kiss) not to raise an alarm and notify the Confederate soldiers in the area. He further manages to charm the women at the school into helping to heal him and delaying reporting his presence to the authorities. Eastwood manages this feat by telling each of the women and girls what he thinks they want to hear. He can appear pious, loving, patriotic, amorous or any other way that will appeal to whatever woman he comes into contact with ranging from the schoolmistress to the slave woman who helps out around the place. He manages to convince each of them that she is his primary interest. When things begin to go bad, they go very bad indeed and the women realize that they have created a monster. Their method for dealing with the monster is fairly monstrous itself. This is an interesting drama that is usually hailed as one of Eastwood's better films but I would not classify it as such. It is worth viewing but is not one of my favorites.