Clint Eastwood's early westerns are generally considered classics, especially the Sergio Leone movies that launched his stardom, not to mention the terrific U.S.-made knock-off, "Hang 'Em High." But he wasn't always so lucky putting on a Stetson. "Paint Your Wagon," his foray into cowboy musical theater, became the stuff of "Simpsons" gags, and then there's "Two Mules For Sister Sara."
While a reliably strong leading man, Eastwood doesn't project much warmth as a romantic partner. For years he seemed to shy away from being partnered with strong actresses on-screen, perhaps sensing they'd show him up with his deliberately limited projection. From his Leone days through to "The Bridges Of Madison County" with Meryl Streep in 1995, "Sister Sara" was the only time he partnered with a name actress, Shirley MacLaine. The two hardly smolder. In fact, she seems less comfortable kissing Clint than she does pulling an arrow from his shoulder.
MacLaine plays Sara, a woman Eastwood's Hogan rescues from a truly lethargic rape scene, only to discover when she puts her clothes on that she is Sister Sara, a nun who needs Hogan's help escaping some French troops chasing her through Mexico.
The presence of French troops in a Western is not the only deliberately incongruous thing about "Sister Sara." For starters, there's a score by Ennio Morricone, clearly mimicking his work on Leone films, only this time slapping on odd electronic noise in the melody meant to sound like mule whinnying, though more resembling an annoying truck-backing-up alarm. There's violence aplenty, some very nasty, yet the overall tone aspires to comedy. Eastwood seems to be playing in one film, MacLaine in another.
Director Don Siegel works hard to get us to buy MacLaine as a nun that sets Hogan's heart afire, leading to awkward dialogue like this, as she helps him ride his horse after he's been wounded:
Him: "I like being in the arms of a good-looking nun. How do you like it, Sister?"
Her: "The Church allows this for the sake of your safety but you must not take liberties!"
MacLaine doesn't look all that great. Maybe she was miserable from fighting with Eastwood and Siegel. Maybe she was just in an awkward period after beginning to lose her ingénue looks but not yet acquiring the acting chops that gave her a second wind beginning with "A Turning Point" in 1977. Too often, she makes cute pouts at the camera, like when she sneaks a puff of Hogan's cheroot, as if winking at the viewer.
The script serves up a series of crises that are rendered flat, inert, and often ludicrous on-screen. Hogan and Sara escape French pursuers when she shakes a dead rattlesnake, scaring them off. It sounds clever on paper, but looks weak on film. Another scene, a face-off between the pair and some Yanqui Indians, ends with the Indians riding off like scared ninnies when flashed by Sara's crucifix.
Another scene has the pair arrive at a cantina looking for Hogan's contact with some Mexican rebels. Hogan slips someone a code-phrase, the bartender doesn't understand what he means, Hogan asks who runs the place, the bartender says it is his father, now sick. Hogan and Sara visit the father, ask how to get in touch with the rebels. After some sickly faces, the father nods to his wife, who tells Hogan to see the candlemaker, who then leads him to the rebels. This all takes about 10 minutes, adding nothing to an already overlong movie.
SPOILER ALERT: The biggest twist in this film is also the most annoying. In short, it is when we discover, some 20 minutes before its end, that Sara is not a nun, but a prostitute. There's a frustrating pointlessness to this charade, and a big logic gap when one reflects on early scenes when she prays over the corpses of her would-be rapists and seems very knowledgeable of canon law. The obvious fact is the movie would have been better off leaving Sara a real nun, but instead it wants to end the movie with the leads in a sexy clinch. Problem is, among couples of the period, Eastwood and MacLaine generate less romantic chemistry than did Nixon and Agnew.
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