In 1970’s Two Mules For Sister Sara, Clint Eastwood and Shirley MacClaine take on the French!

It’s an often forgotten piece of history that, during the American Civil War, the French invaded Mexico and tried to turn it into a colony, one that was ruled by the hapless Archduke Maximillian.  The French were then led by Napoleon III, a rather enigmatic figure who spent his entire reign trying to live up to his namesake (and failing).  While the Americans would never have tolerated a French invasion of Mexico under normal circumstances, the Civil War provided enough of a distraction for Napoleon III to make his move in 1861.  Of course, as soon as the Civil War ended, America turned its attention to getting the French out of Mexico and, by the end of 1867, Maximillian had been executed and Napoleon III had withdrawn his forces.

Two Mules For Sister Sara takes place shortly after the end of the American Civil War, when the latest Mexican Revolution was in full swing.  Clint Eastwood plays Hogan, a former union officer who is now in Mexico working as a mercenary.  He’s been hired to help the revolutionaries attack a French garrison, in return for being given half of whatever is found inside.  Traveling through the desert, he comes across a group of bandits who are about to rape a woman named Sara (Shirley MacClaine).  Hogan guns down the bandits and is then shocked when Sara dons a habit and introduces herself as a nun who has been helping the revolutionaries.  She requests that Hogan travel with her and continue to protect her.  Hogan is reluctant, saying that he doesn’t want to become Sara’s mule when she already has one.  (That would be two mules for Sister Sara …. get it?)  But since Sara is a nun and claims to have no idea how to defend herself in the wilderness, Hogan agrees.  Sara and Hogan become unlikely allies as they get further and further involved in the Mexican Revolution.

Two Mules For Sister Sara owes a good deal to the Spaghetti westerns that were then coming out of Italy.  (Eastwood, of course, owed much of his stardom to his appearances in Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy.)  The Mexican Revolution was always a popular subject amongst the writers and directors of the Italian Spaghetti westerns.  Of course, Two Mules For Sister Sara is lacking in the political subtext that appeared in many of the Italian films.  Director Don Siegel may have been a liberal but, unlike many of his Italian contemporaries, he wasn’t a Marxist.  Instead, Two Mules For Sister Sara shows its Spaghetti influence in its panoramic visuals, it’s somewhat cynical sense of humor, and the casting of Eastwood as a taciturn mercenary whose main concern is using the revolution to make some money.  Eastwood plays a slightly more humorous version of his Man With No Name.  Hogan may be a cynic who doesn’t speak unless it’s absolutely necessary but he also possesses a good enough heart that there’s no way he’s going to abandon Sister Sara to fend for herself.  (The Man With No Name, on the other hand, would probably not have been so generous.)  Of course, Sister Sara has a secret of her own….

Supposedly, Eastwood and MacClaine didn’t get along particularly well while making Two Mules For Sister Sara.  (During preproduction, the film was envisioned as starring Eastwood and Elizabeth Taylor.)  If there was hostility between the two leads, it worked in the film’s favor because both Eastwood and MacClaine do a good job of playing off of each other.  MacClaine, at first, seems too contemporary for the role but, as the film progresses, she becomes more convincing.  There’s a revelation towards the end of the film that reveals that many of the moments that made MacClaine seem miscast were actually deliberate.  As for Eastwood, there’s a subtle humor running through his performance, as if he’s poking fun at his own tight-lipped persona. His performance here shows hints of the actor that he would become.

Two Mules For Sister Sara is an entertaining western, one that features Eastwood and Seigel celebrating and, at the same time, poking fun at the genre.  A year after this film, Eastwood and Seigel would make film history with Dirty Harry.