I am not a fan of Western films - generally speaking - but Two Mules for Sister Sara is a outstanding story. This movie really did get my attention from the beginning and held it until the very end. It is not a typical shot-them-up Western flick - yet it does have some gun-slinging action in it.

This is one of those films I do not want to talk about too much because I don't want to give it away - instead I will tell you to simply watch it because it is good! I can say it is a very interesting concept: The gunslinger helping a nun and vice versa - just watch the film and see how they meet and it plays out you will not be disappointed.

9/10

Considering the pedigree that Two Mules For Sister Sara has, script by Budd Boetticher, directed by Don Siegal, and starring Clint Eastwood and Shirley MacLaine we should have gotten a classic out of all this talent. Instead we got a good second line film for all of these people.

Three out of the four mentioned have some great directorial credits to their names. Maybe if Eastwood, Siegel, or Boetticher had more creative control all around Two Mules For Sister Sara would have fared a lot better.

Clint plays a character not unlike the group of soldiers of fortune who drifted on down to Mexico after our Civil War to work for anyone who would pay them as in the Gary Cooper-Burt Lancaster film, Vera Cruz. As it happens the French have the bucks, the Juaristas have time and the populace on their side.

As the film opens Clint rescues a woman from being raped by three real specimens of humanity whom he dispatches in the usual Clint manner. The woman is Shirley MacLaine and she's on a mission for the Juaristas and she's a nun. For most of the rest of the film, the two of them are on the screen together.

Richard Schickel's biography of Clint Eastwood compares the film to both The African Queen and Heaven Knows Mr. Allison. The film does bare better comparison to the latter John Huston classic, but given the nature of the way things turn out for both Eastwood and MacLaine that comparison falls considerably short of the mark.

The rest of the cast is made of players from the Mexican cinema and the film was shot entirely in Mexico. One of the Hollywood Ten, Albert Maltz wrote the screenplay and of course his vision got in there as well.

It's interesting to note that after this film, Clint Eastwood never had a leading lady who was of his stature again until Meryl Streep for The Bridges Of Madison County. Supposedly he and MacLaine did not get along on this film. There is some bite to their scenes and that might be the reason.

Two Mules For Sister Sara has a great action climax as the Juaristas storm a French garrison and surprise the occupants. But I'm not telling how they did it.

Two Mules For Sister Sara is not a bad film, but Clint was so much better served in his career by The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Unforgiven, and High Plains Drifer to name a few.

TWO MULES FOR SISTER SARA is a Clint Eastwood western with a lighter heart than most. Me, I'm a fan of darkness and gritty violence, so this wasn't a favourite of mine, but it's watchable enough. Eastwood gives the kind of dependable note-perfect performance you expect from him, but the real star here is Shirley MacLaine, who excels as the feisty nun holding her own against Eastwood and the other men they come across in their journey. As usual for a film directed by Don Siegel, the backdrop looks very nice indeed, there's a lot of action and incident in the story, and generally it's an amiable time-waster.