Just about every movie buff knows that Clint Eastwood shot to international fame after starring in Sergio Leone's "Dollars Trilogy," but what came next? It's a good pub quiz question because many people might leap straight to the year 1968 when a trio of hits cemented his status as one of Hollywood's top tough guys: "Hang 'Em High," "Coogan's Bluff," and "Where Eagles Dare." But tucked away in his filmography is a forgotten 1967 Italian movie called "The Witches," not to be confused with the Hammer production of the same name from the year before. Originally titled "Le streghe" in Italian, it's an offbeat anthology movie that isn't a horror film at all and has very little to do with witches, unless you squint really hard at its themes.

"The Witches" was the brainchild of legendary producer Dino De Laurentiis, who would later make an impact in Hollywood with the 1976 "King Kong" remake,...