"A Story of Flame and Fury, Faith and Fear, Love and Adventure"

I just finished watching John Ford's last film, 7 Women. I hate the term woman's film. It's sexist. But this is what this movie is. 

The film deals with repressed lesbianism, religion vs. medicine, and feminism. 

It takes place in 1935 China in a Christian mission. The head of the mission, Agatha Andrews (Margaret Leighton) is a tyrant who is a devout Christian, however, she obviously harbors thoughts for the young and pretty Emma Clark (Sue Lyon). Yes, Lolita...

Mrs. Florrie Plether (Betty Field) is 42 and pregnant (sounds like a Lifetime TV movie). Her husband, Charles (Eddie Albert) is a minister wannabe who is the only man at the mission. A doctor is called to take care of Florrie. They are all surprised and weary when Dr. Cartwright (Anne Bancroft) turns up.

  Florrie: You're a woman!

Cartwright: Unless a lot of men have been kidding 

    me.

The only person in the mission who has any faith in the doctor is Emma, creating a sorta triangle. Ms Andrews becomes jealous. To make a long story short, the melodrama goes throug

h a cholera epidemic and also is taken over by Mongolian terrorists. 

Cartwright, in the beginning, is the 1960s stereotype of a feminist. She wears pants, has short hair, and speaks her mind. But Anne Bancroft is so cool and she grows as a character. She's constantly challenging the religious fanatic, Ms. Andrews. 

When the mission is under threat, Ms. Andrews obviously wants to be a martyr. Then when it is taken over, Charles is killed when he tries to save the Chinese women who are being raped by Tunga Khan and his merry men. 

Now most of the women at the mission are older than 40, except Emma. So, I was kinda surprised that they didn't rape her. They didn't even look at her twice. Not that I'm advocating rape. I just found that to be a little strange that they would ignore a pretty blonde. 

Sue Lyon is infamous for her role in Kubrick's Lolita. When I saw her name in the cast list, I thought this had to be a miscast. But Lyon was actually good and convincing. She no longer looked like Lolita, which definitely helped the convincing part. Yet, her hair happened to be perfect when she was a hostage, when the others' hair was disheveled. 

All in all, I found the movie to be interesting, but not an enthusiastically great film. I am usually totally against remaking films, but I think I would like to see Hollywood remake this movie. When this was made, there was too much censorship, so they really couldn't get too much across. Even though it did a good job with trashing religion. However, I think if they did it would end up being a flop. And also, come to think of it, Hollywood really does not like using all female casts. They have to be severely talked into it, and maybe bribed.

The best part of the movie was Anne Bancroft. She's just brilliant. And she had the best lines and saved the day, sacrificing herself. That's the ironic part of the movie. She was not at all religious and was not planning to be a martyr. It was Ms. Andrews who wanted to be a martyr, and started out like one, then she lost it when they were captive. I think that they should have killed Andrews, and used her for food. She just got really annoying. 

Then Florrie, the old, pregnant woman, had the most annoying voice and personality, but you warmed up to her in the end. Only because she had her baby and was too weak to complain about anything. 

The movie was never too politically correct...

Cartwright: Ching! Chang! What ever the 

              hell your name is!

And also I was very surprised that they were so obvious with the lesbian references with Ms. Andrews. She would always look longingly at Emma, and try to touch her whenever she could; her hair, her hand, arm, anything.

So, not the best movie in the world, but worth watching just to see Bancroft's marvelous performance.