Frontière chinoise

"Seven Women" is the last feature film of John Ford, arguably the greatest director the United States has yet produced. After a half century of film making, Ford ended his fabled career with a wide screen feature about women in peril at a Chinese mission. Infirm and alcoholic, he filmed it on an MGM sound stage; MGM then cut it and tossed it away on the bottom half of a double bill.

Today, the film is little known and seldom seen. It is far from Ford's best work, yet there is power and believability in many of the lead performances, and power in the arc of the story. Anne Bancroft shines as a feisty New York doctor who ultimately sacrifices herself to save the other missionaries -- many whom she doesn't agree with -- from brutal deaths at the hands of Chinese bandits. Her work here is more forceful and better realized than her role of Mrs. Robinson, done two years later.

The best gift MGM/Sony could give lovers of serious cinema is a clean print of this forgotten film. Its sets are often glaringly artificial, and some of the secondary players are over the top (an old weakness of Ford's) as well as miscast, but "7W" is a far better film than Hollywood legend has told us.

7 Women (1966) Anne Bancroft fans, check out the forgotten drama 7 Women. She plays a tough, capable woman doctor sent to a missionary in China. This isn't important, but her short, curly hair is just adorable. What is important is the setting: a small village with limited resources and impending doom. Margaret Leighton heads up the missionary, and even though she's received word that a ruthless Mongolian bandit is headed their way, she refuses to flee to a safer location. She believes that the bandits will respect their Christianity and leave them unharmed, but when Anne arrives, she scoffs at the notion that religion will protect them.

Eddie Albert and his pregnant wife, Betty Field, need Anne's services the most. As an older woman, the pregnancy could have complications, but they also refuse to leave. Sue Lyon is an impressionable girl who first looks up to Margaret and then Anne. Flora Robson and Mildred Dunnock are also in the supporting cast. What can seven women and one useless man (sorry, Eddie) do when faced with such terrible danger? This very tense drama has a lot going for it, but strong women beware: it's upsetting. You won't see the twists and turns coming, and when they happen you'll probably be in shock for a while. But you will think Anne Bancroft is the bravest lady ever.

...what a moving last picture for Ford's swansong.Too often underrated ,"Seven woman" in spite of a sometimes weak script-too many things happen in too little time- is perhaps the most modern film in Ford 's canon.

We find one of Ford's permanent features:a group of human beings in jeopardy who's got to struggle against an enemy:"Stagecoach" is the best example .Dudley Nichols's screenplay was inspired by Guy de Maupasssant's "Boule de Suif".

Women always played a prominent part in Ford's canon.Ford's world is deceptive :it seems to be a male world but actually women are the strongest and the wisest (Jane Darwell's character in "Wagon Master" ,the soldiers' wives in "Fort Appache" ).It was only natural that Ford's last movie was an all-women film (all men,including Albert's character are caricatures.) And these women are very endearing.Anne Bancroft,one of the greatest actresses America ever had, shines all along the movie ,and even when the script verges on grotesque ,she's still beaming, fascinating ,never losing her sense of humor.Even when she "becomes Chinese" ,nobody would think of laughing at her.She's so strong an actress that we seem to know her heroine intimately,her life in NYC people dispensaries,her sad love stories.With her masculine swagger,her boots ,her cigarettes and her whiskey we see a broken woman who has lost all her illusions.She's an atheist,which is very rare in Ford's canon.

Religion is in the center of many a Ford movie ."Seven Women" takes place in a mission .All these women put their faith in God and ...in America (We're American citizens!).One of them (Margaret Leighton) is particularly interesting : a tight-lipped puritan at the beginning of the movie,she becomes,slowly but inexorably ,a mystic lunatic,mentioning Babylon and sinners.Like "Stagecoach" ,"seven femmes " borrows from Maupassant.Like his heroine,"Boule De suif" Cartwright gives her life in sacrifice so the others can survive.

Six Woman are leaving Sodom under an ominous sky :one of them is screaming about lust while the blonde schoolteacher (Sue Lyon,whose role is an equivalent of Caroll Baker's in "Cheyenne Autumn ,though it's an underwritten part ),along with the newborn child, represents hope for the future:all that she went through ,her late heroine (she was the only one to be nice with Cartwright when she arrived)might help her to carry on.But Ford's last opus,like Huston's "the dead" is a very pessimistic opus.

John Ford, usually with the reputation of misogynist, directed his last film surrounded by strong female characters and where the male characters are not particularly relevant. The movie is set in China, 1935, where a Civil War is taking place. Anne Bancroft, a female doctor who is also an atheist, says: "I spent years in slum hospitals. I never saw God come down and take care of anyone". Ford, with his catholic roots, allows himself to be pessimistic. Even when Margaret Leighton, a supposed strong believer is confronted by the female doctor, she says: "I've always searched for something that... isn't there. And God is not enough. God help me - He isn't enough".

The title refers to seven women, but the fact is that there are eight: What led us to believe that Anne Bancroft is excluded from the beginning? She wears man's clothes, she smokes and drinks. The loner Bancroft, condemned to always walk alone, like Ethan Edwards in "The Searchers". And what about the final scene, with a rare beauty, where the viewer isn't allowed to watch her fall? She is dressed in woman's clothes for the first time and is prepared to a truly catholic gesture, the sacrifice. "Seven Women" is a beautiful film, almost perfect. Towards the end, we become aware that Mr. Ford will live eternally.

John Ford's swan song is very underrated. Anne Bancroft plays a chain-smoking doctor who has fled the United States (for reasons unknown, unless they were explained during the minute or so I was away to answer the phone) to work at a mission in China. Margaret Leighton plays the head of this mission, a devout Christian who controls her underlings with strict rules. Various troubles ensue, the most prominent being the threat of a cholera epidemic, a raid by Mongolian bandits, and a pregnant woman who is nearing menopause, which makes the birth a very difficult situation. It is the second problem which I mention that takes up most of the plot. The mission has heard stories of these Mongolians in the nearby areas. Leighton is sure that they will never dare attack her mission, by the grace of God and America. But they do, and they keep all the white women hostage after killing off every Chinese person in sight. They believe that they can win a ransom for them. The tough Bancroft bravely opposes them, but she can make no headway by those means. Instead, the leader of the bandits demands sex. In this way, she is able to influence the way the women are treated (especially concerning the birth). The main conflict of the film is between Leighton and Bancroft. It's very 60s, with the progressive, liberated woman fighting against the strict, sexless one. The role of religion is very interesting in the film. It's shocking that Ford, a devout Catholic, would make the headmistress so foolish. It's a very intelligent criticism of the holier-than-thou attitude of some. When death looks imminent, Leighton seems almost excited to become a martyr; and she's willing and ready to take everyone else with her. When Bancroft sees her chance to save the others, Leighton viciously attacks her for being the "whore of Babylon." The final scene is quite excellent. What a great way for the greatest director of all time end his career.