7 Women looks to be sold as a female version of The Magnificent Seven (it's the only reason to explain the need for seven women, as they're not all useful to the plot), but to both its credit and detriment, it's very different from that. It has the feel of a western, and the second half, with the ladies' mission being invaded by Mongol brigands in 1930s' Northern China, is right out of the Seven Samurai playbook, but the ladies are more victims than they are heroines. Except Anne Bancroft's (awesome) rootin-tootin, hard-drinking'n'smoking doctor, whose solutions are still not action-based. So it's not John Ford's last action spectacular. That's fine. It's another kind of story. One that's retrograde on the racial sensitivity side of things (though I've seen much worse), yet rather progressive in other ways. You could make the case Bancroft plays an LGBTQ+ character, which makes her sacrifices more potent, but the mission's headmistress is definitely gay (and repressed, she becomes the most likely to crack). Then you have a 50-year-old pregnant lady and a vibe that questions Christian values and attitudes. While I like it, especially for its unusual features, the plotting is a bit of a mess. Plenty of incidents - the doctor's arrival and integration, the moral and sexual tug of war for the nymph of the mission, the cholera epidemic, the concerns about the pregnancy, the henpecked husband finding his courage, and the Mongols - but they don't really feel like a single story with a point to it. Maybe a bit more epilogue would have given it one, but we bail on shock, not emotional resolution.
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rabsi1
Bit of an underrated gem, this one!Siskoid
7 Women looks to be sold as a female version of The Magnificent Seven (it's the only reason to explain the need for seven women, as they're not all useful to the plot), but to both its credit and detriment, it's very different from that. It has the feel of a western, and the second half, with the ladies' mission being invaded by Mongol brigands in 1930s' Northern China, is right out of the Seven Samurai playbook, but the ladies are more victims than they are heroines. Except Anne Bancroft's (awesome) rootin-tootin, hard-drinking'n'smoking doctor, whose solutions are still not action-based. So it's not John Ford's last action spectacular. That's fine. It's another kind of story. One that's retrograde on the racial sensitivity side of things (though I've seen much worse), yet rather progressive in other ways. You could make the case Bancroft plays an LGBTQ+ character, which makes her sacrifices more potent, but the mission's headmistress is definitely gay (and repressed, she becomes the most likely to crack). Then you have a 50-year-old pregnant lady and a vibe that questions Christian values and attitudes. While I like it, especially for its unusual features, the plotting is a bit of a mess. Plenty of incidents - the doctor's arrival and integration, the moral and sexual tug of war for the nymph of the mission, the cholera epidemic, the concerns about the pregnancy, the henpecked husband finding his courage, and the Mongols - but they don't really feel like a single story with a point to it. Maybe a bit more epilogue would have given it one, but we bail on shock, not emotional resolution.weirdboy
Florrie Pether may be the most annoying character in any John Ford movie.