7 Women

7 Women is notable chiefly as director John Ford’s last film before his death in 1973. It’s a well-done drama that’s devoid of the usual touches of humor that graced many of his films, though it’s the better for it.

The story sees Anne Bancroft play a doctor who, along with a group of female missionaries, faces plague and Mongolian barbarians in pre-World War II China.

Bancroft is great, and the film really picks up once she makes her entrance, but watching the film you can’t help but imagine what might have been, had original lead Patricia Neal not suffered a stroke during filming, which lead to Bancroft getting the part.

The role seems tailor made for Neal, who was just coming off a pair of strong performances in Hud and In Harm’s Way. Again, while Bancroft is good, maybe even great, the combination of Neal and Ford could have been something special.

For their part, the rest of the cast is solid, save Betty Field, who comes across as a poor man’s Shelley Winters, and overacts in nearly all of her scenes. Veteran character actor Mike Mazurki even pulls off his role as a towering Mongolian barbarian, no easy feat.

7 Women is a fairly tight drama, clocking in at only 87 minutes, capped off with a surprisingly solid ending. Darker, leaner, and borderline feminist, it shows Ford’s continuing evolution as a storyteller, which is why it’s all the more sad that we’ll never know where this new direction would have taken him.