The Seventh Sin
The Seventh Sin is a 1957 American drama film directed by Ronald Neame and starring Eleanor Parker, Bill Travers and George Sanders. It is based on the 1925 novel The [Painted Veil |The Painted Veil] by W. [Somerset Maugham].
Plot
In post-World War II Hong Kong, unhappily married Carol has an affair with Paul, a married man. Her physician husband Walter discovers it and presents her with a choice: travel with him to a remote mainland village or face the scandal of a very public divorce. She persuades him to reconsider, and he proposes an alternative. If Paul's wife will agree to a divorce and if he marries Carol within one week, Walter will obtain a quiet divorce. Carol presents Walter's offer to Paul, who declines, claiming respect for his wife.Carol sees her only choice is to accompany Walter to the village, where she meets the rakish and booze-soaked consul Tim. He soon introduces her to nuns at the local hospital-convent, and Carol begins to re-evaluate her self-absorbed life and character.
Working at the convent, Carol learns she is pregnant. She tells Walter she's unsure who is the father, and he regrets her honesty. Shortly after, Walter contracts cholera and dies. Carol returns to Hong Kong with an uncertain future.
Cast
Production
The film was announced as a vehicle for Ava Gardner.Producer David Lewis felt the story "needed modernizing and a fresh approach" and had a script done by Arthur Laurents. However the produced claimed director Ronald "Neame, with the backing of Thau, had rejected Arthur Laurents’ script to return to the old hat of Maugham, and Karl Tunberg was assigned to do a rewrite. The whole project was pedestrian and Neame, I thought, was doing a very bad job. He has done fine work on other films, but he certainly didn’t on this one. I don’t think he even understood the story—certainly not Laurents’ conception of it."
Neame left the film during production, and Vincente Minnelli took over and was uncredited. Lewis said that Sidney Franklin also directed some of it and that the producer was kicked off the film.