The Seventh Sin | |
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Directed by | Ronald Neame |
Written by | Karl Tunberg |
Starring |
Eleanor Parker Bill Travers George Sanders |
Distributed by | MGM |
Release date
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Running time
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94 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $1,577,000 |
Box office | $725,000 |
The Seventh Sin is a 1957 film based on the 1925 novel The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham.
In post-World War II Hong Kong, unhappily married Carol (Eleanor Parker) has an affair with a married man, Paul (Jean Pierre Aumont). Her physician husband Walter (Bill Travers) discovers it and presents her with a choice: travel with him to a remote mainland village (where he will fight a cholera epidemic) 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 he marries Carol within one week Walter will obtain a quiet divorce. Carol presents Walter's 'deal' to Paul, who regretfully declines, citing respect for his wife.
Carol sees as her only choice to accompany Walter to the village, where she meets the rakish and booze-soaked Tim (George Sanders). 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 and an uncertain future.
The film was originally announced as a vehicle for Ava Gardner.
It was adapted for the screen by Karl Tunberg and directed by Ronald Neame. Neame left the film during production and Vincente Minnelli took over uncredited.
According to MGM records the film earned $250,000 in the US and Canada and $475,000 elsewhere resulting in a loss of $1,202,000.