Nasty Habits (1977)

• 52%
• 1977
• Comedy
• Michael Lindsay-Hogg
• Glenda Jackson
• Melina Mercouri
• Geraldine Page

The Watergate scandal is used as the basis to tell the story of corruption within a Philadelphia convent. The Abbey of Philadelphia is a wealthy, little known order of nuns loosely associated to the Catholic church. Its Mother Abbess, Sister Hildegarde, is on her deathbed. She admits to Alexandra (the Richard Nixon character) that she has always been her favorite of the nuns, and sees her as her heir apparent, while Hildegarde also admits to Alexandra that she has never trusted hard working Sister Felicity (the George McGovern character) and her liberal ideas. Among Felicity's ideas is wanting to turn the abbey into a love abbey, as she is secretly carrying on with a Jesuit priest, Father Thomas. Power hungry Alexandra also sees being Abbess of Philadelphia as her destiny. But Hildegarde dies before her intention of signing the documentation of her official endorsement of Alexandra as Abbess, which would have more than sealed Alexandra's ascension to the position. Alexandra, using her two flunkies, Sister Walburga (the H.R. Haldeman character), the abbey's prioress, and Sister Mildred (the John Ehrlichman character), the mistress of novices, does whatever required to win the upcoming election of Abbess, for which the sisters are not allowed to campaign. Felicity, who has the large and growing support of the younger nuns and the novices (the latter who nonetheless have no voting rights), is Alexandra's biggest threat to an election win. Although Alexandra is the mastermind of the plot to win the election with some strategic assistance by Sister Gertrude (the Henry Kissinger character), who is doing missionary work overseas, she cannot be seen to know anything about any shady dealings. While naive Sister Geraldine (the Gerald Ford character) unwittingly assists Alexandra and her hench-nuns, they turn to Sister Winifred (the John Dean character) as their patsy as they embark on electronic eavesdropping, burglary and bribery. But the election itself is just the start of the potential problems for Alexandra and her crew.