Passes the Bechdel test
RKO 281
1999. Directed by Benjamin Ross, written by John Logan and Richard Ben Cramer and Thomas Lennon.
The Bechdel test
Bechdel score
3 / 3
Passes
-
Yes
1. At least two women
7 women characters. 6 of them speak. -
Yes
2. Who talk to each other
In 1 scene out of 73. -
Yes
3. About something besides a man
In that scene, our script parser found no man named. See the scene.
Second opinion
Not rated bechdeltest.com readers haven't rated this film.
The film
Coming to Hollywood as a celebrated boy genius featuring a spectacular career arc in New York including his radio hoax War of the Worlds, Orson Welles is stymied on the subject for his first film. After a dinner party at Hearst Castle, during which he has a verbal altercation with William Randolph Hearst, Welles decides to do a movie about Hearst. It takes him some time to convince co-writer Herman J. Mankiewicz and the studio, but Welles eventually gets the script and the green light, keeping the subject very hush-hush with the press. The movie is about an aging newspaper publisher who controlled his enemies as ruthlessly as he controlled his friends; and whose mistress was destined for fame. When a rough cut is screened, Hearst gets wind of the movie's theme and begins a campaign to see that it is not only never publicly screened, but destroyed.
- Released
- 20 Nov 1999
- Genres
- Biography, Drama
- Rated
- R
- IMDb
- 7 / 10
- Awards
- Won 3 Primetime Emmys. 15 wins & 28 nominations total
- Elsewhere
- View on IMDb
Starring, by lines spoken
- Women
- Men
- Not in the cast list
- Bigger name, more lines
- Welles 237 lines, man
- Mank 133 lines, man
- Hearst 85 lines, man
- Marion 76 lines, woman
- Schaefer 76 lines, man
- Louella 39 lines, woman
- Mayer 34 lines, man
- Carole Lombard 23 lines, woman
- Newsreel Voice 13 lines
- Toland 13 lines, man
Full cast, 35 people
- Liev Schreiber as Orson Welles
- James Cromwell as William Randolph Hearst
- Melanie Griffith as Marion Davies
- John Malkovich as Herman Mankiewicz
- Liam Cunningham as Gregg Toland
- David Suchet as Louis B. Mayer
- Fiona Shaw as Hedda Hopper
- Anastasia Hille as Carole Lombard
- Brenda Blethyn as Louella Parsons
- Roy Scheider as George Schaefer
- Roger Allam as Walt Disney
- Simeon Andrews as John Houseman
- William Armstrong as Mr. Lewis
- Jay Benedict as Darryl Zanuck
- Ron Berglas as David O. Selznick
- Paul Birchard as Top Brass #2
- Neil Conrich as Mr. Thomson
- Michael Cronin as Joseph Willicombe
- Sarah Franzl as Dorothy Comingore
- Briony Glassco as Script Girl
- Louis Hammond as Flunkie #2
- Aaron Keeling as Young Orson Welles
- Joseph Long as Harry Cohn
- Gareth Marks as Top Brass #1
- Olivier Pierre as Sam Goldwyn
- Roger Rose as News Reader
- Rolf Saxon as Flunkie #1
- Adrian Schiller as Paul Stewart
- Kerry Shale as Bernard Herrmann
- Cyril Shaps as Jeweller
- Tusse Silberg as Welles' Mother
- Toby Whithouse as Sound Technician
- Tim Woodward as Jack Warner
- Angus Wright as Joseph Cotten
- Bobby Valentino as Clark Gable
Who talks, scene by scene
Lines of dialogue in every 2 scenes, start to finish. Women above the line, men below. 7% of lines come from characters we couldn't match to the cast list and aren't shown.
Women
Men
Scene 1 Scene 73
Hover, tap or tab to a bar to see those scenes: where they happen and who's talking.
Show the numbers
| Scenes | Women's lines | Men's lines |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 2 | 4 | 10 |
| 3 to 4 | 0 | 29 |
| 5 to 6 | 24 | 36 |
| 7 to 8 | 15 | 14 |
| 9 to 10 | 0 | 0 |
| 11 to 12 | 0 | 80 |
| 13 to 14 | 8 | 14 |
| 15 to 16 | 1 | 18 |
| 17 to 18 | 0 | 2 |
| 19 to 20 | 3 | 13 |
| 21 to 22 | 0 | 19 |
| 23 to 24 | 5 | 33 |
| 25 to 26 | 0 | 28 |
| 27 to 28 | 2 | 28 |
| 29 to 30 | 2 | 5 |
| 31 to 32 | 7 | 10 |
| 33 to 34 | 11 | 10 |
| 35 to 36 | 0 | 29 |
| 37 to 38 | 12 | 12 |
| 39 to 40 | 1 | 15 |
| 41 to 42 | 0 | 25 |
| 43 to 44 | 6 | 4 |
| 45 to 46 | 7 | 11 |
| 47 to 48 | 3 | 14 |
| 49 to 50 | 16 | 16 |
| 51 to 52 | 20 | 23 |
| 53 to 54 | 1 | 0 |
| 55 to 56 | 0 | 28 |
| 57 to 58 | 2 | 5 |
| 59 to 60 | 0 | 12 |
| 61 to 62 | 0 | 20 |
| 63 to 64 | 1 | 25 |
| 65 to 66 | 0 | 3 |
| 67 to 68 | 0 | 6 |
| 69 to 70 | 0 | 7 |
| 71 to 72 | 0 | 24 |
| 73 to 73 | 0 | 5 |
The evidence
- Straight from the script
- Counted from the script and the credits
Tap an exhibit to open it.
Exhibit A: the passing scene
The scene our parser counted as passing, word for word.
HEDDA: What does truth have to do with movies? LOUELLA: So, what, it went into your other hand?
Exhibit B: every 100 lines
Out of every 100 lines with a known speaker, 19 are women's.
151 lines from women, 633 from men.
- Women
- Men
Exhibit C: who's in it
7 women and 26 men in the cast. 6 women and 17 men from it get lines.
Characters
With lines
- Women
- Men
Exhibit D: who gets heard
A woman speaks the first line.
The longest stretch with no woman speaking runs 83 lines.
Every line of dialogue, first to last
- First line by a woman
- Longest stretch with no woman speaking
Words spoken
Women speak 18% of the words (1,752), men 82% (8,125). Women have 19% of the lines, so their lines run shorter than men's.
Exhibit E: the test the other way
Two named men talk to each other about something besides a woman. It passes the reverse test.
Conversations between two named characters
Two women
7
Two men
37
Exhibit F: behind the camera
5 of the 9 people in these jobs are women.
Across the whole crew, 19% of the people whose gender is listed are women.
- Directed by
- Benjamin Ross (man)
- Written by
- John Logan (man)
- Produced by
- Su Armstrong (woman)
- Shot by
- Mike Southon (man)
- Edited by
- Alex Mackie (woman)
- Music by
- John Altman (man)
- Production design by
- Maria Djurkovic (woman)
- Cast by
- Lora Kennedy (woman), Joyce Nettles (woman)
The crew, department by department
-
Sound
0 women, 6 men, 4 not listed
-
Production
3 women, 3 men, 2 not listed
-
Art
2 women, 1 men, 2 not listed
-
Other crew
0 women, 3 men, 2 not listed
-
Directing
0 women, 3 men, 2 not listed
-
Camera
0 women, 3 men, 1 not listed
-
Costume & Make-Up
0 women, 1 men, 3 not listed
-
Writing
0 women, 4 men
- Women
- Men
- Gender not listed on TMDB
Exhibit G: how old the stars were
Women: 42 on average. Men: 49 on average.
The top-billed cast, at the film's release.
Women
Anastasia Hille 33, Fiona Shaw 41, Melanie Griffith 42, Brenda Blethyn 53
Men
Liev Schreiber 32, Liam Cunningham 38, John Malkovich 45, David Suchet 53, James Cromwell 59, Roy Scheider 67
About this analysis
Our parser read the script: 73 scenes and 839 lines of dialogue. How the test works
