Nasty Habits on AllMovie

This controversial film is based on two sources; The Abbess of Crewe by Muriel Spark, and the Watergate hearings of the U.S. Congress. The resulting film mirrors Watergate as if it had occurred in a Philadelphia Roman Catholic convent among nuns lustily fighting a political battle for, among other things, the leadership of the abbey. When the old abbess (Edith Evans in her final performance) dies without indicating her successor, a pitched battle begins between the arch-conservative nun Alexandra (Glenda Jackson) and the liberal free-spirit Felicity (Susan Penhaligon). Before the story ends, a chastened Sister Alexandra is on a plane to the Vatican, and the much-too-liberal Sister Felicity has been laicized, as the nation's press-corps avidly follows the lurid goings-on.