Grok gives this answer: I searched extensively across web results, movie databases, forums, identification threads (including TCM fan groups and Reddit-style “what movie is this?” posts), and targeted queries for 1940s/1950s B-movies or black-and-white films involving a Chinese woman with foot binding (or “bound feet”/”lotus feet”/hobbled), a Western/Western man caretaker/guardian/protector, his recent death leaving her alone, and her recounting her life story to a female visitor/helper (nurse, missionary, social worker, etc.).
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No exact match turned up for a theatrical B-movie fitting that full description. Foot binding is a rare topic in mid-20th-century Western cinema (it was sensitive, visually challenging to depict realistically, and tied to heavy cultural stereotypes), so very few films from that era reference it at all.The only title that consistently appears in searches for “black and white movie/Asian/Chinese woman/foot binding” from the 1940s–1950s period is The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958, starring Ingrid Bergman as Gladys Aylward). It does involve a Western woman (missionary) working to stop foot binding in China and has scenes with bound feet/unbinding, but it’s in color (not B&W), it’s not a B-movie, the central character isn’t a hobbled Chinese woman being cared for lifelong by a Western man who dies, and there’s no frame story of her narrating her life to a female helper. You already ruled it out as “absolutely wrong,” which aligns with what I found—it doesn’t fit the caretaker/death/telling-her-story elements.
en.wikipedia.org
Other results that pop up are either:Much later films/shorts (e.g., the 1987 short Lotus, about a traditional Chinese woman with bound feet deciding whether to bind her daughter’s in 1914 rural China—no Western caretaker, no death/frame story; or 2011’s Snow Flower and the Secret Fan).
Modern plays or shorts about real historical figures like Afong Moy (the first documented Chinese woman in the U.S., exhibited with her bound feet in the 1830s—no lifelong Western caretaker plot).
letterboxd.com +1
Unrelated Anna May Wong silents/talkies or other exoticized “dragon lady” roles from the era (none involve lifelong care by a Western man due to bound feet or the specific narration setup).
It’s possible this was an extremely obscure/low-budget B-picture, a U.S. or British co-production, or even a made-for-TV anthology episode (e.g., something from 1950s series like Kraft Suspense Theater, Climax!, or Playhouse 90) that got rerun in late-night movie slots in the mid-1970s and felt like a B-movie. One 1965 TV episode I found had Ann Blyth playing a Chinese widow whose “delicate steps” suggested bound feet, but the plot (set in 1850s Panama/gold rush era, involving her son as a young emperor and her seeking help from an American man) doesn’t line up with your description.
anotheroldmovieblog.blogspot.com
If any of these details ring a bell or you can add more (e.g., was the setting in China, the U.S., or England? Any actor names you vaguely recall, even minor ones? Was the Western man a doctor/missionary/guardian/lover? Any other plot points like romance, war, or a specific location?), I can dig deeper with more targeted searches. In the meantime, you might have luck posting the description on r/tipofmytongue or r/whatsthemoviecalled on Reddit, or the TCM forums—old late-night TV reruns often get identified there by people who watched the same obscure slots in the ‘70s. Sorry I couldn’t nail it immediately, but this one is tricky!
Don’t forget that despite their potential AI back ends, most of the AI searches are still just glorified search engines. If no one wrote up a summary of the film you are looking for, then these tools have nothing to search or index. It’s no different than google in this regard.