The Inn of the Sixth Happiness movie storyline. In the 1930s, working-class Englishwoman Gladys Aylward leaves Liverpool and arrives in London, hoping to join the China Missionary Society and be sent to China. But she’s rejected because she’s had only ordinary schooling and lacks qualification to the position. She works hard as a maid and uses all of her earnings to buy a train ticket to Tientsin.
Then she travels by mule to the remote province of Wangcheng, where she works with the Englishwoman Jeannie Lawson and the Chinese cook Yang in the Inn of the Sixth Happiness. When Ms. Lawson has an accident and dies, Gladys has no money to run the establishment and accepts the position of “foot inspector” offered by the Mandarin Hsien Chang.
She is assigned to visit the countryside to promote and enforce the government’s law against foot-binding Chinese girls. She is successful, changes her nationality to Chinese and her name to Jen-ai (meaning “the one who loves people”), which surprises the skeptical bi-racial Captain Lin Nan. When the Japanese invade Wangcheng, Jen-ai travels through the mountains with 100 children to save them from death.
The Inn of the Sixth Happiness is a 1958 20th Century Fox film based on the true story of Gladys Aylward, a tenacious British woman, who became a missionary in China during the tumultuous years leading up to the Second World War. Directed by Mark Robson, who received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director, the film stars Ingrid Bergman as Aylward and Curt Jürgens as her love interest, Captain Lin Nan, a Chinese officer with a Dutch father. Robert Donat, who played the mandarin of the town in which Aylward lived, died before the film was released. The musical score was composed and conducted by Malcolm Arnold. The cinematography was by Freddie Young.
The film was shot in CinemaScope using the DeLuxe Color process. For the production of The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, 20th Century Fox rented space at MGM British Studios Borehamwood, where the Chinese villages were built on the backlot, with location scenes filmed in Nantmor, near Beddgelert in North Wales. A gold-painted statue of Buddha that was used on a set for the film is now located in the Italianate village of Portmeirion, North Wales. Sean Connery was considered for the role of Captain Lin. His screen test can be seen on the DVD.
Since the film’s release, the filmmakers have been criticised[citation needed] for casting Ingrid Bergman, a tall woman with a Swedish accent, as Gladys Aylward, who was in fact short and had a cockney accent. Likewise, the two male leads, British actor Robert Donat and Austrian actor Curt Jurgens were not even Chinese (though Jurgens’ character is said to be half-Dutch). Singer Bill Elliott sang the hit song “The Inn of the Sixth Happiness” with the Cyril Stapleton Orchestra.
The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958)
Directed by: Mark Robson
Starring: Ingrid Bergman, Curt Jürgens, Robert Donat, Michael David, Athene Seyler, Ronald Squire, Moultrie Kelsall, Richard Wattis, Peter Chong, Tsai Chin, Edith Sharpe
Screenplay by: Isobel Lennart
Production Design by: Cecil F. Ford
Cinematography by: Freddie Young
Film Editing by: Ernest Walter
Costume Design by: Margaret Furse
Art Direction by: John Box, Geoffrey Drake
Music by: Malcolm Arnold
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: 20th Century Fox
Release Date: November 23, 1958
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