The Inn of the Sixth Happiness

Inn of the Sixth Happiness is a great epic. The story is surprisingly a true one - Gladys Aylward was a British servant who believed her calling was to preach in China.

Inn of the Sixth Happiness was done in the old Hollywood style with a bit of romance built in, but that seems to be the only way they deviated from the real story.

Ingrid Bergman does a wonderful job of recreating Gladys and the movie cinematography really captures the old China I knew.

I would highly recommend this to anyone who wants to be entertained, and to anyone with a sense of adventure.

In the 30's, the working-class Englishwoman Gladys Aylward (Ingrid Bergman) leaves Liverpool and arrives in London, trying to join the China Missionary Society expecting to be sent to China. However, having only ordinary schooling, her request is turned down due to her lack of qualification to the position. Gladys works hard as a maid and uses all her savings and salaries 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 (Athene Seyler) and the Chinese cook Yang (Peter Chong) 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 (Robert Donat). 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"), surprising the skeptical bi-racial Captain Lin Nan (Curt Jurgens). When Wangcheng is invaded by the Japanese, Jen-ai travels through the mountains with one hundred children to save them from death.

"The Inn of the Sixth Happiness" is a wonderful and engaging epic based on the true story of the enlightened Gladys Aylward. Her biography romanticized by Hollywood is awesome, and the movie is fantastic. Ingrid Bergman is stunning in the role of a servant in a period of class struggle in London determined to go to China where she believes she belongs and has a mission from God to be accomplished. The colors and the landscapes are impressive, but the cast of Ingrid Bergman as a woman not gorgeous; Curt Jurgens as a Chinese-Caucasian; and Robert Donat as a Chinese is weird, but they have perfect performances and I believe that is what matters in a film. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "A Morada da Sexta Felicidade" ("The Inn of the Sixth Happiness")

I show this film in my classes on leadership. Though some may find it "corny" or condescending, it is a fine and "human" portrayal of how stubbornness, faith, and a sense of justice can lead one toward great acts of courage. It's also simply an extremely interesting story. I understand that the real Gladys Aylward, on whose life the film is based, was embarrassed by the fictional "love story" portion of the film. I'm not sure why I read so many negative reactions to the film. The depictions of how Aylward inspires those around her are timeless. The three main actors, Ingrid Bergman, Robert Donat, and Kurt Jurgens, put in excellent and nuanced performances. Ms. Bergman is at her most beautiful in this film, conveying so much meaning simply with a glance. My Chinese students tend to like the film very much. Perhaps the finest scene occurs when Jen Ai (Aylward's Chinese name in the film) goes to the village to persuade the mothers to unbind their daughters' feet. So many of my students didn't even know about this cruel practice.

I speak as an Asian who understands that it is not always easy to play an Asian, even if you are an Asian. And when an English person stays amongst the Asians for some time, they very rarely speak English the way they're supposed to. And that would probably explain the second half of the movie where Ingrid doesn't speak with the same strong accent, great acting, I believe!

For the Asian watching such a movie, there was very little to complain about. However, the spoken Chinese by the Chinese assistant was not always correct - but only a Chinese would have noticed that, not a Westener nor any other non-Chinese Asian.

And then there were great scenes that were screened in Wales(?). How many would have realized that it wasn't filmed in China? Not many, I am sure.

Kudos to the producer and director of The Inn of the Sixth Happiness. It was a great effort.

One can only pray that Hollywood will be able to make movies like this again!

In spite of the rejection of her application for missionary work because of her lack of formal education, Gladys Aylward—a strong London domestic in the service of a retired explorer—decides to join an English missionary who has set up a hostelry in the mountains of North China... Here, Sara Lanson (Athene Seyler) takes in muleteers, provides them with food and lodging, and tries by ingenious means to convert them to Christianity...

Gladys saves enough money to travel to China via the Trans-Siberian Railway... Eventually she reaches the inn and Miss Lanson, and becomes her aide...

Gradually, Gladys wins over the people of the area, with her good works and humble, friendly approach... Soon she is known as "Jan-Ai" (The One Who Loves People).

After Miss Lanson's death, Gladys goes to work as a foot inspector (to enforce a government edict against binding of females' foot) at the request of a tired and cynical mandarin (Robert Donat), who is irritated by her meddling and sends her on foot-inspection trips to get rid of her... But upon her return from an arduous journey, he finds himself respectful of her dedication and courage and becomes her friend...

Captain Lin Nan (Curt Jurgens), a Chinese Army officer, comes into the district to enforce discipline in the face of the Japanese 1931 invasion... Gladys meanwhile has succeeded in restoring order in a prison uprising with her healing presence, and when Lin Nan finds it necessary to warn the people of the countryside against the Japanese, Gladys, through bandits she has befriended and are now devoted to her, manages to aid him in his efforts...

Lin and Gladys gradually fall in love, and before he leaves to rejoin the Chinese forces, he gives her a jade ring as a token of his feeling, and promises that they will someday be permanently together...

The Japanese attack, and it becomes necessary to march 100 motherless children to a mission safe in the interior... Before Gladys volunteers for, and leaves on, the mission with the children, the Mandarin offers her a parting gift: his conversion to Christianity.

There is no doubt about the splendor of Ingrid Bergman dramatizing Gladys Aylward, the "woman who wasn't qualified to come to China." With a luminous smile, she fills the screen with radiance, bringing missionary work purity of spirit, challenge, simplicity, frankness, honesty, energy, force and love...

The film, based on the novel "The Small Woman" by Alan Burgess, is a fine adventure story with love, war, religion, comedy, music, and spectacle...

Hollywood took some liberties in romancing the character with a Chinese officer—which was not true—Gladys Aylward (1904-70) was a great 'little woman' who lived a virtuous life full of quality, respect and admiration... She faced the impossible with hope, seeing the world through God's telescope...