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30 out of 35 people found the following review useful: A movie of heart..., 29 June 2000 Author: ironside (robertfrangie@hotmail.com) from Mexico
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...
23 out of 29 people found the following review useful: Excellent, 2 July 2000 Author: Mary Hutchings (mhutchings@abling.co.uk) from Wellington, England
This film is quite true to life, but as Ingrid Bergman said herself, movies are for entertainment, therefore some liberties have to be taken. Bergman's return to WangCheng to marry Colonel Linnan is implied in the final scene. As to Meryl Streep being more suitable as a previous commenter suggested - words fail me!!!! Ingrid Bergman was and IS far greater than Meryl Streep - there is no comparison. Miss Bergman made no attempt to conceal her accent at the beginning of the movie - as a previous commenter suggests. She is so well-known that no one bothers to take any notice of her accent and she can play anyone of any nationality. This is a brilliant film and I happen to know that Miss Bergman researched her role in detail; she spoke at length to a Chinese lady who had had her feet bound as a child - this was when on location in North Wales. The lady was helping to look after the Chinese children. In real life Gladys Aylward DID succeed in getting one hundred children across the mountains to safety in Sian. This is a lovely film, extraordinarily well-acted by all - especially by Miss Bergman, Curt Jurgens and Robert Donat [whose last film it was]. Watch it!!!!! It's great. I don't think cynical comments have any place where this film is concerned. Today's films are nothing compared with films made in the 1940s and 1950s - they are all blood and thunder and special effects [Titanic, for example]. Visit our Yahoo club Ingrid Bergman International for more details of great films! Mary Hutchings
13 out of 15 people found the following review useful: Missionary/Innkeeper, 16 July 2006 Author: bkoganbing from Buffalo, New York
This film concerns the life and achievements of one Gladys Aylward, a Christian woman from Great Britain who conceived early on that her place in the world was in China. She was a remarkable person who let absolutely nothing deter her in her calling. That included a lack of formal education, no support at all from any accredited missionary group and no money of her own. She worked as a maid to get the money to get a one way ticket to China with only an address of an aged female missionary who needed a young assistant.This film marked Ingrid Bergman's complete return to our fickle public's favor. After the scandal of her affair with Roberto Rosellini and her divorce, the public would not accept her in saintly roles like Joan of Arc and The Bells of St. Mary's. But winning her second Oscar two years earlier cemented her comeback from Europe and this part restored her in our fickle public's affections. We'd never get away with casting her as an Englishwoman today, but she overcomes any accent problems with unbridled talent.She soon inherits the whole mission when Athene Sayler dies. And she supports it by working as a foot inspector for the local mandarin. In those days of the twenties among other things the Kuomintang government was trying to do was undo the Chinese custom of footbinding females at a young age so they would have petite feet. It met with a lot of local resistance, but she proves up to the task.The title of the film comes from the idea that Athene Sayler had. Not to open up a formal church as such. Instead she wanted to open an inn in which travelers could stop and hear stories for entertainment. No television in those rooms. The stories they heard were those of the Bible. It was Sayler, Bergman, and their cook Peter Chong who ran the place and soon it was Bergman and Chong.If Bergman's casting seems bizarre by today's standards, the casting of Curt Jurgens as a Chinese Kuomintang Army Colonel is worse. Jurgens's occidental features are written into the script making him bi-racial, Dutch father and Chinese mother. He's a man with little convictions about spiritual matters, except he comes to believe in Bergman, in her innate decency, her dedication to his people, and what she's trying to accomplish. The mandarin is even more bizarrely cast. The part calls for an asthetic actor so they got the best around in Robert Donat. This was Mr. Donat's farewell performance, he died while the film was still in theaters. No one would get away with that casting today, but Robert Donat is also that good a player.I'm sure if the film were remade today, we'd have real oriental players like Russell Wong for the Colonel and James Shigeta for the mandarin and maybe someone like Kate Winslet for Gladys Aylward. But would it be as good as this film?The subject of missionaries and the good they do is one hotly debated topic. It does take a certain amount of brass to go to a given place and tell everyone your belief system is all wrong. I suppose the best way to lead is by example and Ingrid Bergman as Gladys Aylward set the best example she could. In fact she did one thing most missionaries, good or bad, wouldn't consider. She gave up her British citizenship and became a Chinese citizen.The film was helped a great deal by the inclusion of that children's song This Old Man where Ingrid tries to teach her youngest charges some English with it. It was enormously popular back in the day and Mitch Miller's record of it was heard constantly.The climax of the film and what gave Gladys Aylward her place in history is that trek with a hundred orphans away from the advancing Japanese army. A remarkable achievement indeed from a remarkable dedicated woman who wouldn't listen to anything, but what was inside her soul.
14 out of 18 people found the following review useful: Great old classic based on a true story, 6 May 2004 Author: (janetm-4) from Washington, DC
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.
8 out of 9 people found the following review useful: The One Who Loves People, 16 November 2007 Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
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")
8 out of 9 people found the following review useful: Moving and a Delight to Watch, 29 May 1999 Author: Collin Madhavan from Malaysia
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!
8 out of 11 people found the following review useful: A Perfect Actress!, 17 September 2005 Author: BOB L'ALOGE from southwestern Arizona
Once more, in this film as she had in her earlier films, Ingrid Bergman proves she was "A PERFECT ACTRESS!" In this film, "Inn of the Sixth Happiness," she plays Englishwoman Gladys Aylward who knew that China was the place where she belonged. Not qualified to be sent there as a missionary she worked and saved her money until she had enough to go on her own. Once there, she meets up with people who manage to help her through her first days. Then, she is nearly all alone and must make it or leave China. She stays. Eventually, just as WW2 is breaking out, she rescues over 100 children and takes them to freedom.Again, I repeat, it clearly shows Ingrid Bergman as a perfect actress. She shows her talent and charm all through this film and it is one everyone in the family can watch and appreciate. I highly recommend it.
3 out of 3 people found the following review useful: Strange that so many people deny Gladys' romance with the Chinese officer...., 4 January 2008 Author: rockingmule from United States
This is a wonderful movie which can be totally blown apart by those more interested in accuracy about Gladys Aylward's life than the spirit of her life. The strangest thing is that over and over one can read that Gladys was a chaste woman who never would have dreamed of having a romance with any man. The book on which the film is based, The Small Woman by Alan Burgess, is cited on the webpage for the movie, so there's no excuse for ignorance. Mr Burgess wrote at length of Gladys' romance with a colonel in the Chinese Nationlist Army. The man's name was Linnan, and aside from being portrayed by a German actor, the romance was as portrayed. Linnan was pure Chinese, he and Gladys loved each other very much, and they planned to be married. In the uncertainty of World War 2, Gladys decided against the marriage, and Linnan was lost in the war. She never saw him again and did not even know if he had survived the war, but she always remembered him as the one man she truly loved. I for one think her romance is in keeping with the rest of her life-she loved the Chinese people so much that she became a Chinese citizen, and when she fell in love it was with a Chinese man.
5 out of 7 people found the following review useful: A moving, inspirational film, 20 January 2005 Author: rcs8 from State College PA
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.
6 out of 9 people found the following review useful: Bergman's Luminous Presence, and Great Art Direction, 24 November 2005 Author: oliver-177 from United States
I don't know if the real Ingrid Bergman was a saint, but she was better than any other actor or actress at conveying the saintly in us.Bergman positively glows in this simple tale of a maid, who is rejected as a missionary and achieves greatness all the same. She is incredibly moving.The art direction is also magnificent, and wholly convincing.The rest of the cast is doing their best, but neither Curt Jurgens nor Robert Donat are very convincing as Chinese characters. Also disappointing is Sir Malcolm Arnold's score. It is certainly not overly Chinese. As a matter of fact, it could be used for any British war film.I also just saw a very similar movie "The Devil at 4 O'Clock." Sixth Happiness is considerably better, thanks to Bergman, and the decision not to have a subplot for the teenagers. Next to Happiness, Devil seems calculating and a bit cynical too.
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