scrwrrd I knew this movie when I was a high school student. I belonged to wind orchestra club in high school, and I played the songs medley of this movie. Malcom Arnold who compose the musics of this movie is one of the great composers in the world. Then, we wanted to know details of the story and backgrounds, so we watched it together. This is the old movie, but image is clear and story is easy to understand. Of course, songs are good and suits the each scenes, but also the story is good. It is so moving story. Characters are attractive. It is made based on a novel, so it has reality. I think that The Sixth Happiness is a good theme.

LouE15 Phew! – what would the world have done in the last few centuries without the missionary zeal of a handful of Caucasian heroes and heroines, who dragged the benighted places of the earth to their present enlightened heights, to the everlasting glory of God, themselves and, er…Hollywood? OK OK, I'm being a bit unfair to a very enjoyable film – and the real life woman whose story inspired it – to suggest that "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness" is blighted by the tendency to glorify the (Caucasian) individual at the expense of the (native) group. If you can watch it in context it's great cinema. Radiant Ingrid Bergman plays, somewhat implausibly but nonetheless effectively, the former servant Gladys Aylward, another in the long history of famous English Eccentrics, whose missionary zeal takes her quixotically on a difficult journey to a remote northern province of China. There, in the period leading up to WWII and Japan's attack on China, she becomes an indispensable part of the community, in no small part due to her work as the local Mandarin's Foot Inspector, travelling the province to enforce the new law banning the binding of women's feet. Along the way her life is shaped by her evolving friendship with the Mandarin himself, and her initially difficult relationship with handsome, bitter Captain Lin Nan.That the Mandarin and Lin Nan are both played by Caucasian actors is not surprising for the 1950s, but is distracting and annoying. This casts no discredit on the actors themselves. Robert Donat's last film performance as the ageing, wily Mandarin, and Curt Jurgens' powerful study of a cold military man whose life is turned upside down, are both excellent, nuanced and committed. Bergman really throws herself into the part, and a large cast lend believability. Yang, the Chinese cook, adds comic humour with his entertainingly tall Bible tales; and there's a welcome appearance by the charismatic Burt Kwouk.So I gleefully overlook the outdated attitudes and conventions, and immerse myself in a different world with great pleasure – but I take even greater pleasure from knowing that in the modern age, each country gets to tell their own stories, without Caucasian interference. Now great directors such as Ang Lee, Zhang Yimou, Ki-duk Kim, Kitano Takeshi, Mohsen Makhmalbaf and Idrissa Ouedraogo show the western world how it's done.

bkoganbing 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.

Cameron_72 I have seen the movie which was set during world war two.Why were the woman and children singing a song (knick knack paddy whack,or this old man) that wasn't written till the late 50s by Ritchie Valens?David McCalman I have seen the movie which was set during world war two.Why were the woman and children singing a song (knick knack paddy whack,or this old man) that wasn't written till the late 50s by Ritchie Valens?David McCalman I have seen the movie which was set during world war two.Why were the woman and children singing a song (knick knack paddy whack,or this old man) that wasn't written till the late 50s by Ritchie Valens?David McCalman