NR | 2h 38min | Drama | 1958
British housemaid Gladys Aylward (Ingrid Bergman) believes that God wants her as a missionary in China, although she doesn’t know what she’ll do there or how she’ll survive. But Britain’s China Missionary Society rejects her application; she lacks the “education and experience.” Instead, they dispatch her to be a maid in an aristocrat’s household. Awestruck by her fervor to serve, the aristocrat contacts an elderly missionary in Yangcheng, Jeannie Lawson (Athene Seyler), who welcomes help, even from a novice. Ecstatic, Aylward takes the treacherous Trans-Siberian train, then makes the remainder of the trip on a donkey.
The matronly Lawson plunges Aylward into work, overhauling her decrepit “Inn of the Sixth Happiness” and evangelizing guests who sup or stay. After Lawson’s death, Aylward’s kindness eventually endears her to the initially hostile locals, who christen her Jen-Ai (“true love”).
The influential mandarin (an impish Robert Donat) warms to Aylward, enabling her inexplicable goodwill toward needy children, women, men, the sick, wounded, and the aged. A younger, military officer Capt. Lin Nan (Curt Jurgens), who’s half Chinese, half Dutch, falls for her, and she for him. As they prepare, in their own ways, for the impending Japanese invasion, Aylward readies for the trial of her life as she shepherds hordes of orphaned children under her care through a chilly, mountainous terrain. With the threat of Japanese bullets or bombs at every turn, her faith in God is her only guide.
Critics complain that the 5-foot-9-inch tall, blonde Bergman hardly resembles the tiny, dark-haired Aylward. But neither these quibbles, nor others about taking liberties with the facts, mattered to Robson. He knew he was making a film, not a documentary. And frankly, the minute you lay eyes on Bergman, all this fades into insignificance. You care deeply about her character, her successes, her motivations, her fears, her despair.
Bergman doesn’t need to work hard to look angelic, she looks the part effortlessly, even disheveled or distraught. Heavily made up, 53-year-old Donat brings grace, dignity, and royal bearing to his Mandarin. The 6-foot-4-inch tall Jurgens, although lacking Donat’s finesse, cuts an impressive figure as Lin Nan.
Altruism in Action
Robson doesn’t hide his Biblical allusions: innocent children threatened with death by a cruel Japanese empire, stories of a baby born in an inn, journeys on a donkey. Still, he stresses Aylward’s ordinariness. No saint, she’s a flesh-and-blood woman, haunted by self-doubt, plagued by impatience, and quite capable of falling in love. It’s as if Robson’s saying that a woman doesn’t need to be a nun for her faith to shape her cheerfulness, courage, humility, generosity, forgiveness, and sacrifice. There’s little to no display of piety from Lawson or Aylward, yet Robson depicts their goodness in action. They appreciate or craft beauty where it seems absent and uphold truth when falsehood seems far more appealing.
In one charged scene, Aylward volunteers to stop a prison riot when the fearful supervisor would rather shoot marauding prisoners. She sternly reminds him that his duty is to fearlessly preserve order while protecting prisoners, not killing them. Sneering, he explains that since he’s an atheist, God won’t save him if he intervenes. He taunts her. She’s a believer. Why doesn’t she dare to intervene? She does. But before stepping into the prison square, she bends in silent, trembling prayer. Triumphant, he suggests that she slinks back, “Admit you’re afraid.” She turns, “Yes, I am afraid.” Then straightening, she says, “Open the gate!”
Aylward had heard that the Chinese wish each other five blessings: wealth, longevity, health, virtue, and peaceful death in old age. When Lawson names her inn after these five, Aylward wonders about the sixth. Lawson smiles. Each person must decide what it is; her faith-powered integrity becomes Aylward’s. She tells Lin, “When the laws of China conflict with those of my faith, I know which one to obey.”
For all her spiritual aloofness, her mind, body, and heart transform the Chinese. She’s also transformed by them. Aylward grows to love and respect their country: She embraces their ancient truths, learns their language, honors their traditions, and becomes a Chinese citizen.
