The Inn of the Sixth Happiness
Starring: Ingrid Bergman, Curt Jurgens, Robert Donat
Director: Mark Robson
The film: Feisty English missionary Gladys Aylward was once a familiar face in Hong Kong, having opened a mission school in the New Territories, and made front-page news here with her vehement opposition to the filming of her life story in 1958.
Her main concerns seem to have been that Ingrid Bergman was unfit to play her since she bore a child out of wedlock, and that she hadn't been invited to be a consultant on the film. 'She's Fuming and Indignant', 'Tearful Scene At Kai Tak' and 'I Wish Someone Would Help Me says GLADYS AYLWARD' ran a series of headlines during mid-August 1958 in reference to her departure for Taiwan and belated attempts to raise money to take on 20th Century Fox in America. But across the Pacific, three days after that last, sensationally uppercased headline appeared in The China Mail, final editing of The Inn of the Sixth Happiness was concluded.
Aylward is best known for shepherding a group of about 100 Chinese orphans across mountainous terrain to escape the advancing Japanese army in 1938, and despite the communist government's refusal to allow filming in China 20 years later, it was expected that Taiwan, then her home and eventual burial place, might welcome location crews.