beloved infidel
by
Douglas Messerli
Isobel
Lennart (screenplay, based on the book, The
Small Woman by Alan Burgess), Mark Robson (director) The Inn of the Sixth Happiness / 1958
After
I saw Mark Robson’s The Inn the Sixth
Happiness, maybe for the sixth time since it premiered in 1958, I decided
to check out the comments about the film on Wikipedia, and was amused by the
article’s list of grievances by Gladys Aylward, the British woman on whose
adventures in China the film was based. Aylward, a small, dark-haired Brit was
played in the movie by the rather tall Swedish blonde, Ingrid Bergman (although
Bergmann does attempt to
be as dowdy as
possible, trying hard to hide her natural beauty). Although in reality, Aylward
and her family worked hard to pay for her China trip, the movie has her
employer “condescending to write to ‘his old friend’ Jeannie Lawson,” and her
complex and dangerous train trip on the trans-Siberian railway is summarized by
the appearance of a few rowdy Russian troops. The near impossibility of her
reaching the northern Chinese city of Tsientsin is summarized in a single
scene. The names of places and people were changed, and the fact that Colonel
Lin Nan was portrayed as half-European (by the German-Austrian actor Curt
Jürgens), when in reality Lin Nan was Chinese only outraged the true hero; the
Mandarin ruler was played by British actor Robert Donat. Aylward was also
angered by the fact that the movie suggested a love interest between Lin Nan
and her character, and that she returned to him at the end of the film, when in
fact nothing of the sort ever occurred. In truth, the missionary continued to
work with orphans until she was 60 years old.
In the very next line of the Wikipedia
entry, the author notes, perhaps with intended humor: “The film was the second most popular movie at
the British box office in 1959.” Obviously the writers and directors, with all
of their falsehoods, had done something right.
Despite the fact, moreover, that even
from my childhood encounter with this film, I recognized it as an epic
soap-opera, full of empty pieties, and that I have always detested its too oft-repeated
theme-song “This Old Man,” I too still enjoy
this 50s flick, which is what drew me to see it one more time the other
day.
It is now clear to me that all my
fascination with missionaries had little to do with bringing religion into
other people’s lives, but was simply a “profession” that was filled, in my
young mind, with adventure and, particularly, with travel, something that I
have always longed for. Although I’ve been to many countries in the world,
there are still far more I would like to visit; it’s strange that I chose to
marry a man who today refuses to budge outside the boundaries of the southern
part of the state of California, who’s terrified of air travel, and has no
interest in leaving home for more than a day.
Yet clearly it was the adventure of
Robson’s work (the same director who brought us other cinematic soap-operas
such as Peyton Place, The Prize, Nine Hours to Rama, and Valley
of the Dolls), not its spiritual message, that so attracted me. Even today
I cannot resist the moment when Bergman, momentarily acting as the Mandarin’s
foot inspector, asking for the children’s feet to be unbound, is terrified as a
village elder becomes determined to unbind her own feet. Bergman screams out
with something like “No, you musn’t; the pain will be too great!” Bergman as Aylward
seemed to contain such fortitude and strong will that she could even quell a
prison riot by promising the interns better meals and a few hours outside of
the gate when the prisoners might work on gardens.
Finally, there’s no question that
screenwriter Isobel Lennart can whip up a great story, Anchors Aweigh, Two for the
Seesaw, The Sundowners, and Funny
Girl (both stage and screen versions) being among some of her numerous
other credits. In Lennart’s telling, the woman who was told she was
“unqualified” for serving in China, proves herself so remarkable that, in a
world terrified of outsiders, she is awarded Chinese citizenship and given a
special Chinese name which defines her as a person loved by the people. Even if
we never truly comprehend what lies behind Aylward’s determined love and
stoicism, Bergman convinces us with her gentle smile and pleading eyes to
believe; and believe we do, in her less than in her religion.
Los Angeles, May
20, 2017
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