It’s not a new phenomenon for a film to be praised as a classic because it has a transcendent performance that obscures an otherwise pedestrian film. It just seems new that mediocre and slightly above fare like Milk, et al, are called “classics” when they contain classic performances but aren’t in and of themselves great films. The Inn of the Sixth Happiness is one of those films, featuring a brilliant performance from Ingrid Bergman in an otherwise unremarkable film.
Bergman stars as Gladys Aylward, a British missionary and evangelical Christian who traveled to China on a mission to help out. She would open an inn, which the film is named after in part, and is perhaps best known for helping to lead a group of Chinese orphans over some mountains as Japanese force invaded during the Second World War.
With the film glossing over substantial portions of her life outright, changing them to make it more cinematic back then (when now they would almost be over dramatized), The Inn of the Sixth Happiness is a fairly mediocre biopic but is carried to mediocre heights because Bergman is amazing in the role. Bergman ranks as one of the greatest film stars of all time because of other films, like Casablanca and Notorious, but this is one of her performances that goes off the radar because it came right after her first Oscar win for Anastasia and got a number of award nominations (but not an Oscar nomination).
It’s a great performance – not her best but certainly in the team picture near the top, but this is a fairly unremarkable telling of a fairly remarkable tale. It’s carried because Bergman is tremendous in it, and in retrospect would’ve been worthy of another Oscar nomination if she hadn’t won the prior year, but the film itself is mediocre at best. It hasn’t aged well, at all, and historically should be know as the most overlooked performance of the legendary career of Ingrid Bergman.
No extras beside the trailer are included.
20th Century Fox presents The Inn of the Sixth Happiness . Directed by Mark Robson. Starring Ingrid Bergman, Curt Jurgens, Robert Donat. Running time: 159 minutes. Not Rated. Released: February 4, 2014.
