The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958)

Ingrid Bergman: Gladys Aylward

Photos 

Quotes 

• Gladys Aylward : [handing a Chinese girl to her father]  Here, the next time you want her feet bound, bind them yourself, not the woman, and you listen to her screams.

• Capt. Lin Nan : I believe in China as it can be.

  Jen-Ai : I love China the way it is.

  Capt. Lin Nan : Filthy? Ignorant? Backwards?

  Jen-Ai : No, but if your house is dirty you can clean it. One can make improvements, even in small quarters.

• Capt. Lin Nan : [after Jen-ai adopts a baby girl]  Don't you see how stupid and pointless this is? What are you going to do with her?

  Jen-Ai : Call her Six-Pence I think. Do you like it?

  Capt. Lin Nan : I said what are you going to do with her? What do you know about babies?

  Jen-Ai : What is there to know? When they're dirty you wash them, when they're hungry you feed them.

• Gladys Aylward : Yang says everyone in China wishes you the five happinesses: wealth, longevity, good health, virtue... and

  Jeannie Lawson : And a peaceful death in old age, yes.

  Gladys Aylward : But he didn't mention anymore. What is the sixth happiness?

  Jeannie Lawson : That you must find out for yourself. Each person must find out in his heart what the sixth happiness is.

• [last lines] 

  Jen-Ai : Dr. Robinson, do you remember me? My name used to be Gladys Aylward.

  Dr. Robinson : Yes, I remember you. Gladys Aylward, who wasn't qualified to come to China. Will you come with us to our children's village? I can think of no one who would be more valuable.

  Jen-Ai : Thank you, but I'm going back to Yang Cheng. I'm going home.

• [first lines] 

  Gladys Aylward : My name is Gladys Aylward. I've written to the head of the missionary society. His reply stated that he'd see me if I ever came to London. If he's busy, I can wait.

• Capt. Lin Nan : It is his foot inspector who is beautiful

  Gladys Aylward : You're confusing me.

  The Mandarin : Many people are confused these days. Let us have dinner and wine and music and discuss it further.

• Jen-Ai : I am not attractive in that way.

  Capt. Lin Nan : Jen-Ai, don't you know you're beautiful?

  Jen-Ai : Once in her life, every woman should have that said to her. I thank you for being the one who said it to me.

• Sir Francis Jamison : At least you have a destination. That's something.

  Gladys Aylward : Its more than enough. I might not be leaving today if it was not for you.

  Sir Francis Jamison : That is a thought that gives me no peace of mind.

• Miss Thompson : The wages are 19 shillings a week. Thursday and every second Sunday off, from 10 till 10.

  Gladys Aylward : That'll be fine. Thank you.

  Miss Thompson : I should think so. Please remember there are 50 girls for every job in London.

• Gladys Aylward : I thought I was going to make my own tea and save some money.

  Miss Thompson : Boil everything, I told her. Foreigners, being what they are.

  Sir Francis Jamison : Very sensible. Very English.

• Gladys Aylward : I'm not that kind of machinery. I'm a missionary. I'm going to China as a missionary - with a Bible.

  [singing] 

  Gladys Aylward : Onward Christian Soldiers, Marching as to war...

• Gladys Aylward : Yang, I've tried to learn Chinese from a book...

  Yang : Book don't know! I teach. We point things, then I tell you.

• Gladys Aylward : Are those girls his daughters?

  Yang : Not exactly daughters. More like wives. But, not exactly wives.

• Jeannie Lawson : A community bed. You'll find them in every inn in north China. We've got lots of rooms, but, when winter comes, this is the bed everybody will be in.

  Gladys Aylward : You mean together?

  Jeannie Lawson : Thirty, forty, fifty at a time. All fully clothed and ignoring each other. It gets cold here. You'll find out.

• Gladys Aylward : What do you think he wants?

  Yang : Maybe he make us close down. Maybe this Last Supper like Bible say.

• Yang : Mandarin say, Captain Lin ask him to help you. So, he offer you job on his staff: foot inspector.

  Gladys Aylward : Foot inspector?

  Yang : Foot inspector will tour district, see people no more bind feet of female children, to make small. If female under 30, unbind.

  Gladys Aylward : Well, I certainly approve of that.

• Gladys Aylward : [voice over]  My happinesses were too many to count. The happiness of being one of them, of being call by my new name: Jen-Ai - the one who loves people, of learning to speak their language, of being able to talk to the people in the marketplace, to my neighbors in the fields, and my friends in every village in the mountains, the happiness of watching the seasons turn and change from autumn to winter, from winter to spring, the happiness of beginning new things that every year brought a harvest of inner happiness...

• Yang : Mandarin agree to what you ask and forgive you for the way you speak to him - this time. In a world full of frightened people, he likes courage wherever he find it - even in a rude and angry woman.

  Gladys Aylward : I am the Mandarin's servant.

• Gladys Aylward : You have to interfere with what is wrong if you hope to make it right.

  The Mandarin : But that is what I tell them! And what are you guilty, I ask, that you object to her interfering?

  Gladys Aylward : Then, you don't object?

  The Mandarin : Certainly not. Bother the officials all you wish. Embarrass them. Ask them questions. Badger them. But, leave the women of my household alone!

  Gladys Aylward : Oh.

  The Mandarin : Exactly. Do not tell them that no human being should be subject to the will of another. And did you not tell them that to obey any man unquestioningly was old fashioned? And have you not been teaching them to read? Where will it end?

• Jen-Ai : It is the safety of the soul that my faith promises, not of the body.

• The Mandarin : I'm surprised that you've never attempted to convert me!

  Jen-Ai : I may be an interfering woman... but, I'm not a completely foolish one. I know when I have met my Master.

• Jen-Ai : A war? But, if this should happen, why should they attack this region? We're so poor, so isolated?

  Capt. Lin Nan : An innkeeper, foot inspector, prison reformer, and now a military expert.

• Capt. Lin Nan : When invaders come, they are not to be met peacefully as in the past. They're to be fought. Each man must fight. Each man must kill.

  Jen-Ai : I cannot take that message. To me killing is a mortal sin.

  Capt. Lin Nan : You're a citizen of China, you will obey its laws.

  Jen-Ai : When the laws of China conflict with the laws of my faith, I know which one to obey.

• Capt. Lin Nan : Surely that was a great opportunity for making converts. Aren't you neglecting your missionary work?

  Jen-Ai : Is that what you think it is? Collecting converts the way a child collects pretty stones?

  Capt. Lin Nan : Is it anything else?

  Jen-Ai : To me, it's making each man know that he counts, whether he believes in Christ or Buddha or nothing.

• Yang : [storytelling to visitors at the Inn]  Now, on the night the baby Lord Jesus was born in that stable in Bethlehem, several came to bow down to him and his mother, the Lady Mary. There were three powerful warlords known as the Magi who brought many fine gifts. And still another! A wonderful man, a sea captain named Noah, came to visit Jesus. His ship was called Noah's ark. The Lord Jesus liked this Noah, for he was a a wise man, especially in the ways of animals, whom he often took sailing in his ark. This man, Noah...

  Jen-Ai : Yang.

  Yang : This man, Noah, was born long before the Lord Jesus. But, many in those days lived to be very old. So, no one can be sure, no one at all, that Noah did not visit Jesus in that stable in Bethlehem.

• Jen-Ai : I remembered you as a friend. I know we think differently about things; but, I can't understand why you are so hostile...

  Capt. Lin Nan : I'm not hostile to you personally. I have few personal feeling.

• Jen-Ai : My conscience is my own affair, and theirs is theirs, and yours is yours.

• Jen-Ai : Maybe Hok-A is right. I am like a man.

  Capt. Lin Nan : It's a warm night. Why don't you take a swim with me?

  [embarrassed, Jen-Ai starts to leave] 

  Capt. Lin Nan : Hok-A was wrong, Jen-Ai. You're not like a man at all.

• Capt. Lin Nan : What I wanted to say to you, I tried not to say. I was afraid to say. But, I cannot leave with the words unsaid.

  Jen-Ai : There's nothing you can't say to me.

  Capt. Lin Nan : Would it offend you to be loved by a man of another race?

  Jen-Ai : It would honor me.

• Jen-Ai : I think this is why God wanted me to come to China: to get these children out.

• Jen-Ai : I don't love you any less for leaving.

  Capt. Lin Nan : You think I love you less for staying?

• Jen-Ai : Greater love, hath no man, than a man lay down his life for his friends.