The Inn of the Sixth Happiness be seen on the DVD. Since the film's release, the filmmakers have been criticised for casting Ingrid Bergman, a tall woman with a Swedish accent, as Gladys Aylward, who was in fact short and had a cockney accent. Likewise, the two male leads, British actor Robert Donat and Austrian actor Curt Jurgens were not even Chinese (though Jurgens' character is said to be half-Dutch). Singer Bill Elliott sang the hit song The Inn of the Sixth Happiness with the Cyril Stapleton Orchestra. The film was based on the biography "The Small Woman" (1957) by Alan Burgess. The real Gladys Aylward
The Spessart Inn story had been released in 1923, directed by Adolf Wenter and starring Friedrich Berger and Ellen Kürty. "Schloss Mespelbrunn", actually located within the Spessart hills, was used as the castle of Graf Sandau. Another location was the market square of Miltenberg, a town between the Spessart and the Odenwald. "The Spessart Inn" premiered on 15 January 1958 at the Gloria-Palast in Berlin. The film was entered into the 1958 Cannes Film Festival and nominated for the Palme d'Or. Kurt Hoffmann's "The Haunted Castle" and "Glorious Times at the Spessart Inn" were sequels of a sort to this film. The Filmbewertungsstelle