Anna and the King of Siam

1862. Anna Leonowens, a widowed English teacher, arrives in Bangkok with her son. King Mongkut has sent for her to teach his children English. At the palace there are some sixty children, many wives, and a ruler nobody contradicts. Anna wants the house her contract promised her and the king will not give it. Over the years the two press on each other: she on his decisions, he on her insistence. John Cromwell directs; two hours and eight minutes, with Irene Dunne as Anna and Rex Harrison as the king, adapted from Margaret Landon's book, which in turn rests on Leonowens's own memoirs. The same story later became The King and I on stage and screen. Thailand banned these films on the grounds that they misrepresent the monarchy.