This 1946 movie uses the same plot later extrapolated as a musical in The King and I, but this one is colorless – that is, it’s in black and white – and relatively, but not completely, musicless. Irene Dunne plays Anna Owens, the Englishwoman who, in 1862, accepted a job as the private tutor for the children of the King of Siam. He’s King Mongkut, played by Rex Harrison. Other Siamese roles also went to familiar Hollywood faces, including Linda Darnell as Tuptim and Gale Sondergaard as Lady Thiang. King Mongkut ruled in Bangkok from 1851 to 1868, including the time when the U.S. was engaging in its Civil War. The country of Siam became officially recognized under his reign, and retained the name Siam until 1939, when it was renamed Thailand. (It also reverted to Siam for two years in the 1940s, just after WWII.)