The most important and surprising thing about Anna and the King of Siam is that they go through 100 minutes of film and manage to maintain an intelligent, if platonic, relationship that must set a new record for Hollywood forbearance. In the place of love under the Siamese moon, 20th-Century-Fox has fashioned an interesting tale of what can happen when a prim but courageous English-woman goes to take up the white man's burden and remains to guide the destiny of a struggling monarch and his nation. All this is decidedly novel for a high-budget film, but Director Louis Lighton and his star, Rex Harrison, manage to carry it off with ease and maturity.

Harrison, though new to American films, has made an enviable record in Hitchcok's British ventures and the recent "Blithe Spirit." His portrayal of the King is fascinating. Alternating between rugged defense of His Divine Right and a genuine desire to westernize his backward land, the monarch enters a conflict of wits with the schoolmarm who cannot countenance some of the bizarre practices that are placed beyond "progress."

The harem and sacrifice-by-fire are included among the customs that Siamese royalty and English propriety hold in continual disagreement. But through a mutual appreciation of topics from Moses through President Lincoln, the King is drawn toward recognition of this difficult European who is a woman but manages to forget it.

Irene Dunne is properly starchy as Anna, while Lee J. Cobb and Gale Sondergaard maintain a tone of reality as believable members of the royal household. But Rex the rex injects enough jaunty wit in 100 minutes to make up for years of freekle-faced 2nd lieutenants and monosyllabic bathing beauties. From a first knowing look down to an inspired performance vending napkins to emissaries of the western nations at the Bangkok version of a formal dinner, the picture is his. Thus it is that "Anna and The King of Siam" take their place as one of those rare pairs who can close a picture with interest, virtue, and without love.