<P> The King and I is a 1956 American musical film made by 20th Century Fox , directed by Walter Lang and produced by Charles Brackett and Darryl F. Zanuck . The screenplay by Ernest Lehman is based on the Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II musical The King and I , based in turn on the novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon . That novel in turn was based on memoirs written by Anna Leonowens , who became school teacher to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in the early 1860s . Leonowens ' stories were autobiographical , although various elements of them have been called into question . The film stars Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner . </P>
when was the movie the king and i made
1956