User Reviews

Sam Wood's film "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" is the story of Mr. Chipping (Robert Donat), an elderly schoolmaster at the prestigious Brookfield school in England. At the beginning of the current year's term, "Mr. Chips" is retired, but still living on campus and still interacting with the boys at the school. Suffering a cold, he retires to his living room in front of a fireplace and begins to reminisce about his long, 63 - year career at the school. Beginning as an idealistic teacher, he gains a reputation for stodginess, though his peers and students find that to be an almost endearing quality. Years later, he goes on holiday with a fellow teacher to Austria and meets the love of his life, Katherine (Greer Garson) who is an intelligent free spirit. After a whirlwind courtship, the two marry, and Chips (as she begins to call him) brings her to England with him in time for the next term. With her influence, Chips begins to open up more to his students and peers and quickly gains a very popular following among both. Throughout the years, Chips takes care of his students, and sees several generations of boys from the same families come under his care, personified by the Colley boys (all played by Terry Kilburn). Once WWI begins, most of the older students and schoolmasters enlist, so Chips is asked to come out of retirement to do the job that he has wanted to do his entire career at Brookfield - become Headmaster, leading the next generation of students while being forced to deal with the losses of his former students from the war.

"Goodbye, Mr. Chips" is obviously the inspiration for films like "Mr. Holland's Opus" in that it is a sentimental story of a young and insecure teacher who carries through with his career not really knowing the influence he has had on his students. "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" did not have a big emotional crescendo at the end that similar films from the last two or three decades generally did (and do) but rather it had a quieter, more dignified emotional catch. Robert Donat is spectacular in this Oscar-winning role. It is amazing that he was able to play a man that was between 10-50 years older than he really was so convincingly. Greer Garson is wonderful as always in her role as "Mrs. Chips". The film itself was charming and sentimental without being overly sappy; I certainly had tears streaming down my cheeks at the end, but didn't feel foolish about it. I would recommend this one to anyone, but I think that it will certainly get a much better response from classic film lovers due to its purity and its unabashed sentimentality. 7/10 --Shelly

I wouldn't add anything to what my fellow-reviewers have said except for the fact that this is my favorite movie of all time. I watch it whenever I am depressed about the depths to which humans are capable of going (which is all too often depicted in modern movies). This movie portrays the opposite.

Chipping starts out as a teacher who, because of an introverted personality, has trouble communicating with the students in his charge and with his superiors. Before going on the trip on which he meets his beloved, he is passed over for a promotion as head of a residence hall, despite the fact that he has seniority. He is also made fun of by his students and finds he must revert to a strict form of discipline to keep them in line; he is not a popular teacher as a result. He is at a low ebb, starting to think that he is a failure in life.

Then, on a vacation to continental Europe, he meets the character played by Greer Garson. They have a whirlwind romance, which, in itself, is so enjoyable to watch. He is so clumsy in his advances. And she is amused by him. The actors do a great job of showing the chemistry between the characters.

They eventually get married, which gives "Chips" the confidence he had lacked. His wife makes some suggestions which helps him find the balance of discipline and fun with the students, and he soon comes to love his students as he would his own children, and, in the process, becomes one of the most popular teachers in the school.

One of my favorite aspects of this movie is its idyllic view of marriage. It really shows what marriage "could" be (two people coming together to become stronger as a unit than they would have been separately--another movie of this vintage which portrays the same is "Stars and Stripes, Forever", the biopic of John Phillip Sousa).

Robert Donat's performance, as the other reviewers have noted, is of the highest caliber--ever. And, Greer Garson's role was all too short. Also, of note are Chipping's friend who invites him to Europe and urges him ahead in his romance, and, of course, the various children who come into his life.

Macho men must be careful with this one. If it doesn't make you cry, nothing will. It may be best to take your girlfriend with you so that she can see your sensitive side.

The third in the series of films MGM made in Britain was perhaps their greatest triumph, with a well-deserved Academy Award for Robert Donat, who played Mr Chips over a span of 60 years very convincingly. Always a great actor, Donat was perhaps at his best in this story covering the history of a schoolmaster from his first appearance at the school as a young idealist, through crusty middle age (and a change when he meets charming Greer Garson, in her first screen appearance, stranded up an Austrian mountain) and into his much loved dotage as a kind of human fixture and fittings of Brookfield School.

James Hilton's book is developed here to give not only a view of the English public school system which probably never existed, but to cover issues such as the Great War with some power. The film is extremely touching in places - whether this is because of the acting or the excellent music I'm not quite sure. I do know that this version of the film is streets ahead of the misguided musical version which appeared three decades later with Peter O'Toole in the lead.

Warm-heartedly sentimental, to these slightly jaundiced eyes overly sentimental fictional biopic (if that's not an oxymoron!) of grand old man Mr Chips and his journey from young and easily cowed teacher at Brookfield School to venerable old age as headmaster. These days it's a little hard to swallow the old English public school accents as quoth by schoolboy after schoolboy, especially when they forcedly laugh at Chips' gentle witticisms but in the end it's impossible not to warm to Robert Donat's skillful portrayal of a man who devotes his life to his pupils and the upholding of traditional educational values in the face of "progress" and against the background of changing times culminating in the bathetic readings out of fallen pupils and masters cut down in the carnage of World War 1. His short-lived happy marital interlude is sensitively rendered, opposite an empathetic Greer Garson until her untimely demise in childbirth and Paul Heinreid plays Chips' German friend and touring companion with gusto. But of course the film is a tour-de-force for Donat, skilfully aging his voice and mannerisms down the years and faithfully staying in character from first to last. The deathbed scene and closing cavalcade of Chips' past pupils is obviously meant to leave not a dry eye in the house but seems somewhat forced from this distance. That said, the film is earnest and heart - warming, very much, no doubt, its director's intention. Be true to your school indeed!

Released in 1939 the film begins many years earlier in the 1870s with a daunted young teacher arriving at a school, his sensitive and shy manner means you know he'll struggle at times with the unruly boys. The school is a boarding school where the upper-class tend to send their sons for an education. Great importance is attached to the important of excelling in sporting competition against other schools, especially in cricket. There's also lots of choir too. Our character is next given a bit of a romantic adventure while on holiday which leads to a happy marriage and an improvement in his work and life at the school. The film is very sweet and rarely tries to do anything other than convey that tone throughout. The Great War is an important backdrop to later events in the film and it takes it's toll on our now elderly character's state of mind. The cinematography and editing in the film is nicely done but it's the acting which really stands out, you can completely believe Mr Chips as both a young and an old man. Overall a very good and sweet film of a bygone British world.

If you watch this expecting a kind of topical biography of a teacher at an English school for boys, a gentle and unspectacular story, with romance, a growing acceptance of one's fate, and a lot of sentiment, you'll get what you expect.

They run these sort of movies out from time to time. "It's a Wonderful Life," "Mr. Holland's Opus," "The Long Grey Line." The narratives tend to span generations. I found this one rather interesting and it's not surprising that it received so much public acclaim that Michael Redgrave was able to do a loony impression of Robert Donat's Mr. Chips in "The Lady Vanishes." You can't help liking it.

Donat begins his teaching career as a nervous wreck, uncertain and stiff. But then he runs into Greer Garson in an improbable setting. Their marriage brings him a bit of ego strength. Of course, Garson (and the baby she's been carrying) have to die in order to boost the ratio of sentiment to everything else.

Donat has one funny moment -- aside from his awkwardness. The Headmaster wants him to switch from the received pronunciation of Latin, in which "c" is pronounced "see", to the new modified and older version in which "c" is pronounce like "k". By this time, the middle-aged Mr. Chips has become defiantly laggard, declares hotly that he will never bring himself to pronounce Cicero as Kikero, and storms out the door.

Yet, it's far from a comic story. If you like love, romance, tragedy, small triumphs, you'll love it.

I began watching "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" certain that I would like it. In fact, I love quiet movies about teachers and how they inspire their students to take chances, become ambitious, transform themselves academically, etc.

I really, really wanted to love this movie, but I did not.

The problem with this movie is that I know NOTHING about any of the individual students Mr. Chips taught. I don't know what their interests are, whether they are smart or dumb, what they are thinking etc. I just watched the movie and I'm not even sure I know any of their names.

For a movie like this to work, there have to be some meaningful interactions between the teacher and his or her students. There were none. I see NO evidence that Mr. Chips inspired any individual student to do anything. And I don't know what the students did other than some of them fought in World War I.

Contrast that with "Dead Poets Society" and "Mr. Holland's Opus," to name two, where five or six students stand out and are inspired by their teacher. I saw those movies several years ago and I still recall the students' stories.

This movie conveys a general sense that Mr. Chips himself was transformed after meeting his wife. Before that, he was stodgy and unpopular. Frankly, he was an incompetent teacher for 20 years and should have been fired. After his midlife romance begins, though, the students as a whole liked and respected him a lot.

But other than a couple of jokes told in front of a class of 30 students, there is nothing to justify why the students liked and respected him so much. I want to be SHOWN, not told, Mr. Chips is a great teacher. The movie also has a very timid plot and little conflict and character development.

By the way, Jimmy Stewart deserved the Best Actor Oscar for "Mr. Smith," not Robert "Mr. Chips" Donat. I gave "Mr. Chips" a 5.

ZWrite