CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

JohnHowardReid A Sam Wood Production. Photographed at Denham Studios and on location at Ripton College. Copyright 19 June 1939 by Loew's Inc. Presented by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. New York opening at the Astor, 15 May 1939. U.S. release: 28 July 1939. U.K. release: June 1939. Australian release: 3 August 1939. 12 reels. 114 minutes.NOTES: Prestigious Hollywood award, Best Actor, Robert Donat (defeating Clark Gable in Gone With The Wind, Laurence Olivier in Wuthering Heights, Mickey Rooney in Babes In Arms and James Stewart in Mr Smith Goes To Washington).Also nominated for Best Picture, Best Actress (Greer Garson). Directing, Screenplay, Film Editing (all won by GWTW), and Sound Recording (When Tomorrow Comes). Best Picture of 1939 — Film Daily annual poll of U.S. film critics. Film debut of Greer Garson.COMMENT: Despite the stiff competition offered by Gable, Olivier and Stewart (who won the New York Film Critics' Award), it is hard to think of a Best Actor honor more justified than that received by Robert Donat for his memorable portrayal of Mr Chips. From youth to old age, Donat has not just relied upon the superb ministrations of the make-up man, but has really immersed himself in the character, changing his voice and gait to suit the years but never losing that glow of sincere enthusiasm and self-effacing dedication that illumines the master from within. It is undoubtedly the most memorable (and probably the second most popular, — eclipsed only by Gable's Rhett Butler) of all actors' performances in the movies.Although her role is smaller, Greer Garson also makes an extremely favorable impression. She had not yet acquired the eyebrow mannerisms and over-patronizing airs that made her such a pain later in her career. Other telling portrayals are provided by Terry Kilburn (who plays no less than four generations of Colley boys), Paul Henreid (a German master), and Lyn Harding (the headmaster). John Mills is effective in a brief appearance. In fact, the entire roster of the film's players contribute sketches that are at once wholly believable yet interestingly differentiated.MGM have spared no expense on production. The exterior school set is reputed to have been the largest constructed in England to that time. If largess in budget is not necessarily a guarantee of quality, here it certainly is. Junge is one of the most talented art directors working in British cinema, and Young is without question the country's foremost cinematographer. Their work on Mr. Chips must rank among their finest. And there is a marvelously evocative music score that cannot fail to stir the most moribund hearts! In all Mr Chips is perfection. Aside from a couple of strikingly effective editing montages (which were probably indicated in the script), Wood has directed in a disarmingly unobtrusive fashion, yet bringing each scene across (by co-ordinating his actors and technicians with such mastery) with maximum dramatic impact. Nostalgic, sentimental (but not synthetically or superficially so), Mr Chips entertains us with a moving and fascinating glimpse of a world (and a character — in this era of compulsory retirement) that has all but vanished.

Hitchcoc This is the original Chips movie (It stars Robert Donat; Peter O'Toole would later reprise the role). It is about a teacher who comes to an exclusive boy's school for his first experience. That experience proves disheartening as the boys make fun of him and manipulate him. He loses his idealism and turns 180 degrees. He becomes an authoritarian taskmaster who becomes anathema to his students and his colleagues. He gets production from his charges but they don't have the fun of learning. He even holds forth when a very athletic student can't play in a game because of his lack of effort and success in the classroom. He is amazingly consistent and bullheaded. Then along comes Greer Garson, who is the love of his life. For the first time he realizes that there is more to life than discipline. He is devoted to her, but tragedy shows its face and he must rethink his world. The last part of the film is absolutely gut wrenching and emotional. It will take a hard person not to react.

Steven Torrey I was raised in schools like Brookfield (1958-1964). And yes, that is exactly how they are; there is inevitably some old codger there... One may not like the school, one may not remember details, one may not remember class mates, other teachers--but one does remember that one teacher, that one almost larger than life personage--like Mr. Chips. (I still remember Father Macdonald and Brother Charles.) Call it the Stockholm Syndrome. A student is there because the parents thought this was a better option; or worse, the parents didn't want the child. (WInston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt both hated their boarding school experience.) So the movie is not about the kids; the movie is not about Brookfield; the movie is about Mr. Chipping (Robert Donat) who becomes affectionately transformed by his wife (Greer Carson) as Mr. Chips.It is a piece of sentimentality. It is epic in scale traversing the years of Queen Victoria's reign from 1870 to the ascension of Adolph Hitler in 1933. A span of some 63 years. It may be difficult to track the passing of years, but they are indicated when the students pass by to check in wearing different uniforms of the day; plus there are other contextual clues such as the commemoration of the death of a Headmaster in 1888, or Uniforms of the Great War, etc. It is, of course, Mr. Chips who is the stable element in an increasingly chaotic world where one set of tradition slowly fades only to be replaced by another set of traditions. The viewer is expected to know something about British history. When Queen Victoria died in 1901--England was fighting the Boer War in South Africa--hence students wear military great coats with black bands.The 1939 Academy Awards had been made on February 29, 1940. By then World War II was in its sixth month--clearly, this was going to be a war for the ages. And clearly, it would be a war that would transform the world, just as World War I--The Great War--transformed England and the rest of the world. So it's not surprising that the movie was honored as it was. And while James Stewart, Clark Gable, Mickey Rooney, Laurance Olivier gave stellar performances, Mr. Chips (Robert Donat--and by extension the movie "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" represented that equilibrium in the maelstrom that would be World War II just as he embodied equilibrium in a changing world around Brookfield.

jn1356-1 If somebody doesn't teach the children, our society and our culture dies out in one generation. That makes teaching THE necessary profession. Without teachers, we have nothing, we can do nothing, we are nothing. And there is no profession more thankless, more under-compensated, more maligned, and more difficult. Why would anyone do it? For the best answer available, watch this version of "Goodbye, Mr. Chips".First and foremost, a young (33 years old) plays a British boy's school master, from he first day at school, through decades of boys, through his retirement and his dotage. Donat brilliant captures Mr. Chippings' awkward beginning, his fumbling to find himself as a teacher, his growing comfort in his own skin, largely courtesy of Katherine, a lovely young woman whom he meets while lost in the mountains on a summer vacation hike; whom he marries, and loses to childbirth. Donat ages brilliantly and believably.Greer Garson plays Katherine, with all the loveliness and grace that characterized her life and career. Paul Henried is the German teacher, Staefel, who persuades Chipping to take the vacation where he meets his Kathie, who must leave Britain for his home in Germany when the two countries get embroiled in World War I, whom Chipping, to the consternation of many, memorializes when Staefel dies fighting for Germany in the war.But watch the boys. Little Terry Kilburn plays each of the Colley boys as little ones, with heart-breaking cuteness. Watch the boys grow, watch how they come to love Chipping, and how he loves them.Keep the Kleenex box handy, and end up envying Chips his life, though we pity him almost throughout. He is the most blessed of human beings. He is a teacher! God bless them all.