Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)

Robert Donat turns in a masterly performance as a nineteenth century English schoolmaster. Murphy's law rules the day - anything that can go wrong for Mr Chipping does go wrong. He begins his teaching career as an incredibly shy and nervous young man, and threatens to wind up a lonely bachelor until the beautiful Greer Garson bumps into him atop a Swiss mountain and it is love at first sight for the unlikely pairing. Things turn sour, however, as they seem to at almost every turn in poor Chips' life. However, when all else is said and done, Chips can look with a sense of pride and achievement upon his teaching career, spanning over sixty something years, during which time he has touched myriads of young boy's lives with his cheery character and wisdom.

So, Chip's deathbed speech really puts everything into perspective - this is a somewhat melancholy film with only short-lived moments of 'feel-good' until the very end when the value and purpose of Chip's life all makes sense and we see that, despite all his misfortune, he had accomplished much in a pre-George Bailey sort of way. This is Capra without the corn.

The excellent film version of James Hilton's sentimental novellette. The tribute to the English public school system and to one Mr. Chipping is done with immaculate care in every respect; it is a serene, tenderly heart-warming story. Like the story, the film is nostalgic: if we never knew a Mr. Chips, we should have - he belongs in every young man's past. Robert Donat gives an incredibly fine charactisation of the much-loved schoolmaster. Donat's performance is noteworthy not merely for his uncanny ability to make a convincing transition from young schoolmaster to octogenarian, but for his subtle underlining (if underlining can be subtle) of the dramatic moments in an essentially undramatic life. Chips was a shy person; like an iceberg, two-thirds of him was always subsurface. Donat wisely understated him playing him softly which doubled his poignance. It is only when he is seen as a crotchety old man scattering across campus in his tattered robe - that Donat went a TRIFLE overdrawn: a fraction of the cute and overacted side. But that is just and impression and not deep enough to discredit an otherwise flawless performance. Greer Garson's portrait of Katherine, the assertive young woman who changed the dour Mr. Chipping into the loveable Mr. Chips is altogether believable and quite entrancing: here is one of the nicest people we could ever wish to encounter! The boys are completely captivated hy Katherine - and so is the viewer. Paul Henreid is splendid as the German instructor and Terry Kilburn is unforgettable. A beautiful picture in every respect.

The year is 1939, often considered the greatest year for American movies: Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Wuthering Heights, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Stagecoach, Young Mr. Lincoln, Dark Victory, Gunga Din, Of Mice and Men, and the best of them all - Goodbye, Mr. Chips. It is unabashedly sentimental, even corny, but it remains after sixty years one of the two best movies about teachers (the other being the Miracle Worker) and has at its center one of the best acting performances of all time - Robert Donat as the title character in his Oscar winning performance (winning against Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, Laurence Olivier and Mickey Rooney). His performance is for the ages, particularly in light of the fact that he ages 60 years during the course of the film. It also has a wonderful romance (with a luminous Greer Garson) and a fine supporting cast (including the school children) but it is the understated poignancy of Donat's performance that makes this a true classic.