Goodbye Mr. Chips will probably strike some modern viewers as maudlin in its sentiment, but it's a well told tribute to the teaching profession and the English public school system (which equates approximately to elite "private schools" in America). This film is worthy enough in its own right to warrant a viewing, but also has some historical significance for inventing the film type that might be termed the "inspirational teacher genre." Included in that group are such treasures as The Browning Version (1951), Stand and Deliver (1988), Dead Poets Society (1989), Mr. Holland's Opus (1995), and Mona Lisa Smile (2003). Goodbye Mr. Chips was directed by Sam Wood.

Historical Background: American director Sam Wood was born July 19th, 1883, in Philadelphia, and died in 1949. As a young man, he worked as a real estate agent before turning to acting. He appeared in a couple of early films around 1908. In 1915, he took work as an assistant director under C.B. De Mille. In 1919, he was promoted to director at Paramount and was assigned a number of the Gloria Swanson vehicles that proliferated during the twenties. By the time he got to his first talkie, So This Is College (1929), he had already made dozens of films. He moved to MGM and the quality of his assignments gradually increased during the thirties. Along with some rather ordinary films, he directed two excellent Marx Brother's comedies, Night at the Opera (1935) and A Day at the Races (1937). Wood contributed to two of the brilliant successes in cinema's vintage year, 1939 (see Stephen Murray's excellent list The ten best movies of 1939), one in a small way and the other in a major way. He directed a few individual scenes for Gone With the Wind (1939), though his participation went uncredited, and directed the film under review here, Goodbye Mr. Chips (1939). That opened up additional opportunities for Wood, who actually peaked during the last decade of his career. In the forties, he directed such successes as Kitty Foyle (1940), Our Town (1940), The Devil and Mrs. Jones (1941), Kings Row (1942), The Pride of the Yankees (1942), and For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943). Wood's politics were conservative and hawkish and, sadly, he contributed to the witch hunt that permeated the hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee, by his testimony in 1947. Goodbye Mr. Chips was a product of MGM's London branch and was filmed in the U.K. with British cast and crew.

The Story: The story is told mostly in flashback, as the eighty-three year-old Mr. Chipping (Robert Donat), known affectionately as "Mr. Chips," reminisces over his career, while nodding off for an afternoon nap. Back in 1870, Mr. Chips had come to the Brookfield, an elite, tradition-bound, school catering to the children of wealthy aristocrats, as a raw young recruit, to teach Latin to the mostly unruly students. On his first day in the classroom, the boys needle the new guy mercilessly, causing such a commotion that the headmaster has to break up the disorder and schedule the boys for a caning. Reprimanded by the headmaster, Chipping gains control over his class by assuming the posture of a stern disciplinarian. Though he succeeds in wresting control, he fails to gain either the respect or affection of the boys by that manner. Chipping is too much the introverted sort, with little capacity to interact joyously with his young charges.

All that changes after the fortuitous circumstances of one summer. Chipping's best friend and colleague, Max Staefel (Paul Henreid), the German instructor, railroads Chipping into foregoing his usual staid summer vacation to join Staefel in a walking tour through the Alps. During a climb, Chipping gets trapped high up in the mountains in some fog and encounters a woman hiker, Katherine Ellis (Greer Garson), similarly stranded. Chipping foolishly but courageously endangers himself to reach her, not realizing until he gets there that she is a good deal more experienced climber than himself. The pair take a shine to one another, possibly stimulated in part by the exhilarating thin air and fog-induced other worldliness. When they are finally rescued and returned safely to the lodge, Chipping, still the killjoy, promptly trots off to bed while the rest of the company parties.

Later, after Helen and her female companion Flora (Judith Furse) have continued on with their bicycle excursion, Chipping finds himself thinking wistfully about Helen and the opportunity he threw away to get to know her better. He spends the next few days, as he and Staefel continue hiking, hoping to encounter Helen again. Finally, in Vienna, Chipping and Staefel meet up with the two women, by chance, while disembarking from a ferryboat. They attend a dance in a great hall in Vienna and Chipping is even coaxed out of his chair for a spin about the dance floor. Helen and Chipping are torn at the thought of saying goodbye, but it is not until Helen plants a gentle goodbye kiss on Chipping's lips that he realizes that he is head over heels in love with her. In one of the stranger proposals ever offered, he asks for her hand as she leans out the window of the train, as it pulls away.

When Chipping returns to Brookfield for the new academic year with a wife on his arm, his colleagues fully expect that the woman must be something of a dog. Helen, however, is both beautiful and charming. Chipping's colleagues can hardly believe his good fortune and neither can Chipping. Helen has an immediate and remarkable effect on her husband. Bolstered by her support, confidence, and gentle urging, Chipping emerges from his protective shell and becomes altogether more sociable. She dubs him "Mr. Chips" and the nickname quickly takes hold around the school. Helen invites the boys over for tea and muffins on Sundays and Chips begins to reveal his well-developed sense of humor in the classroom. Soon, Chips progresses from just another boring teacher to the boys' favorite. Though he had been once passed over for housemaster, he is soon rewarded for his cheery new demeanor with the next housemaster opportunity that arises. Sadly, however, Chips soon loses his most ardent fan, when Helen dies in childbirth, along with the infant. Nevertheless, her influence remains with Chips and he gradually becomes regarded as synonymous with Brookfield itself. Generations of boys come and go until finally Chips can tell stories about not only a boy's father, when he was at the school, but often the boy's grandfather as well.

When a new headmaster takes the reigns of the school, he asks Chipping to retire, thinking him too old fashioned in his methods to be effective. Chips resists, to the great relief of both his colleagues and the boys of the school, and has soon won the new headmaster over as well. When he does retire five years later, it is with the eternal gratitude of everyone at Brookfield. World War II is looming. When it shrieks into high gear, and with every able bodied Englishman off to war, the trustees ask Chips to come out of retirement and take over the reigns as headmaster, to fortify the institution's depleted ranks. Chips sees the school through the difficult war years, including days and nights of bombardment. When Chips finally reaches the end of his long life as a devoted teacher, he overhears a colleague commenting to another that it's too bad that Chips never had children. Chips corrects the man, saying, "But you're wrong. I have, thousands of them, thousands of them. And all boys."

Themes: The theme is the same one that propels the entire set of "inspirational teacher" films: devotion to public service through a career as an educator. I liked the line in the film in which Helen suggests to Chips, during their early acquaintance, that it must be wonderful to live in a world that is always young. I've been a teacher myself for thirty-five years, now, though my students are young adults rather than children. I commented to my wife this September, during the first week of school, that I had had the sensation, while walking around campus that day, of being back in my element, since I've dealt predominately with people aged 21-23 for most of my life. As a result, that is the age group that I best understand and with whom I most feel in sympathy. In many respects, their issues are my issues. For Mr. Chips, it was a younger age group, but the basic phenomenon is the same. Each year, a teacher gets a year older but the students always remain the same age. It's an amazing circumstance, like living in a world frozen in time, in which only the protagonist ages. Mr. Chips's secret to effective teaching, by the way, was pretty straight forward but worth noting: "Give a boy a sense of humor and sense of proportion and he'll stand to do anything."

Production Values: The screenplay for this film was written by R.C. Sherriff, Claudine West, and Eric Maschwitz, based on the James Hilton novel Goodbye, Mr. Chips. The novel originally appeared in serial form, in the British Weekly and later in The Atlantic Monthly. Chipping was modeled after W.H. Balgamie, a man who was a schoolmaster at The Lays in Cambridge for fifty years.

The story is rather thin, this being mainly a character piece. There are many poignant scenes, however, including the romantic interludes between Chips and Helen, Chips's dealings with several generations of Colley boys, and the solemn reading of the honor role of dead soldiers and teachers from Brookfield. The scene in which Helen dies is especially moving. What makes the film special is its ability to focus on little moments and the tiny details of daily school life.

The black-and-white cinematography is quite appealing and mostly well served by a lovely digital transfer to the Warner Brothers DVD. There are some segments that appear a bit cloudy, but not so often or so evidently as to spoil the viewing experience. Filming took place mainly at the Repton School in England, a school of a venerable age consistent with the fictional Brookfield. Many of the school's students and faculty were used as extras. The scenes in the Alps were done in London studios, however, and lack the authenticity that could have been achieved by location shooting. The musical score features mainly strings, to create a warm sound that fits the film's sentimental quality.

Since 1939 was one of Hollywood's greatest years, the competition for Oscar Awards was fierce indeed. Robert Donat was nominated for his splendid performance as Mr. Chips, but seemed unlikely to win the trophy, being up against some luminaries as Clark Gable (Gone With the Wind), Laurence Olivier (Wuthering Heights), James Stewart (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington), and Mickey Rooney. None of the smart money was on Rooney, not even his own (he didn't even bother to write a speech), but Donat seemed to have faint chances against the other three. Nevertheless, in one of the greatest, surprise upsets in Academy history, it was Donat who walked away with the trophy at the end of the night. Though I wouldn't argue with anyone who is convinced that another of the nominees was more deserving, I would simply say that the Academy has nothing to be embarrassed about in its selection of Donat. His was a brilliantly poignant performance as Mr. Chips, even though he had to play many of the scenes covered in gobs of makeup to achieve an elderly appearance. To appreciate the full quality of his work, contrast his performance here with his one as a more conventional romantic lead, just four years earlier, in The 39 Steps (1935). Donat was also known for his roles in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), The Count of Monte Cristo (1934), Knight without Armor (1937), The Citadel (1938), and The Winslow Boy (1948).

What can I say about Greer Garson except that she's a marvel to behold. This was perhaps her breakout performance and a very good one, but nowhere near her greatest. She was nominated a total of seven times for Oscars, winning the one for Mrs. Miniver (1942). Some of her best films include Pride and Prejudice (1940), Random Harvest (1940), Madame Curie (1943), Julius Caeser (1953), and Sunrise at Campobello (1960).

Strong supporting performances were also turned in by the young, sparkling faced Terry Kilburn, who appeared as three generations of Colley boys, and Paul Henried as the German instructor, Staefel. Henried went on to roles in Night Train to Munich (1940), Now, Voyager (1942), and Casablanca (1942).

Bottom-Line: The Warner Brothers DVD offers no extras, but is generous with its language selections. You can listen to the soundtrack in English or French or select from optional English, French, and Spanish subtitles. Goodbye Mr. Chips was nominated for six Oscars in addition to the one carried away by Donat: Best Picture, Best Actress (Greer Garson), Best Director (Sam Wood), Best Sound Recording (A.W. Watkins), Best Film Editing (Charles Frend), and Best Screenplay.

If you like a sentimental story that is well told and exceptionally well acted, you'll enjoy Goodbye Mr. Chips. If your stomach tends to turn at sticky sweat sentimentality, you might very well declare this film overly dramatic or maudlin. It flies a bit in the face of today's standards of realism, in both the Alpine sets and the acting style. No matter! Taken on its own terms, it's a splendid and touching bit of filmmaking.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 9 - 12