Goodbye, Mr. Chips (film)
Tagline:: At The Top Of The Year's
"Ten Best" - The picture that earns for 1939 a proud place in motion-picture
history!
The film was shot at Repton School, Sherborne School and Denham Film
Studios.
Cast
Robert Donat - Mr. Chips
Greer Garson - Katherine
Terry Kilburn - John Colley / Peter Colley I / Peter
Colley II / Peter Colley III
John Mills - Peter Colley as a young man
Paul Henreid - Staefel (as Paul von Hernreid)
Judith Furse - Flora
Lyn Harding - Wetherby
Milton Rosmer - Chatteris
Frederick Leister - Marsham
Louise Hampton - Mrs. Wickett
Austin
Trevor - Ralston
David Tree - Jackson
Edmund Breon - Colonel Morgan
Jill Furse - Helen Colley
Scott Sunderland - Sir John Colley
Plot
The film begins in 1933. Mr. Chipping (Robert Donat), a retired schoolteacher well into his eighties, is kept home by a cold. He falls asleep and dreams of his 48-year career (relayed in flashback).
When 22-year-old Charles Edward Chipping first arrives as a Latin teacher to Brookfield Public School in 1870, he becomes a target of many rambunctious practical jokes. He reacts by imposing strict discipline in his classroom, making him respected, but disliked. His unpopularity and stiffness cost him a promotion in 1888.
Realizing he is not good at his profession, he glumly ponders his future. However, the German teacher, Max Staefel (Paul Henreid), saves him from despair by taking him on holiday to his native Austria. While mountain climbing, Chipping "rescues" Kathy Ellis (Greer Garson) (even though she did not actually need to be saved). Kathy is a feisty English suffragette on a cycling holiday. They meet again in Vienna and dance to the Blue Danube Waltz. This piece of music is used as a leitmotif, symbolising Chipping's love for her. Even though she is considerably younger and livelier than he, she loves and marries him. They return to England, where Kathy takes up residence at the school, conquering everyone with her warm personality.
During their tragically short marriage (she dies in childbirth, along with their newborn baby), she brings 'Mr. Chips' out of his shell and shows him how to be a better, more popular teacher. He acquires a flair for Latin puns. As the years pass, Chips becomes a much-loved school institution, developing a rapport with generations of students; by this time, he has taught the son and grandson of one of his students.
Under some pressure from a more "modern" headmaster, Chips retires in 1914 at age 65, but is summoned back to serve yet again as a Latin teacher and even as interim headmaster, because of the shortage of teachers resulting from World War I. During an air attack by a German Zeppelin, Chips insists that the boys keep on construing their Latin--choosing the story of Julius Caesar's battles against Germanic tribes, which describes the latter's belligerent nature, much to the amusement of his students. As the Great War drags on, Chips reads aloud into the school's Roll of Honour every Sunday the names of the many former students and teachers who have died in battle. Upon finding out that Max has died, fighting on the German side, Chips, symbolizing the decency being consumed by the slaughter, defiantly reads his name out in chapel.
He retires permanently in 1918, and as the flashback returns to 1933, he dies peacefully in his sleep, comforted by the memories of thousands of boys he has guided and taught over nearly five decades.
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