Goodbye Mr. Chips

Sam Wood, 1939

Goodbye Mr. Chips begins with the first day of a school assembly, where it is announced that Mr. Chipping is at home with a cold and was instructed to stay home. He will miss the assembly for the first time in fifty-eight years. The film is shot in crisp black and white, and this contrast is fully utilized with the first glimpse of a defiant Mr. Chipping as he spryly walks to the school with a shock of unruly white hair under his cap and his black scholar's robe flapping in the wind.

After the assembly, Mr. Chipping (Robert Donat) converses with a new teacher at the school and reminisces about his faulty start as a teacher. In a conversation with another school master, he credits someone from his past with his transformation into a well-liked and successful teacher. When Mr. Chipping returns home, he falls asleep and dreams about his life, beginning with his difficult first day at Brookfield School, and the events that cause him to become a very strict teacher.

While the acting in the movie seemed overdone in the first scene and the storyline was somewhat dull, it did improve as the movie progressed. Through the flashbacks of the sleeping Mr. Chipping, the viewer becomes privy to the events that assisted the young master's transformation from a strict and driving school master to a favorite at teacher and house master at Brookfield School. The apparent key to his transformation comes via a woman named Kathy Ellis, whom he meets when they are both visiting Austria. The scene where the two meet in the cloudy mist on the side of a mountain is odd and seems contrived. However, it is an important pivotal point in the movie. The actress who plays Kathy (Greer Garson) brings life to the movie and slowly softens, yet strengthens Mr. Chipping. The scenes in the movie are dark and dull until the ball room scene when Mr. Chipping's personality begins to unfold, develop and shine. When the two fall in love, and later marry, she continues to have this transforming influence on the man and assists him in becoming the well-loved head master, "Mr. Chips."

The evident theme in the movie's plot is the successful and long career of Mr. Chips. It is often referenced through dialogue, but is also visually reinforced through the repeated use of the same actor playing several generations of the Colley family boys who attend the school. The movie also certainly emphasizes the value and art of spending life in service to others, through the life of Mr. Chips, Kathy, and the students who went to serve in the war. The movie also challenges viewers to place the appropriate value on memories and the people who helped to create those memories.

While this movie had a slow start, and in my opinion faltered a bit in a few of the early scenes, by the end I was enamored with the movie, loved Mr. Chips, and was glad that I had the opportunity to view it.

Kelly Askey