Goodbye, Mr Chips

I first saw this film back in the 1960s. Watched it on television with Lynahr and Judayl, who both insisted I wouldn't like it because it was neither adventure, fantasy, or cartoon.

Their cynicism encouraged me to at least watch as long as I could - just to prove them wrong. What surprised me was that I DID prove them wrong. I liked the movie.

Back in those days you had to wait for one of the network stations, or the local station, to show a movie once it left the theatres. And Goodbye, Mr Chips had left the theatres long before I was born.

For those of you who might be unfamiliar with the film, it is a black and white production from 1939, starring Robert Donet and Greer Garson, also Greer Garson actually was only in it for a short time.

The back of the VHS case has this to say:

In 170, Charles Edward Chipping (Donat) becomes the new Latin master at Brookfield School, where he leads a rather lackluster life. On a walking tour of the Alps, he loses his way in a fog and encounters Katherine Bridges (Garson). When the two meet again in Vienna, they fall in love. Happiness and tragedy mold Chipping's rise from mere teacher to "Chips," the most beloved member of the faculty.

Adapted from James Hilton's best-selling novel, the film is both an intimate study of human nature and a nostaligic tribute to England's venerable public schools where generations of young men were instilled with the traditions of a world now but a memory.

Approximate Running Time: 1 hour 55 minutes.

Actually, the blurb is inaccurate in that Chipping does not get "lost" in the fog. He just has to quit walking because of the fog. (Or risk a mistep and fall to his death.)

It's a tender movie, despite it's quiet acknowledgement of certain cultural truths about gender and class (which we still stuggle with today, I must say). No time in recorded human history has been good for everyone. But this movie seems to suggest that perhaps the culture of that era had a lot of things over the way we do things now. If only we could merge the best of both and discard the worst of both.

If you enjoy history at all then give this movie a go. I bought it a good number of years ago (which is why I own a VHS and not a DVD version) and I watch it several times a year. It's one of those films which fills me with longing and tears for something I never knew.