First, let me state that after watching Goodbye, Mr. Chips, one of the nominees for Best Picture of 1939, I cannot explain how Robert Donat won the Oscar for Best Actor over Clark Gable's Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind. To me, there is no comparison. Donat's Mr. Chipping is such a broad caricature of a teacher, and the actor plays him as if he were on stage rather than in a film. It's cringe-inducing to watch his overacting at times. Gable, on the other hand, seems far more realistic, more natural in the Civil War epic. Not a moment of Gable's performance seems false. Almost all of Donat's acting does.
The film takes place at the Brookfield School where the 83-year-old Mr. Chipping, nicknamed "Chips" by his wife Katherine (Greer Garson in her first major film role), has not missed a first day assembly in 58 years (even though he has been retired for the past 15 years). The start of a new school year has always been exciting for Mr. Chips, and despite being sick, he makes his way to the assembly hall only to find the doors already locked. After he meets the new history master and prepares some tea and cakes in case any of the boys should stop by his home, he falls asleep in a chair by the fireplace.
Presumably, what follows would be the dream that he has. It covers much of his career at the school starting with his first day in 1870 when a clean-shaven Mr. Chippings arrives with no previous teaching experience. His first time in the classroom is disastrous as he lets the boys get out of hand with their disruptive questions and continual interruptions. They physically attack him just as the headmaster arrives, prompting a stern warning to Mr. Chips to enforce discipline if he plans to maintain control of his classroom. He does so in a rather harsh fashion, punishing the entire class by making them miss a crucial soccer match. For years afterward, he remains relatively isolated from the friendly banter that often accompanies teacher-student relations at the school.
It's at the insistence of fellow teacher Staefel (Paul Henreid, a few years before Casablanca) that Mr. Chips agrees to go on a walking tour of the Alps. He meets Katherine in the mountains, and they begin an awkward if charming relationship. He is, admittedly, terrified of women, but she is such a calming presence that he cannot resist wanting to spend more time with her. She is the first person who seems to understand him. She too is touring the continent, but she and her friend are on bicycles. By accident, Chips and Katherine meet again as they depart a boat that has been floating down the Danube, and she convinces him to waltz with her that night at a party in an enormous ballroom. The next morning, she has to depart by train, and he goes to the station with her, running after the train once she kisses him goodbye. It's a cliched moment nowadays, but placed within the context of this sentimental drama, it still manages to elicit an emotional response from viewers.
After they marry, he and Katherine move into one of the houses at the school, and she slowly begins working on making him more popular among the boys. She begins inviting them to have tea and cakes on Sunday afternoon, and she's also the one who suggests that he try telling a few jokes as a part of his lessons. It works, and he begins to believe in himself as both a good teacher and a potential headmaster. Sadly, Katherine dies in childbirth, as does the baby she's carrying. Mr. Chips goes to his class that night--ironically, it's April Fool's Day--but he cannot carry on with his lesson. After one of the boys arrives late and begins to spread the word about the death of Mrs. Chips, you see just how much they care about Mr. Chips, how much loved he and his wife are. It's a tender scene, to be sure, and one of the few that made me almost tear up.
Throughout the film, there are various montages to mark the passage of time. For the most part, it's always the roll call of students entering the school. They are always in alphabetical order, an astounding feat, and they call out their names as they pass by Mr. Chips or whichever person has the clipboard. We see them in various uniforms for athletics or academics as they pass, so we get a sense of the styles of clothing common to the period. We also get brief moments where the boys talk about current events so that we know the specific year in which some of the actions take place. It's during these scenes that we also get to see one of the running gags of the film: "There's always a Colley here." Indeed, there is always a Colley. Mr. Chips teaches four generations of them himself, and all of them are played by Terry Kilburn. It makes for some cute moments, but nothing laugh-out-loud funny.
The final portion of Mr. Chips' dream (or flashback, if you prefer) involves the war years. Despite having retired already, Chips is asked to serve as headmaster when all of the younger men enlist to serve in World War I. Several of the boys sign up as soon as they are old enough, and it's a sobering moment when Chips has to read out the names of the war dead, and we recognize several of the former students as being on the list. Among the first he has to read is that of Peter Colley, whose wife and child Mr. Chips has been visiting at Colley's request. The movie doesn't make a great deal of the depths of the loss to England of that generation of young men, but then that would take the focus off Mr. Chips and he is the center of attention for the film. It's really more about how the war and the deaths of all those boys he taught affect him rather than how it might have had an impact on the school or the other boys.
By the way, I don't want to give the impression that Donat is necessarily bad in the title role. He does get to age several decades throughout the film, and I suppose he is having the most fun in the part when he's allowed to play an old man. He seems to get some of the best lines in those scenes. I suspect it's that range of ages that won him the Oscar, and the make-up is pretty convincing. However, I still maintain that it's a far too theatrical style of acting that he's doing here. Compare him to, say, Garson in the same film. She is much more realistic and believable. When her character dies, the heart of the film is gone too, and Donat is allowed to overact without a strong naturalistic performer to balance him.
I've never been fond of movies about teachers. They always try to ennoble the profession and the people who practice it. Not everyone can be as beloved as Mr. Chips, certainly, and not everyone should be. Yet when people watch a film like Goodbye, Mr. Chips, they start to judge all teachers by the standards set by fictional characters like Mr. Chips. Live, flesh-and-blood teachers have good days and bad days. Some of us are strong when it comes to lecturing, and others are strong at garnering class participation. Some have effective classrooms because they are disciplinarians, and others create welcoming environments by being more lax about the rules. We never get to see the other teachers performing in Goodbye, Mr. Chips, and in truth, we don't even get to see Mr. Chips teach that often. However, I suppose everyone would want a teacher who could manage to get a class through a passage in Julius Caesar while outside the city of London is being bombed. I just don't think all teachers would be up to that task, nor would many of us even feel it is appropriate to endanger students during such a time. That's why no one should choose a fictional teacher to serve as a role model to actual people.
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