Artivels Undescribable Perfection

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Ginger Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

evanston_dad Gentle, sentimental film about a mild-mannered teacher and his many years at a boys' school straddling the 19th and 20th centuries.In its own modest way, "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" is actually a pretty unpredictable film. There are plenty of movies over the years about dynamic teachers who have become heroes to the people they teach. There are far fewer films with characters like Mr. Chips -- a good if not overly inspiring teacher who never really achieves his ambitions and dies admired and respected but not necessarily revered. It's a movie about the vast hordes of people who plug away at their respective professions and make their mark more through longevity than through brilliance. In fact, the best thing Mr. Chips does with his life is marry a vivacious lady played fetchingly by Greer Garson. The film comes to life when Garson makes her appearance and settles back into the doldrums when she departs. "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" came out in that golden Hollywood year of 1939, when its competition in movie theaters included "Gone with the Wind," "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," "Ninotchka," "Stagecoach," and "The Wizard of Oz." It doesn't hold a candle to any of those.Robert Donat won the 1939 Best Actor Oscar for his performance in this film, one that owes more to makeup effects than it does acting, given the span of years over which Donat is asked to age. The film received six other nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director (Sam Wood), Best Actress (Garson, in what is much more of a supporting role), Best Screenplay, Best Film Editing, and Best Sound Recording.Grade: B

grantss This version of Mr Chips, the original, is regarded as the classic, but I prefer the 1969 version, starring Peter O'Toole and Petula Clark. Similar plot to both, though the 1969 tweaked the events in Mr Chips' life, to match world history. The 1939 version is good, and particularly emotional, especially towards the end. However, it does feel stuffy and stiff. That may just be a function of the era in which it was made and the era it was portraying. One plus the 1939 version has over the 1969 one is that it isn't a musical, but then that may just be me - I generally don't like musicals!Performances are OK. Greer Garson shines as Katherine and deserved her Best Actress Oscar nomination. However, I don't know how Robert Donat got the Best Actor Oscar. His performance is OK, but not brilliant. I often found him a bit irritating, in fact. Overly wooden (though his character was such). Yet he managed to beat out Clarke Gable's performance in Gone with the Wind and James Stewart's in Mr Smith Goes to Washington...Worth seeing, but if you have to choose, see the 1969 version instead.

Catharina_Sweden This is a nice and quiet movie. Nothing very exciting happens in it, but when it ends you still feel that you have experienced something important...The main character, Mr Chips, is very likable, and easy to identify with.The movie captures both the romance and the reality of the school world, I think. With romance I mean: the IDEA of all the generations of young people going through a school and out into the world, and the teachers' important work in both teaching them and moulding them, is very grand. Unfortunately, often one does not realize how important a teacher has been, until long afterwards - when it is too late to go back and tell him or her "thank you". Therefore, teaching might seem as an ungrateful job...The reality - and I know this, as I have dabbled in teaching as a sub - can be quite different though. And then it can be difficult to keep up that feeling of doing an important job for mankind. The job can seem repetitive, and also "flat" - there is not much of a career in it, and you can easily feel that you are stuck in a small world, and that your own development has come to an end. Because you are never going to be anything more than a stupid teacher in a stupid school... It is then you need these romantic school-stories! Children can also be very mean and unpleasant, both towards each other and towards adults. There is always a kind of battle going on between the class and the teacher. When you are new to the business it can be very difficult to know how to behave. Because you want the pupils to like you, not fear you or hate you - but on the other hand you cannot be too "kind" either, because then they take advantage of it. If you do not come to grips with this conflict and find your own way in dealing with the pupils, there is always the risk of total mayhem - exactly as it happened for Mr Chips the first time he stood in front of a class. That scene was very realistic.The short, tragic love-story is also very fine. One is so happy for the shy Mr Chips, when he gets to experience this with a nice and beautiful young woman - despite the bad odds!

Tim Kidner After seeing this original version five times myself, I watched the DVD with two friends, both younger, one half my age who, as well as being brought up in this modern digital age, went to the same grammar school as me.They too, melted in the nostalgia, the post Christmas goodwill spilled over as those glorious MGM production values mixed with England's finest virtues washed over them and their senses. Yes, it is wonderfully stagey and stilted but is never predictable and best of all, is not syrupy and "isn't everything wonderful".Blending the perfect ratio of pathos with sentimentality, Robert Donat is endearingly coy and awkward, as Chips. Greer Garson is the film's, as well as Mr Chipping's revelation, adding decency, balance and a touch of glamour. Their meeting and courtship in Austria, ably assisted by Paul Henreid, (later to star in Casablanca) is a welcomed break from the dusky schoolrooms. The schoolboys all love her, they in turn respect and admire her husband. There's a superb attention to detail that amply reveals that teachers are always too aware of the naughtiness or their charges and actually almost encourage it, it being a formative process for unconfident, rather frightened little boys and onto and into the young men that will fight - and die for - their beloved England.The sense of history is well handled, with casual remarks that mark out various historical occasions and Donat time-travels through 60 years of ageing, from 20 odd to 80+, at each stage he commands, in speech, body language and credibility. Wartime Brit favourite John Mills stars briefly as one of the older boys keen to see active service. There was a huge sense of satisfaction - and pride - from us all at the end of watching Goodbye Mr Chips. That it stole so many Oscars from Gone With the Wind is both reassuring and remarkable, too.