Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)

Subject: Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939) Mon Jun 16, 2008 12:01 am

Review:

This movie tells the story of a retired schoolteacher. The movie is a flashback of his life as a teacher. The teacher, Mr. Chipping (Mr. Chips) is played by Robert Donat who ages 63 years over the course of the flashbacks. The plot wasn't all that quickly-moving and didn't have much happen, but it was a rather touching story I suppose. It was nothing great but good enough to keep you watching even if you don't get to sentimental about these kinds of things.

The movie has several reasonably famous actors and they're all at least adequate, but the only one that really matters is Robert Donat. Other than the first five minutes or so of the film there's never more than 30 seconds or so where he was not on screen. Donat won the Academy Award for Best Actor for this film which is quite remarkable seeing as it was made in 1939. His competition that year included Clark Gable in Gone With the Wind (a film which won 10 Oscars), James Steward in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington , Laurence Olivier in Wuthering Heights and Mickey Rooney in Babes in Arms. I haven't seen the last two films mentioned but the first two have outstanding acting by their leads and Laurence Olivier is generally regarded as an outstanding actor in his own right. While Donat's performance here is good, I cannot believe he won the award over Gable and Stewart. Gable was very good and his movie won just about every award and Stewart was brilliant. Sure, Donat was good, but the best actor that year? I beg to differ.

Anyways, this isn't a bad film and it does make you think back on former teachers. I don't think I've ever had one quite like Mr. Chips although a few were pretty good.

74/100
C

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