It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Based upon James Hilton's excellent novella of the same name, "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" is a now-overlooked masterpiece of both comic and dramatic filmmaking. Telling the tale of a life well lived, this is a heartfelt character study produced with the utmost excellence. Directed by underrated classic filmmaker Sam wood (the director of "A Night at the Opera", another one of my *FAVORITE*, and I do not use that term lightly, films of all time) the tender classic is adapted well to the screen. Both works are equal in quality, as Hilton's wonderful and witty writings come to life with even more depth than they originally contained. The cast all delivers marvelous performances, and even the numerous child actors are realistic and delightful to watch (something too rarely seen in the movies, especially back in 1939!). Of course, the main attraction (in terms of acting, anyway) is the leading performance by classical Hollywood celebrity Robert Donat. Donat embodies the unforgettable character of Mr. Chips with all of the humor and melancholy desperately required for the role. sometimes he comes across as a bumbling, goofy old man, and at other times he comes across as a sweet and sensitive lover. This film traces the highlights of his career as a schoolteacher and it does so in a way that made tears flow from my eyes like a steady stream (of embarrassment) and laughter fly from my throat like a speeding train (similes are hard to think of sometimes, okay?). Anyway, the point is: go see this movie, it is at once hilarious, heartwarming, sad, and, in the end, truly hopeful and surprisingly inspiring. The acting is great on all fronts (I did not even mention the lovely Greer Garson, whose performance makes her character as charming and likable as she is beautiful) and the story is adapted in such a way that the original story is not at all ruined and is, instead, made even better! After forcing any possible reader to struggle through my parenthesis addiction (see, I just did it again!), I can only ask that you all forgive me and run out to read the classic novella and immediately view this beautiful and comic film adaptation. Those who bare sensitive souls and healthy hearts will surely lack any disappointment and leave the film with tears in their eyes and a smile on their face!

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!

If somebody doesn't teach the children, our society and our culture dies out in one generation. That makes teaching THE necessary profession. Without teachers, we have nothing, we can do nothing, we are nothing. And there is no profession more thankless, more under-compensated, more maligned, and more difficult. Why would anyone do it? For the best answer available, watch this version of "Goodbye, Mr. Chips".First and foremost, a young (33 years old) plays a British boy's school master, from he first day at school, through decades of boys, through his retirement and his dotage. Donat brilliant captures Mr. Chippings' awkward beginning, his fumbling to find himself as a teacher, his growing comfort in his own skin, largely courtesy of Katherine, a lovely young woman whom he meets while lost in the mountains on a summer vacation hike; whom he marries, and loses to childbirth. Donat ages brilliantly and believably.Greer Garson plays Katherine, with all the loveliness and grace that characterized her life and career. Paul Henried is the German teacher, Staefel, who persuades Chipping to take the vacation where he meets his Kathie, who must leave Britain for his home in Germany when the two countries get embroiled in World War I, whom Chipping, to the consternation of many, memorializes when Staefel dies fighting for Germany in the war.But watch the boys. Little Terry Kilburn plays each of the Colley boys as little ones, with heart-breaking cuteness. Watch the boys grow, watch how they come to love Chipping, and how he loves them.Keep the Kleenex box handy, and end up envying Chips his life, though we pity him almost throughout. He is the most blessed of human beings. He is a teacher! God bless them all.

The central moral of the film is declared very early on: that, through the love of a good woman, Chips learns that the path to teaching success and fulfilment is to become the pupils' friend.Current teacher training policy, at least in England and Wales, is that the teacher should NEVER try to be the pupils' friend. You would almost certainly fail to qualify as a PGCE teacher if you did.That said, this is a touching movie, even if there are several mawkish moments. The school song has been deliberately composed to tug at the heart strings; the scene in which Chips insists on conducting a Latin class despite having just heard his wife and unborn baby have died is simply appalling. The dialogue designed to tell the story or illustrate the passage of the years is ridiculously unsubtle.But Greer Garson is gorgeous in this, and Donat is touching. If only school was still like this!