Goodbye Mr. Chips - Part 1, The 1939 movie

I'm not saying goodbye to my favorite chips brand today, but will be talking about one of my favorite movies.
You know how I sometimes say I'm fascinated by something and don't know why? One of these things are British boarding schools. It surely started with Enid Blyton's St. Clare's books, in German "Hanni und Nanni" (and, though not British, Oliver Hassencamp's books about "Burg Schreckenstein" which will be a topic for another post).
Boarding schools were (and are?) a quite foreign concept to most German children and being served romanticized stories about them only increased the fascination which for me never went away completely.
In Germany, we don't even have the tradition of wearing school uniforms. There are few schools that have tried to introduce mandatory "school clothing" - meaning there's a collection to choose from, not everyone has to wear the same uniform - but it hasn't caught on. I remember that we even talked about pros and cons in English class 50 years ago.
And still I have a weird soft spot for British school stories that I can't seem to turn off. Show me a cap and gown and chances are I'll have a look.

One of them is "Goodbye Mr. Chips". Before I read the original novella, I knew the movie from 1939 with Robert Donat which is why I want to talk about it first.
Here's its plot.

For the first time in 58 years, retired school master Charles Edward Chipping misses the first day assembly at Brookfield, a public school with a 400 year old history, and gets locked out together with a new pupil.

Back home, he falls asleep and his dreams take him back to when came to the school as new master.
He remembers his first time of taking lower school for preparation and failing miserably at standing up to the pupils' pranks. He reacts by enforcing strict discipline and by unpopular punishments - such as keeping the class in and thus preventing the best cricketeer from playing in an important cup match - which earns him the respect, but not the love of the pupils.
After 20 years, he's senior master but still doesn't get the coveted post of housemaster.

Things change when the German teacher Max Staefel invites him to join him on a walking tour in Austria.
On a mountain hike, Chipping meets the young Kathy Ellis with whom he gets trapped in the mist. Although Kathy has modern feminist ideas like riding a bicycle and wanting the vote, they get along great.

Later, Chipping and Staefel meet Kathy and her friend again in Vienna and spend a happy time together. When they say farewell at the train, Kathy kisses Chipping and they return to Brookfield as a married couple.
Kathy teaches Chips as she calls him now how to gain the pupils' love and trust. She introduces tea invitations and everyone adores her. Thanks to her, Chips even becomes housemaster.
Unfortunately, they are not married for long when Kathy and their baby die during birth and Chips is devastated. He dedicates his whole life to the school again, the way Kathy would have wanted him to, and when the new headmaster urges him to retire as he has become too old-fashioned for the school, he refuses and the governors, some of which have been taught by him, also won't let it happen.

After he has retired, World War I breaks out and as many of the teachers join up including the headmaster, Chips is asked to come back and take the headmastership for as long as needed.
Even during an air raid, he manages to keep the pupils busy to distract them from the danger.
One of his sad duties is to read out the lists of former pupils who have died in the war. Once, he also mentions the death of his old friend Max who had returned back to Austria some years before the war. The boys are surprised to hear him speak about an enemy, but as one of them says, Chips has a lot of funny ideas like that.

The old man stays close to the school all his life.
In the end, he's bed-ridden and he hears the headmaster and doctor talk. The doctor says how lonely he must have been and the headmaster tells him that Chips used to be married once.

When Chips hears the doctor saying what a pity it is he never had children, he replies: "I thought I heard you say it was a pity - pity I never had any children. But you're wrong. I have! Thousands of them, thousands of them ... and all ... boys.".
And before his eyes, the last thing he sees is the queue of boys in call over and then Peter Colley - there were generations of Colleys at Brookfield - saying "Goodbye Mr. Chips."

I know that just from reading about it the movie may seem sappy and sentimental, and yes, maybe it is a little, and yes, maybe it romanticizes the image of public schools for privileged boys as a "special community".
I think it's thanks to Robert Donat being so fantastic in this role - which is still one of his most popular ones - that it really is more heartwarming than sappy, though (a young modern audience might think differently, then again maybe not as there seem to be those who discover classic movies on their own, maybe as a bit of escapism sometimes?).
Seeing the school through Chipping's eyes - as stubbornly traditional as that may be sometimes - and not from the outside prevents the movie from slipping into mere sentimentalism. You may not agree with him on everything, but you understand how he grew to be like that.
Of course, you also can't forget that the movie is set in the years between 1870 and 1933. Can you imagine how different it would be, say, in the years between 1940 and 2003 with all the changes in technology?
In the film, Donat ages 63 years, and helped by the amazing makeup, he just does it perfectly - and won an Oscar for it.

I also liked the other actors, though, particularly in the story of Chips and Kathy (Greer Garson), but Donat really makes this movie.

To me, it's pure comfort food and it feels as if I have known Mr. Chips forever.
That is funny because according to a German page it wasn't dubbed in German and shown here on TV until 1998 (although the translated novella had been around much longer). It's not as if I didn't have one or the other occasion to see movies in English, but this one? I don't think so.
Anyhow, it must have hit a nerve with me right away. Why else would I have bought the book and the DVD and watched the movie regularly?

Now originally my plan had been to write about the novella the movie is based on and two more adaptations as well, but I might have lost you with a post that long. Instead they'll get a post of their own in a few days which you will be able to find here once it's live.