Goodbye, Mr. Chips

Most schools have that one old teacher who seems be part of the school and has taught one family member after another.  Author of the book the film is based on, James Hilton, created the character Mr. Chips after his old classics teacher at The Leys public school in Cambridge who taught there for over fifty years.  Rather than feeling completely specific to one man, Mr. Chips seems to be a character that is made to embody many old favorite teachers.

After getting a brief history on the present Chips (Robert Donat) and his beloved boarding school, we are taken back to his beginning in 1870, seeing Chips as a young man trying to teach his first pupils.  The boys see fresh meat, and give Chips a very rocky start to his career.  In order to regain control and respect, Chips becomes a disciplinarian, but that doesn’t make him particularly popular among the boys.

Years pass, boys grow, graduate and more arrive.  One summer middle-age approaching Chips ventures to Austria with a colleague and meets what seems to be the first and only woman ever interested in him, Katharine (Greer Garson).  After having a bit of a mountain  adventure  to bond over, Chips gets the courage to ask for her hand in marriage.  When they arrive back at the school, it seems that life with Katharine reinvents Chips to be more popular with the students.  The new couple regularly invites them over for snacks and light conversation.  Suddenly, Chips is no longer an old stick in the mud and Katharine seems to be a pillar of encouragement.

Years pass, tragedy occurs, life goes on.  By now Chips is well loved by the boys and can recall teaching some of their fathers, but is being asked to retire.  When WWI strikes up, a new headmaster is needed, one who knows the school and can lead it well, so they turn to Chips.  One particularly sad moment is when the names of his former pupils that have been killed in action are being read off regularly.  But as the war ends, life does go on and Chips gets to teach four generations in the same family.

As Chips gets older, he seems to be a model for Dumbeldore in the Harry Potter series, there’s a cheerful glint in his eye behind the aged face.  The makeup work goes a long way here.  However, the younger Chips is very ridged and unsure of himself, they nearly feel like different people.  I guess that can happen over a sixty-three year span in life, and portraying that is deserving of the Best Actor Oscar, but it didn’t feel all that special or invigorating.  Personally, I’d be more satisfied seeing Gable or Stewart holding the award for their performances from 1939.

Honestly, Goodbye, Mr. Chips is kinda fun, kinda cute and a sort of heartwarming.  It’s like when you coat too much syrup on something that needs more substance and it gets way to sappy toward the end.  It’s simply alright, but I wouldn’t go back for seconds.  See if if you’re a fan of Robert Donat.

“These dead languages do come to live sometimes.”

The Citadel

Don’t we all have big dreams of changing the world for the better at some point?  Some want to be scientists discovering new species or form of energy, others want to write the next great novel and inspire generations to come.  For Andrew Manson, the dream was to be a good doctor.

In The Citadel, Andrew (Robert Donat) is a young, enthusiastic doctor, and after cutting his teeth in a small town with no hospital, he goes to work in a Welsh mining town.  He notices that many of the miners have a terrible cough and wants to study a few of them so that he can figure out exactly what is ailing them and what is the cause.  To properly study these men means they would have to miss work, it is not long before they drop out of Andrew’s study to feed their families.  So he and his faithful wife, Christine (Rosalind Russell), turn to studying guinea pigs in their own homemade laboratory.  When the ignorant townspeople find out, they destroy the lab thinking their work is cruel.  Frustrated and disillusioned, Andrew and Christine move to London, where Andrew opens a private practice.  Business is slow and money is tight, until an old colleague shows Andrew the money that can be made in treating rich old hypochondriacs.  While the money is flowing in, Andrew seems to forget that he became a doctor to help people, not just give old people attention and placebos.  It isn’t until tragedy strikes that he remembers his old dreams.

Riddle me this: How many of us are really doing things we have a passion for in the name of bettering the world?  It really is sad to think about what makes us turn on those old idealistic dreams.  For Andrew, the ignorance of the destructive Welsh miners sent him packing.  For some, it could be lack of an education that has held them back.  Others could blame money, or the only job they can find has them going nowhere.

One scene that really stood out to me was when Andrew is first trying to treat the miners.  The men are lined up around his office, all with the same coughing symptoms and all they want is some pink cough medicine like the last doctor would give out.  But Andrew wants to actually examine them.  One man says he hasn’t been examined in seven years, why should he need it now?  Nonetheless, Andrew wants to be a good doctor so he examines and has the same advice for all of them: lay off the beer and let him study their symptoms.  The men don’t like that at all.  It is so discouraging when people won’t listen to your advice, even worse when it is completely counterproductive to your job.

While The Citadel is not all that exciting of a film, the theme is one to think about.  Are we doing our best and how can we do better?  Life will be full of discouragements but that doesn’t mean we should run off and abandon our goals.  We could all learn a bit from Andrew.

“You’re only one of a great profession.”