Adeus, Mr. Chips

Caught this 1969 film on cable TCM one night. I remember when I first saw the film in Hong Kong, I really enjoyed the songs and performances by Peter O'Toole and Petula Clark. I love Clark best in Francis Ford Coppola's "Finian's Rainbow" (1968) opposite Fred Astaire, Don Francks and Tommy Steele. Simply ecstatic to learn that finally, this delightful Irish-flavored pot of gold musical is released on DVD! Ah, "it's that old devil moon (in your eyes)."

Peter O'Toole as Mr. Chips - yes, he did sing - quite a deliverance. He may not be a veteran at musical like Rex Harrison, but he inhabited the role marvelously. The scene of him running across the lawn in his cape a-flying reminds me of the PBS series, "To Serve Them All My Days" - a lovable schoolmaster and loving man, he is, 'Mr. Chipey.' Clark and O'Toole somehow gave us just the right mix of spunk and circumstance. The songs and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse are catchy as usual. The tunes of "You and I" and "Walk Through the World (with Me)" stayed with me the most all these years. And there's "What a Lot of Flowers," "And the Sky Smiled," "Fill the World with Love" - not syrupy at all. Sometimes I think if the world is immersed in Bricusse's songs and words, we would overcome all strife on earth and 'lovely' will be all our days! Yes, "Talk to the Animals," too. ("Doctor Doolittle" 1967)

Musicals are a blessing to the world of moviegoers, they are somehow larger than life. Like the music and lyrics by the Sherman Brothers (Richard M. and Robert B.) who gave us "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" (1968) and "Mary Poppins" (1964) - who wouldn't feel absolutely delighted simply uttering "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious"? I was tickled by even just one featured song & dance number in the Spanish film "Km.0 - Kilometer Zero" (2000). My all time favorite is French filmmaker Jacques Demy's "Young Girls of Rochefort" (1967) with colorful cast of Catherine Deneuve and (late sister) Francoise Dorléac, Jacques Perrin, Michel Piccoli, Danielle Darrieux, Gene Kelly and George Chakiris singing, dancing to Michel Legrand's music. Long live musicals.

Terrence Rattigan, who authored this screenplay at a time when he was out of fashion (and he still is), did a wonderful job renovating and updating James Hilton's sentimental novel, and his screenplay, and the playing of Peter O'Toole and Petula Clark, save the movie. Rattigan emphasizes the love story and carefully shows how Chipping, seemingly stiff and unemotional, has great reservoirs of tenderness and gallantry. It's a love story of two very different people who not only complement one another but bring out unforeseen qualities in each other: She teaches him to care, and he teaches her to function outside her shallow theatrical surroundings. O'Toole is as touching as Robert Donat in the original, and Clark, with less to play, is lovely and sympathetic and in superb voice. Of course, most of Leslie Bricusse's songs are dreadful, and O'Toole's no singer, and the internal-dialog nature of most of them (they don't advance plot, they don't define character, they just tell you what the protagonists are thinking) slows the action down. But with Rattigan's excellent touches, a splendidly showy supporting performance by Sian Phillips (then Mrs. O'Toole), and some eye-filling Oswald Morris photography, it's a love story you can weep copiously through--I know I did--and have a wonderful time doing so.

Arthur Chipping is a 40 something Latin master in an English public school circa 1924. He's respected, but not particularly liked. He's seen as dull, hence his nickname: Ditchy, as in ditch water, dull as. The one person who seems to see beyond Chipping's exterior is his friend Max Staefel, the German master. One of his ex pupils takes him to a musical show which features the singer Katherine Bridges, and he meets this young lady again on holiday in Pompeii. Against all odds, they achieve a rapport, and thanks to Max, who memorises the address for him, they meet up in London and fall in love. They marry and the effect on Chipping is remarkable - his buried humanity is unlocked and the boys begin to love as well as respect the man they now affectionately call Chips.

Chips and Kathy have a blissful 20 years together until tragedy strikes in the form of World War II.

Often dismissed as inferior to the classic 1939 version with Robert Donat, this musical from 1969 with Peter O'Toole as Chips and Petula Clarke as Kathy, will always be THE version for me. I first saw it at the cinema on original release and although at the age of 8 I was vaguely aware that it was a film for adults, and some of it was above my ability to comprehend, I fell in love with it. I haven't fallen out of love since. As a matter of fact, when I saw the Donat version on TV shortly after seeing this, it struck me as a pale shadow of the O'Toole movie. I've learnt to respect and admire the original film, but it has never been able to engage my emotions as the O'Toole version does.

Peter O'Toole is brilliant as Chips, his awkwardness, embarrassment and growing self confidence and his all consuming love for Kathy and his care for the boys he teaches is enchantingly portrayed. The scene in which he reacts to the tragedy that World War II brings is incredibly powerful and moving. He really does look like a man whose whole life has crumbled around him.

True, it does make a number of radical changes to the original novel, but this doesn't matter - it works on it's own merits. Never mind the trendy critics of the day, treat yourself to a wonderful two and a half hours of pure magic.

Great, very moving story. Not perfect - the musical interludes were unnecessary (then again, I generally dislike musicals). Struggles to get going, but once it does it is fantastic. Final quarter is incredibly emotional.

Great performances by Peter O'Toole and Petula Clark.

Although MGM spent a lot of money to remake Goodbye Mr. Chips the film is good, but doesn't come close to the spirit of the classic version that got Robert Donat an Oscar amidst the shower of Oscars that Gone With The Wind got in 1939. Yet the best thing this film has going for it is Peter O'Toole cast against type as Mr. Chipping of Brookfield school.

Two things were radically different from this and the Donat version. First the book by James Hilton and the Donat version cover a period from before the Boer War until after World War I. This Goodbye Mr. Chips starts in The Roaring Twenties and ends post World War II a totally different period than the one Hilton was writing about. James Hilton was 14 years gone when this film came out, I wonder what he would have thought of the change in time period.

Secondly the marriage of Chips is a small part of the original story because the character of the wife dies young and in childbirth. Chips is a saddened widower for most the time the story covers which is a very radical change that Terrence Rattigan made to the original story.

Peter O'Toole and Petula Clark have a great deal more time together than Robert Donat and Greer Garson did in the original film. I guess the reason for that is to give Petula Clark a lot of songs. As she's a singer and O'Toole does his songs in the manner originated by Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady, this is one area where she blows him off the screen. The best numbers in the score by Leslie Bricusse are the production numbers London Is London and later on the one that Petula does with the Brookfield boys, School Days.

Michael Redgrave has a nice turn as the kind, but somewhat traditional schoolmaster. And although she only has a few scenes, Sian Phillips is brilliant as the Bohemian type actress who is a friend of Petula Clark's and a closer friend to Lord George Baker who is trying to get O'Toole sacked from Brookfield. Phillips's character might well have been based on Gertrude Lawrence.

When James Hilton wrote his best known stories Hollywood was fortunate to have a pair of actors who were born to play Hilton heroes, Robert Donat and Ronald Colman. They both exemplify the way the British see themselves, purveyors of civilization, sportsmanship, and fair play to the world. Despite the uphill battle to come close to what Donat gave us with his Mr. Chips, O'Toole did get a nomination for Best Actor, but lost to John Wayne for True Grit. Goodbye Mr. Chips also got a nomination for Best Musical Scoring for Leslie Bricusse and John Williams.

We may yet see another big screen adaption of Goodbye Mr. Chips and maybe this one will be set in modern times if such a film could be made. Sounds like a perfect part for Anthony Hopkins.