Goodbye Mr. Chips (1969)

“The milk is spilt. Don’t lets cry. Go and change.” – Chips

Number of Times Seen – 1 (16 May 2018)

Brief Synopsis – The life of a teacher in an exclusive prep school in England over the period of more than 40 years.

My Take on it – This is a film I have been interested in seeing ever since I saw the original Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939) last year.

I was amazed by the way that they show the life of a teacher in a prep school over numerous decades and was interested in seeing how Peer O’Toole would be able to take on the role previous played by Robert Donat.

The biggest problem with this film is the choice to make it into a musical (which was quite common during the 1960’s).

This makes a story that should be powerful and poignant and lightens it too much to a point where it no longer feels as powerful as it could have been.

O’Toole is amazing in the title role and was quite deserving of another Best Actor Oscar nomination for this role.

This film does a wonderful job showing the kind of life a teacher lives when being apart of such an institution.

They also show how important the students are to a teacher as a kind of family in almost the same way that the teachers are important to the students as parental figures.

Bottom Line – This is quite a good remake of the classic 1939 film with the same title starring Robert Donat.  The biggest problem here is the attempt to make the story a musical because that takes away so much from the seriousness and poignancy of such a storyline. O’Toole is amazing here (as usual) and was very deserving of an Oscar nomination for this role.  They do a wonderful describing the kind of life a teacher in a school like this lives and how important students can be for the teacher just as teachers are for molding young minds. Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – When the character of Ursula gushed over Chips, asking Katherine to let her have him when she was done with him, there was some truth in the line. Ursula, played by Siân Phillips, was in real life Mrs. Peter O’Toole. (From IMDB)

Rating – Globe Worthy (8/10)

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