Movies - Goodbye, Mr. Chips

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	Movies - Goodbye, Mr. Chips

Goodbye, Mr. Chips (originally Good-bye, Mr. Chips) is a novel by James Hilton, first published in 1934. It tells the story of a much-beloved schoolteacher through the long years of his tenure at Brookfield, the boys' school where he taught. Mr. Chipping conquers his inability to connect with the boys at the school as well as his initial shyness when he marries Katherine, a young woman he meets on holiday. "Chips," despite his own mediocre academic record, goes on to have an illustrious career as an inspiring educator at Brookfield.

The story is relatively short and written in a simple style. Although the book is unabashedly sentimental, it also depicts the sweeping changes that Chips experiences throughout his life: he begins his tenure at Brookfield in 1870, as the Franco-Prussian War is breaking out, and lies on his deathbed shortly after Hitler's rise to power. At times, the book is strikingly jingoistic. On numerous occasions, Chips ruminates on his faith in "English blood," and at one point makes a mildly anti-Semitic joke about a "boy named Isaacstein." (Later editions of the book eliminated the Jewish reference and simply said that Chips "made fun of a boy's name.") Clearly discernible is a nostalgia for the Victorian order that was already waning by 1910 and then destroyed by the First World War. Indeed, a recurring leitmotif throughout is the devastating impact of the war on British society. When the war breaks out, Chips, who had retired the year before at age sixty-five, agrees to come out of retirement to fill in for the various masters who have entered military service. Despite being taken for a doddering fossil, it is Chips who keeps his wits about him during an air raid, averting mass panic and sustaining morale. Countless old boys and masters die on the battlefield, and much of the story involves Chips's response to the horrors unleased by the war. At one point, Chips reads aloud a long roster of the school's fallen alumni, and, defying the modern world he sees as soulless and lacking transcendent values of honor and friendship, dares to include the name of a former German master who died fighting on the opposite side. While some of the incidents depicted in the various screen adaptations do not appear in the book, the first film, starring Robert Donat (see below) is generally faithful to the original story.

The setting for "Goodbye Mr. Chips" is believed to have been based on The Leys School, Cambridge where James Hilton was a pupil (1915-1918). Hilton is reported to have said that the inspiration for the protagonist, Chippy, came from many sources, including his father who was the headmaster of Chapel End School. However, Chippy is also likely to have been based on W.H. Balgarnie, one of the masters at The Leys (1900-1930) who was in charge of the Leys Fortnightly (where Hilton's first short stories and essays were published). Over the years old boys have written to Geoffery Houghton, a master of the Leys for a number of years and a historian of the school, confirming the links between Chippy and Balgarnie. As with Mr. Chips, Balgarnie died at the school, at the age of 82, having been linked with the school for 51 years and living his last years in modest lodgings opposite the school. Again, like Mr. Chips, Balgarnie was a strict disciplinarian, but would also invite boys to visit him for tea and biscuits.

Hilton wrote, upon Balgarnie's death that "Balgarnie was, I suppose, the chief model for my story. When I read so many other stories about public school life, I am struck by the fact that I suffered no such purgatory as their authors apparently did, and much of this miracle was due to Balgarnie." Furthermore, the facial hair of one of the masters at The Leys earned him the nickname "Chops", a likely inspiration for Mr Chips' name.

Stage Adaptations

See Goodbye, Mr. Chips Musical

The stage production was written predominantly by Leslie Bricusse with help from Michael Sadler, Robert Meadmore, performed by the Chichester Festival Cast. A recording is available in most online cd stores.

Screen adaptations

1939 film

See Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939 film)

The novel has been adapted several times for film and television, the best known screen version being the 1939 movie, which starred Robert Donat, Greer Garson, Terry Kilburn, John Mills and Paul Henreid. Donat won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in the lead role.

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