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DVD Goodbye, Mr. Chips
One more terrific film from a terrific year for movies--1939, the year of Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, and Stagecoach, among others--Sam Wood's Goodbye Mr. Chips is a deeply stirring work starring Robert Donat as the old schoolmaster who looks back upon his life. Told mostly in flashbacks, the film wraps itself around a history of an older England as seen through the generations of boys who pass through Mr. Chips's classroom. Greer Garson is her usual classy, sexy-intelligent self as Donat's wife, their earlier courtship one of the film's highlights. Get out the Kleenex for this one. --Tom Keogh
Mr. Chipping (Robert Donat) comes to a boys school in England as its Latin master; he is unfriendly and distant and not a big hit with the boys. After many years he goes to Switzerland and Vienna on holiday and meets Greer Garson, whom he marries, and who shows him how to be more likable with the boys. Garson dies in childbirth and for the next umpteen years Chips lives for his boys, now everyone's favorite.
Donat is excellent as the old schoolmaster, and although it comes close at times, the picture never becomes syrupy. Even when WW I breaks out and the boys become fodder on Flander's Field the expected lamentations from Chips and others are restrained. This only adds to the movie's emotional power. It's a very warm and nostalgic piece of movie making: a feel-good movie from 1939. Definitely worth a watch.
Donat took the Academy Award - quite a feat for the year, a year full of monumental Hollywood gems.
goodbye mr. chips
this is absolutely the best movie i've ever seen in my entire life. a movie eternal for all time!
When the Movie tops the Book
There aren't many cases where the movie is better than the book, but "Goodbye Mr. Chips" is one of them. James Hilton tossed together his barely over 100 pages of big type in about a week. The scriptwriters for the film fleshed out a good story line with much more detail. Well-directed and just superbly acted by Robert Donat in the title role, this film is an endearing classic.
The basic story is that of a traditional English schoolmaster, set in a period from mid-Victorian to pre-WWII. It's a gentle tale of the meaning of a man's life and how we can rise to excellence in our modest professions and touch the lives of many. Mr. Chipping ("Chips" as his students affectionately know him) leads a rich life, although also fraught with sorrows.
There is still much relevance to the film--the tragedy of war, the importance of a balanced education, and the evils of caste.
Yes, the film is sentimental and a little manipulative, but you will probably not mind. In fact, you may cry your eyes out.
Compared to R.F. Delderfield's "To Serve Them All My Days," the book of "Chips" is not nearly as good, but this film tops the BBC mini-series of "Days" in virtually every way--especially in managing to leave out a lot of class warfare!
Order it, go buy a box of Puffs, and plonk yourself down for a delightful classic!
A movie doesn't win seven Oscars for nothing. A glowing Greer Garson (Best Actress) commands the screen as Mrs. Miniver, a middle-class British housewife whose strength holds her family together as World War II literally hits their home. Walter Pidgeon as her architect husband seems to be the prototype for future TV dads in this affecting portrait of love--familial and romantic--during war. But the relationship between Mrs. Miniver's college-age son (Richard Ney) and the upper-crust Carol (Best Supporting Actress Teresa Wright) is filled with inherent drama--as the war speeds up their young love, it also has the potential to doom it. The 1942 film, which also won for Best Picture and Best Director, is filled with colorful characters, snappy dialogue, and sensational plot twists. Although... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Greer Garson - Walter Pidgeon - Teresa Wright Director(s): William Wyler DVD Release Date: Released the 03 February 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The ultimate tearjerker, this 1942 romance classic directed by Mervyn LeRoy (based on a novel by James Hilton) stars Ronald Colman as a British army officer suffering from amnesia after World War I. After falling in love with and marrying a dance-hall singer (Greer Garson), Colman's happy character begins a career as a writer and doesn't seem to mind that he doesn't remember who he is. A car accident changes all that, however, causing the hero's memory to return and making him forget all about his lovely cottage and bride. LeRoy modulates the obvious suspense element in the story (for example, is Colman going to remember Greer or not?) extremely well, building ever-so-deliciously slowly toward a huge payoff. This is one of the great date movies of all time. --Tom KeoghMore Info about this DVD Actor(s): Ronald Colman - Greer Garson Director(s): Mervyn LeRoy DVD Release Date: Released the 11 January 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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A three-hour weepy extraordinaire, this 1944 offering from producer David O. Selznick (who also wrote the screenplay) was a tribute to all the families who stayed behind while their men went off to fight in World War II. Claudette Colbert is the mother of daughters Jennifer Jones and Shirley Temple; first seen coming home after dropping her war-bound husband at the train, she becomes the model of courage and strength on the homefront. The plot has a Saturday Evening Post feel today, as it follows the family's day-to-day life and struggles, whether with a crotchety boarder (a delightfully starchy Monty Woolley) or oldest daughter Jones's doomed romance with departing serviceman Robert Walker. They don't make them like this anymore and it's too bad. Nominated for a fistful of Oscars,... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Claudette Colbert - Jennifer Jones Director(s): John Cromwell DVD Release Date: Released the 19 October 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This silky smooth film noir pits gruff police detective Dana Andrews, stiff and blunt in his street-bred manners, against a cultured columnist and acidic wit (Clifton Webb at his prissiest) in a battle of wits during a murder investigation. The cop is a romantic hiding under a hard-boiled exterior who falls in love with the beautiful victim through the portrait that hangs in her apartment. Gene Tierney, whose heart-shaped face mixes the exotic with the girl next door, brings the poise and calm of a model to her role as the object of every man's gaze and the target of a killer. Laura, handsomely shot in dreamy black and white, is the first and best of Otto Preminger's cool, controlled murder mysteries. In the gritty world of film noir it remains the most refined and elegant example... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Gene Tierney - Dana Andrews Director(s): Rouben Mamoulian - Otto Preminger DVD Release Date: Released the 15 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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John Ford's beautiful, heartfelt drama about a close-knit family of Welsh coal miners is one of the greatest films of Hollywood's golden age--a gentle masterpiece that beat Citizen Kane in the Best Picture race for the 1941 Academy Awards. The picture also won Oscars for Best Director (Ford), Best Supporting Actor (Donald Crisp), Best Art Direction, and Best Cinematography; all of those awards were richly deserved, even if they came at the expense of Kane and Orson Welles. Based on the novel by Richard Llewellyn, the film focuses its eventful story on 10-year-old Huw (Roddy McDowall), youngest of seven children to Mr. and Mrs. Morgan (Donald Crisp, Sarah Allgood), a hardy couple who've seen the best and worst of times in their South Wales mining town. They're facing one of... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Walter Pidgeon - Maureen O'Hara Director(s): John Ford DVD Release Date: Released the 14 January 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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