100 Movies Every Catholic Should See #4: Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969)

Directed by Herbert Ross. Written by Terrence Rattigan, Based on the 1934 novel Goodbye, Mr. Chips by James Hilton. Starring Peter O'Toole, Petula Clark, and Michael Redgrave.

I should like to preface before I get to the meat of this essay, that there is nothing particularly Catholic about this movie. In fact, I can only assume that the main characters and the school have deep ties to the Church of England. But the emphasis on the importance of a classical education in the Christian sense is very present (apart from the musical numbers).

In this musical and pre-war adaptation of the 1934 novel Goodbye, Mr. Chips by James Hilton and the 1939 classic starring Robert Donat, we get to see Peter O’Toole add his own twist to the, stodgy yet loveable schoolmaster at the Brookfield School (A role that O’Toole fits perfectly into).

Brookfield is a small all-boys boarding school that closely resembles most traditional upper-class boarding schools in the United Kingdom (think of the Eton School). Arthur “Chips” Chipping (O’Toole) has spent most of his life associated with the school, both as a student and as a teacher. Chipping is a teacher of the Classics (Ancient Greek and Latin and related subjects) at Brookfield. When the film opens we see how much the students dislike him, even calling him “ditchy,” which is short for “dull as ditch-water.” But it is not so much the subject that is dull to the students, but rather “Chips” as a person. “Chips” is the very definition of a well educated English Gentleman, something he has trouble translating to the schoolboys he teaches. It is not until he meets Katherine Bridges (Petula Clark) that he softens up, and when “Chips” and her eventually do marry, the schoolboys come to grow fond of both “Chips” and Mrs. “Chips.” When “Chips” finally is appointed to be Headmaster of Brookfield, his wife is unfortunately killed in a bombing by the Germans during late wartime air raids, making it hard for “Chips” to revel in his brief moment of glory.

The emotional climax of the story comes at the end where “Chips” resigns from his position as Headmaster of Brookfield, and from teaching as a whole. The students’ reaction to this news is a wave of gratitude for all that he has done for them: as he leaves the event hall the students and the teachers alike all pat him on the back and express their gratitude. It is then years later that “Chips” expresses his love for all the boys that came through and have yet to come through Brookfield, and his profound hope that he taught the boys how to behave to one another. In other words, “Chips” hopes that he was able to help form young minds that are well-rounded and unafraid to take on whatever project they undertake (as expressed in the song “When I Am Older”). This scene was particularly emotional considering that “Chips” never had any children of his own, so in a way he expresses his hope that the boys looked at him as not just a teacher but as a father figure of sorts.

This is a theme that I take to heart as my former Catholic High School’s mission is to create men and boys who are “Academic, Masculine and Cheerful.” And as I saw those three words come to life in my former high school, I see them too in the fictional Brookfield school.

In contemporary politics and philosophy we hear a lot about the broken education system and are constantly reminded by the failures of modern education by writers like G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, etc. But St. John Henry Newman (pray for us!) wrote a book (I have not had the pleasure to read it yet) titled; The Idea of a University, in which he provided a defense and an advocation of the ideal catholic university, in which this classical curriculum is key and available to all. This model for classical education I think is present in the character of Mr. Chips and in a school he dedicated his life to.

I’m not a teacher but I should like to become one at some point, and I too should also like to have an effect in the same vein as Mr. Chips, as should all teachers.