Goodbye, Mr. Chips
(1939)

Country: UK

Genre: Drama

Synopsis

A shy Latin schoolmaster named Mr. Chipping (Robert Donat), who devotes his life to teaching his boys after the death of his wife Katherine, recalls his life, romance and career.

Notes

• Based on the 1934 novella of the same name by James Hilton
• The exteriors of the buildings of the fictional Brookfield School were in fact shot at Repton School, an independent boys' school located in the village of Repton in Derbyshire (the interior shots of Brookfield, on the other hand, were all shot in studio). Around 300 boys from Repton School stayed on during the school holidays so that they could appear in the film.
• The Brookfield School song is heard over the opening credits as well as in the film itself. The lyrics of the song, which are all but indecipherable on the soundtrack, are as follows: "Let the years pass but our hearts will remember/Schooldays at Brookfield that ended too soon./Fight to the death in the mire of November/Last wicket rattles on evenings in June/Grey granite walls that were gay with our laughter/Green of the fields where our feet used to roam./We shall remember, whate?er may come after/Brookfield our mother and Brookfield our home."
• When 'Chips' gives his farewell speech to the school on his retirement, he concludes by saying "Haec olim meminisse juvabit...I need not translate, of course". The quote, from Virgil's "Aeneid", is from Aeneas' speech to his Trojan companions after they've been shipwrecked following the Trojan War. The full quote is "Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit" and translates as "Perhaps some day it will be delightful to us to remember [even] this".