Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)

Mr. Chipping (Robert Donat) is a teacher at Brookfield Academy, a British boarding school. Unfortunately, he's not a very good teacher. None of the boys like him. None of the other teachers do either. None except Staefel (Paul Henreid), the German teacher. One summer, Staefel invites Chipping to come along with him on a walking tour of the Tyrol. Chipping reluctantly agrees. It is a decision that will change his life. While climbing a mountain in Switzerland, Chipping becomes lost in dense cloud cover and stumbles across Katherine (Greer Garson), who is also lost. They decide to wait together. They share sandwiches. They share a coat. By the time they are rescued, the die has been cast. When Mr. Chipping returns to Brookfield for the start of the new season, he brings with him Katherine as Mrs. Chipping. Katherine has a decidedly positive effect on everyone she meets. The other teachers go gaga over her, as do all of the boys. More importantly, though, Katherine changes Mr. Chipping. She softens him. She opens him up. Where he was once a strict disciplinarian, he now overlooks little infractions of the rules. Where he was once stern, he now begins to tell jokes. This, of course, has a marvelous effect on the boys. No longer do they fear him. Instead, they all like the person he's become. He is now Mr. Chips, the beloved schoolmaster. But life has more turns in store for Chips. With little warning, Katherine dies giving birth to their first child. The child dies too. At first, Chips is devastated. Then, he realizes that Katherine will always be in his heart. As the years go by, Chips guides many young boys through adolescence and into manhood. During World War I, Chips comes out of retirement and takes over as headmaster of the school, shepherding Brookfield through the dark days of the war, watching with growing sorrow as so many of his former students and colleagues march off to their death. Finally, old and frail, Chips too must shuffle off this mortal coil. While on his deathbed, one of his friends says that it's too bad Chips never had any children of his own. Mr. Chips replies that he had hundreds of children, and they were all boys.

Sam Woods' Goodbye, Mr. Chips is a sappy, sentimental film about the effect one school teacher can have on the lives of many pupils, and the effect those pupils can have on the life of that one teacher. It's also a film about redemption, as the unpopular Mr. Chipping is transformed by his love for Katherine into the much-adored Mr. Chips. Having never read the James Hilton novel on which it's based, I don't know how faithful this version is to the original, but it is my favorite version of this story (at least one other version was filmed in 1969, a musical starring Peter O'Toole). I love watching the transformative effect that love has on Mr. Chips. I also enjoy watching the friendship that grows between Chips and Staefel, a friendship that endures even when they are on opposite sides during the war. Robert Donat is wonderful as both the severe Mr. Chipping and the lovable Mr. Chips. They do a pretty good job of aging him down through the decades too. He's really quite believable as the young, the middle aged and the elderly man. Of course, Greer Garson is radiant as always as the gentle, loving Katherine who always sees the good in everyone. It's also fun to watch the parade of Colley's who come marching through the school - John, his son Peter I, followed by Peter II, and Peter III, all played by young Terry Kilburn. If you're in the mood for a good tear-jerking, feel-good film, then Goodbye, Mr. Chips is just the ticket.

Goodbye, Mr. Chips is rated G. It's filmed in glorious black and white and has a runtime of 114 minutes.

Random Harvest (1942)

Random Harvest is a four-hankie weepie from 1942, starring Ronald Colman as Charles Rainier, aka Smith, a wealthy man who loses his memory during WWI then regains it again with tragic results, and Greer Garson as Paula, the wife he forgets he had. I have to start right out by saying that I think Ronald Colman was one of the finest actors of the golden age of Hollywood. He had the look of a man who had witnessed great tragedies, coupled with what Stephen Vito of the American Film Institute called "a bewitching, finely-modulated, resonant voice." When you see him on screen, you think, "Here's a man who understands sorrow." I've never seen a film of his that I didn't enjoy, from Raffles to A Double Life.

Random Harvest opens at a mental institution that houses shell-shocked victims of WWI. Charles Rainier, known to the staff as merely "Smith", has lost all memory of who he is. On the night of the Armistice, "Smith" slips out of the hospital during the celebrations and meets Paula, a singer with a travelling variety show. When "Smith" is recognized as an escaped "loony", he and Paula run away together. They settle in a tiny village, marry and have a baby boy. Meanwhile, "Smith" starts writing newspaper articles, which get the attention of a Liverpool paper. When they offer him a job, "Smith" travels alone to Liverpool for an interview. While there, he's struck by a car and knocked unconscious. When he awakens, he's Charles Rainier once again, having forgotten everything that has happened to him, including his marriage to Paula. He immediately returns to his ancestral home and resumes that life he had before the war. His only clue to what happened during his missing years is a key, which he carries with him at all times.

The years go by in a brief montage, and we see Charles Rainier as the head of the family corporation, one of the great tycoons of England, engaged to be married to the beautiful, young Kitty (Susan Peters), and totally unaware that the woman who is now his personal secretary was once his wife, Paula. She and their son became ill shortly after "Smith's" disappearance, and their son died. When she recovered, she began searching for her lost husband, only to find that he had become someone else. To be near "Smith", Paula takes a job at his company, eventually working her way up to his personal secretary. And though he is around her every day, Charles still does not remember that he was once madly in love with Paula.

Meanwhile, Kitty breaks off her engagement to Charles when she realizes what Charles does not really love her - that he is, in fact, in love with someone else. At this point, Charles decides to run for public office. After he's elected to Parliament, Charles surprises Paula by asking her if she'll marry him, not out of love but because a politician needs a good wife. Paula agrees, even though she knows that Charles does not love her as "Smith" did. Will Charles ever regain his memory of the time that he was Smith? Will he ever remember that he loves the woman he's married to?

Random Harvest was not well received when it first came out, with the critics roundly panning both the plot line and the excessive melodrama. Colman did receive an Oscar nomination for his performance (which no one could fault), but he lost out in the end to Jimmy Cagne in Yankee Doodle Dandy. So, while I wouldn't classify it as a "great" movie, I still enjoy it immensely. It's a movie about redemption and the power of love to conquer all things, a movie about two people whose love for each other drives them through excruciating misery and loneliness as they try to regain something they lost. It's a movie that resonates in my life, having found again the lost love of my life. It's a movie that maybe we need in these days of disposable marriages, co-habitation and one night stands. For here is a film that says you can love just one person throughout your entire life and stay faithful to that person come what may. And that's a good message for any time.

Random Harvest is rated G and was filed in glorious black and white.