Goodbye, Mr. Chips

Goodbye, Mr. Chips uses its budget quietly, with good taste, and succeeds in being a big movie without being a gross one. I think I enjoyed it about as much as any road show since Funny Girl. Read full review

An overblown version of James Hilton's tearstained little gold mine of a book, with songs where they are not needed (and Leslie Bricusse's songs are never needed), yet there's still charm in the story, and Peter O'Toole gives a romantic performance of great distinction as the schoolmaster whose life is transformed by the Cinderella touch of an actress, played now by Petula Clark.

Overall, rookie director Ross stumbles over the material, neither destroying nor enhancing the talents of O'Toole, Clark, and company. Read full review

Terence Rattigan has jazzed up the screenplay with a laborious melodrama but unfortunately he has not distorted it beyond recognition. That there remain strains of the understated wit of the original dialogue is a dubious blessing--like patches of lace in a sweatsuit. [06 Nov 1969, p.52]

Should it survive—and I suspect it will — it will be largely because of the restrained, affectingly comic performance of Peter O'Toole in the title role. Everything else in this British public-school romance is either out of symmetry or out of date. Read full review

M-G-M's reproduction of Goodbye, Mr. Chips as a big-budget musical [music and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse] with Peter O'Toole and Petula Clark is a sumptuous near-miss that trips on its own overproduction. Read full review

Incredibly bloated remake, with Mrs Chips an ex-showgirl (allowing for some vacuous songs), a continental holiday (allowing for a travelogue wallow), and Herbert Ross (his first film as director), trying to match Wyler's choreographed camera movements on Funny Girl but failing to make them serve any meaningful purpose. Read full review