Goodbye, Mr. Chips is a 1939 romantic drama film starring Robert Donat, Greer Garson and directed by Sam Wood Based on the 1934 novella of the same name by James Hilton, the film is about Mr. Chipping, a beloved aged school teacher and former headmaster of a boarding school, who recalls his career and his personal life over the decades.

[4][5] Produced for the British division of MGM at Denham Studios, the film was dedicated to Irving Thalberg, who died on 14 September 1936.

[6] Due to a cold, retired schoolteacher Mr. Chipping misses a first-day assembly at Brookfield public school for the first time in 58 years.

However, the new German teacher, Max Staefel, saves him from despair by inviting him to share a walking holiday to his native Austria.

While mountain-climbing, Chipping encounters Kathy Ellis, a feisty English suffragette who is on a cycling holiday with a friend.

During their tragically short marriage (she dies in childbirth, along with their baby), she brings "Chips" out of his shell and shows him how to be a better teacher.

In 1909, when he is pressured to retire by a more "modern" headmaster, the boys and the board of governors of the school take his side of the argument and tell him he can stay until he is 100, and that he is free to pronounce Cicero as SIS-er-ro, and not as KEE-kir-ro.

Upon discovering that Max Staefel has died fighting on the German side, Chips reads out his name in chapel, too.

It reads: "We wish to acknowledge here our gratitude to the late Irving Thalberg, whose inspiration illuminates the picture of Goodbye, Mr. Chips"— James Hilton, Victor Saville, Sam Wood, Sidney A. Franklin, R. C. Sherriff, Claudine West, Eric Maschwitz The AFI Catalog reports that Thalberg purchased Goodbye, Mr. Chips from galley proofs; he originally assigned Sidney Franklin to direct.

[2] In May 1939, The New York Times critic Frank S. Nugent praised the film at length, particularly the adaptation and the performances of Donat and Garson, among others.

The character he etches creates a bloodstream for the picture that keeps it intensely alive.”[13] Goodbye, Mr. Chips holds an 85% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on twenty reviews.