Everything About Greer Garson -- Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)

MissGreerGarson.com by Ed S.

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Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939) pic

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Some of Ed's favourite moments

On the mountain: With this scene the world was introduced in 1939 to the wondrous Greer Garson. "Really, it was idiotic of you. And rather wonderful." She even says the word "ham" beautifully. "I've known only one. A reckless person..." I'm taking up mountain-climbing.
Look how daintily she eats her sandwich, pulling off little pieces and popping them into her mouth. She doesn't just cram the whole thing into her face like I do.
Perhaps this is the way genteel ladies ate sandwiches in the Gay Nineties. Perhaps they still do. I wonder if this is how the Queen eats a Big Mac.
Kathy is bicycling through Europe, but we don't get to see Greer actually riding a bicycle until "Random Harvest" and "Madame Curie".
She utters the first of her wonderful "Oh!"'s as she gets up off the rock. I just love it when she says "Oh!"
She also puts her hand to her neck as she gets up. She does this in other movies as well. Perhaps it's an unconscious gesture on her part.
At the inn: "I'm rather tired. I think I'll go to bed." You big dope. This is Greer Garson!
Still at the inn: "We have food for you: goulash, strudel ..." "Perhaps you'd be kind enough to send it up to my room." Maybe he's hoping that Greer will bring it up herself.
I love the way she says "I mean it."
On the ferryboat: "But Flora dear, it is blue." I burst out of tears every single time I hear this line.
My heart starts to ache for them when she says "You have three weeks more," and he responds "Yes, but..."
Look at the wonderfully tentative way she says "It's been wonderful."
Greer says she'll remember the "whipped cream". Was there a whipped cream scene that was edited out? Or was Vienna known for its whipped cream?
In the Viennese ballroom, she asks: "What will you remember? ...Shall I tell you? The waltz you danced in Vienna." If he hadn't gotten up to dance with her, I would've thrown a shoe at the television.
When they're dancing and she says "heartily," she then puts on a very gloomy expression. Is she thinking about the trip home already? Flora and Staefel dance up to them and she smiles again, but somehow this dour expression seems out of place here.
On the train platform: Oh, I love this scene. She is so anxious to hear him pop the question. "Can't you remember?" Are you really going to let her get on the train and never see her again? You big dope! This is Greer Garson!
The kiss.
Now what would've happened if she hadn't kissed him? Here's what.
"Kathy! You kissed me!"
Paul Henreid is a bit of a magician here, because after Chipping has run all the way down the platform, Staefel is right there beside him to offer him a bottle of champagne. Staefel has also heard their entire conversation.
Meeting his colleagues: "I suppose she's elderly." "Plain as a post, I suppose." "Is it as bad as that?"
Imagine one of your nerdy colleagues bringing back a wife like Greer after his summer vacation.
I wish I knew the names of these character actors. The only one I know for sure is Guy Middleton, who plays McCulloch ( "Good gad! Does she drink?").

But who plays Ogilvie?
Who plays Raven?
Who plays Porter-Watson?
And who plays Hildersley and Murdoch?
" Are these some of your boys, dear?" "Mr. Chipping wants to have a tea party every Sunday." "What's that you say?"
At home: She drums her fingers on Dickens and then tosses it on the chair. "Chips! ...Cough a little before you come to number 11."
A cute little pout when he says "Now Kathy, sometimes I think you're trying to pull Brookfield down stone by stone."
He finally becomes a housemaster: Greer's big scene, and her last. I like the way she lowers her voice when she says "But of course." Then there's some lower lip when she says "...which house I liked best."
Look how she bends her left forefinger in this scene. There's more left-forefinger action in "Pride and Prejudice" during the archery scene and in "Mrs. Miniver" when hugging Toby after the German pilot's been taken away. And check out her left forefinger in this picture.
Paul Henreid is a magician again when he somehow knows all about Chipping's new housemastership and brings the Chippings some champagne.
There's no point watching any more of the movie after this. No more Greer.
If you think Paul Henreid is good in "Casablanca", then make sure to watch this movie, his first American film.
Early in the movie, before we see Greer, there is a scene in Chipping's room in which Staefel persuades Chipping to accompany him on the walking tour. Before Paul Henreid delivers the line "But you don't care for my company," you can see him getting ready for it by pursing his lips. Then, as he leaves the room ("Pack yourself, Chipping! Pack yourself!"), he slaps his hand on the "stone" wall and you can hear the hollowness of the papier-mache set.
Greer is actually older than both Robert Donat and Paul Henreid.
It's sometimes said that Diane Keaton won an Oscar® for "Annie Hall" because of the montage that Woody Allen and Ralph Rosenblum included at the end. "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" also has a bit of an aural montage at the end, when Chips hears a series of voices and sounds from the past, including Greer yelling "Halloo" on the mountaintop. Very moving.
Would you like to read a little bit of fan fiction for this movie? I believe that the only such fiction on the entire internet is to be found here.
Greer spent most of 1938 waiting for the plum movie role that Louis B. Mayer had promised her. She wasn't an 18-year-old ingenue, and didn't feel that she should waste her time and talent on little walk-on parts. Here is a backroom conversation that may have taken place while Mayer and his cronies tried to figure out what to do with her: