“GOOD-BYE, MR. CHIPS”

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 301, 21 December 1939, Page 11

“GOOD-BYE, MR. CHIPS”

| NEW ZEALAND PREMIERE | MAJESTIC ATTRACTION ■ “Goodbye, Mr. Chips,” which will have its New Zealand premiere at the Majestic Theatre to-morrow, and will extend over I the Christmas season, is voted the ■’ picture that will please everyone. Other pictures of public school and | university life have passed across the screen, met with approval, and left j their impression on me llcKle public, I but none has succeeded in the manner lof ‘‘Mr. Chips” tn revealing with the skill of a surgeon the very soul of 'the puDiic school. Even he who deLspises the "old school tie” and all that I sort of thing must admire Mr. Chips, ! a man who loves his fellow men, even I though they be rowdy, inconsiderate ' schoolboys, belter than anything else jin the world except, pernaps, his wife I who taught him to give expression to I tills love. Many schools have their j "Mr. Chips”—-even in New Zealand, a country relatively young in tradition, there are schoolmasters whose assoj elation with one school has extended ■ over half a century or longer, men who have played an inestimable part Jin the moulding of thousands of : human lives, men who always think ■of other men as they were as schooi- ' boys, men who have caned the men Iwiio are at the helm of the nation toj day. To such as these “Goodbye, Mr. I Ch.ps” is a splendid memorial. We nave happy memories of Robert Donat jas the struggling young doctor in "The Citadel” and still like to think of his performance in “The Ghost Goes West," but these, his earlier successes, are outshone by his incomparable acting in “Goodbye, Mr. Chips.” In particular, his portrayal of a very old but very energetic retired schoolmaster is peerless. An important part in the picture and in the life of "Mr. Chips" is played by Greer Garson, charming I Irish-Scottish actress, who, as his wile I "Cathie" is the embodiment of all the best one associates with womanhood. DEANNA DURBIN Deanna Durbin’s sixth picture, "First Love,” comes to the Majestic Theatre on Friday of next week. Presenting the young star in a more mature role than any she has ever attempted "First Love” finds her experiencing her first romance. Deanna is seen as an orphan girl who is forced to live with an aunt, an uncle, and two cousins her own age. In the picture Deanna encounters her first love affair, a boy-and-girl romance between herself and Robert Stack, a screen newcomer in the role of a young bachelor who is the object of the affection of Deanna and of Helen Parrish, who plays one of the snobbish cousins.