Goodbye, Mr Chips

With his cane, scarf, mortar-board and perpetual hangdog expression, Robert Donat seemed to embody Neville Chamberlain - 'I have a piece of paper and it's spelt incorrectly. One hundred lines, Master Hitler, or you'll be slippered'. Actually, the movie always was a museum piece, and- if you are in the right mood - a deeply affecting one. Donat's schoolmaster looks back upon his life - his surrogate fatherhood to scores of boys, his marriage to Mrs Miniver, who dies during childbirth - and Olde England passes before our very eyes.