Goodbye, Mr. Chips is a 1939 romantic drama film starring Robert Donat, Greer Garson and directed by Sam Wood. Based on the 1934 novella Goodbye, Mr. Chips 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. Produced for the British division of MGM at Denham Studios, the film was dedicated to Irving Thalberg, who had died on 14 September 1936. At the 12th Academy Awards, it was nominated for seven awards, including Best Picture; and for his performance as Mr. Chipping, Donat won the award for Best Actor. At the time of its release, the picture appeared on Film Dailys and the National Board of Review's ten best lists for 1939, and received the "best picture" distinction in The Hollywood Reporter Preview Poll of May 1939. Plot Due to a cold, retired schoolteacher Mr. Chipping misses a first-day assembly at Brookfield public school for the first time in 58 years. That afternoon, he falls asleep in his chair and his teaching career is related via flashback. When 25-year-old Charles Edward Chipping first arrives as a Latin teacher in 1870, he becomes a target of practical jokes on his first day. He reacts by imposing strict discipline in his classroom, making him disliked but respected. Twenty years pass and he becomes the senior master. He is disappointed in not receiving an appointment as a housemaster within the school for the following year. 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. They meet again in Vienna, where she persuades him to dance to the Blue Danube Waltz. (This piece of music is used as a leitmotif, symbolizing Chipping's love for her.) Staefel remarks that the Danube does not appear blue, but Chipping remarks it only appears so to those who are in love. On another part of the same boat, as Kathy looks at the river, she tells her friend that it is blue. Even though Kathy is considerably younger and livelier than Chipping, she loves and marries him. They return to England, where Kathy takes up residence at the school, charming everyone with her