Goodbye, Mr. Chips (2002)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Main Menu Audio & Animation Biographies-Cast Notes-History of Mr Chips Theatrical Trailer-3:08
Rating
Year Of Production	2002
Running Time	99:12
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Stuart Orme
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Martin Clunes John Waters Patrick Malahide Victoria Hamilton Conleth Hill Christopher Fulford David Horovitch
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$29.95	Music	Colin Towns

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Auto Pan & Scan Encoded	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	Unknown	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    This is not the first version of Goodbye, Mr Chips — that was made in 1938, just 4 years after the book was published, and won Robert Donat the Oscar for Best Actor in the title role. It's not the second version, that honour goes to Peter O'Toole's 1969 version. There was even a TV miniseries version in 1984. I have to admit that my initial reaction was "What? They've remade this one again?". And I won't blame you if you feel the same way. But maybe you should give this one a chance — it's really rather good.

    This version begins with the arrival at Brookfield private school (technically, it's a Public School, because private schools in England were called Public Schools — no, I don't know why) of a replacement Latin teacher, a Mr Chipping (Martin Clunes). He's arriving just a month before the end of the term because the previous Latin master abruptly inherited a lot of money and decamped. The headmaster, Mr Wetherby (John Waters), does not repose much faith in Mr Chipping — one suspects that his reference was not praiseworthy. He suffers a bad start when the Lower Fifth rebel at the start of his first class, but he manages to muddle through. The film follows his life, jumping ahead a few days, or weeks, or years, at a time. We see his disappointments (being passed over for the position of housemaster, for example), and his delights, such as meeting and wooing Kathie Bridges (Victoria Hamilton) — she is quite a delight, complete with her radical ideas (such as women being entitled to vote, and to become doctors!). Almost all of the time we see him, he is in and around the school. Although the year he started is not stated, it's clearly well before 1900. The time just before the First World War is hard, because the old headmaster is gone, and a new broom, Mr Ralston (Patrick Malahide) is determined to modernise the school, starting by getting rid of the German teacher, Herr Staefel (Conleth Hill), who has been Chipping's friend for decades.

    This film doesn't dwell on the changes that take place over the years, such as the demise of fagging (older boys using younger ones as slaves), cancelling of house initiations, and a reduction in bullying (especially the stamping out of institutionalised bullying), amongst others, but they do appear.

    This is not a particularly long film, but it seems longer, because so much happens. This is really quite a good interpretation of the story, and I urge you to give it a look.

Video

    This DVD is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, and is 16x9 enhanced. Given that this was made in 2002 for the BBC and ABC, I would not be surprised to learn that this was the intended aspect ratio.

    The picture is sharp and clear, save for a few moments where focus is slightly out. Shadow detail is quite reasonable, but not wonderful. There's no significant grain. There's little low level noise, but some appears in a low-light scene around 16:56.

    Colour is rather good. The colour palette is mostly restricted by production design — there is little in the way of brightly coloured clothing or furnishings. There's no colour bleed or oversaturation.

    There are some small film artefacts, but only one large enough to remark upon — a green mark at 1:40.

    There are some moments of shimmer, and more than a little aliasing, but it's never to the level of distraction. There are no MPEG artefacts.

    There are subtitles in just one language, English. They are unusually accurate, well-timed, and easy to read.

    The disc is single sided and single layered; meaning no layer change, and no need for over-compression, with just over 100 minutes of material.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There is only one soundtrack, in English, Dolby Digital 2.0, not surround encoded, at 192kbps — perfectly reasonable for a programme made for television.

    The dialogue is clear and easy to understand (even with the variety of accents). There are no lapses in audio sync.

    Colin Town's score is more than adequate in its role of supporting what's happening on-screen.

    A Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack without surround encoding offers no signal for surrounds or subwoofer. Indeed, there's little in the way of stereo spread — this is mostly mono/central, with a little bit of stereo spread in one or two spots.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The menu is animated, with music. It is a little odd in one way: the menu command to switch subtitles on and off is placed on the Special Features submenu. I could do without the two minutes of advertising that precedes the main menu, especially as the advertising cannot be bypassed by pressing a key.

Cast Bios

    A total of eight pages of biographical information, covering Martin Clunes, Victoria Hamilton, and Conleth Hill.

History of Mr Chips

    Nine pages of notes, covering the history of the story, including some background on the real people who inspired it.

Trailer (3:08)

    Quite a long trailer for so recent a work. It gives away too much, as so many trailers do — don't watch this until you've seen the film.

    This film is apparently available in Region 1, but it's hard to find any details (there's such a welter of information about the other versions, and even about performances of the play!). This version is really quite a good rendering of the film, so I'm not sure the Region 1 would be any better.

    Goodbye, Mr Chips is a familiar story told differently, and presented rather nicely on DVD.

    The video quality is quite good, despite some mild aliasing and occasional shimmer.

    The audio quality is more than adequate.

    The extras are fairly limited.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall