An Answer to the Burning Question

[jlh]

Lupin has a mustache because Lupin is Mr Chips.

Comments

[evil-erato.livejournal.com]

Bwahahahaha! Oh, now that amuses me. :D

[ballyharnon.livejournal.com]

Mwahahahahahahahah!!! Heee!

'[He] devotes his life to his boys' eh? Creepy.

Re:

[madilayn.livejournal.com]

Well, SOME boys (ok - 1 boy because Sirius doesn't like to share)

[dejaspirit.livejournal.com]

You are so silly.

Re:

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Well, what actually happens in the movie, which begins near the turn of the century, is that Mr. Chipping is a very shy, awkward man who isn't very popular with his students. And then one of the other teachers talks him into taking a walking tour in Germany and he meets Greer Garson, who is outgoing and easy with people and he marries her and brings her back to the school. And she helps him come out of his shell and he becomes a very popular teacher, but then she dies in childbirth and the child dies too. So after that, he just decides that the students are his children, and they all love him and call him "Mr Chips", and when he dies at the end there are generations of boys who've gone to that school who mourn him. It's a very sentimental movie, but it's also quite good--and Robert Donat beat out Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind for the Best Actor Oscar that year.

Anyway, the book and the two movie versions (Peter O'Toole did it again in the late 60s) are sort of schooltime novel classics, and I can't help but think that canon!Lupin borrows, at least a little, from Goodbye, Mr. Chips. But the mustache is just too much. Though to be fair, he looks more like Donat in The 39 Steps, which is an ENTIRELY different movie.

Re:

[ballyharnon.livejournal.com]

Hum. Actually, that sounds cool. I may have to rent it sometime.

Re:

[sisterpandora.livejournal.com]

Pardon me, but I must ask if you made your icon and if so, where in the world did you find that picture of Hardbroom?

[sisterpandora.livejournal.com]

Mr. Chips has a better mustache

Re:

[wordplay.livejournal.com]

Flisting in. Hi. :)

I saw the Martin Clunes version of this story last year sometime and NEVER would have put this story or character together with canon!Lupin, I think b/c of the differences in physicality. Clunes!Chips was physically awkward in a puppyish, not-quite-grown-into-his-body way, whereas I think of Lupin as more haggard and drawn. I think that the idea of canon!Lupin as informed by this character is terribly interesting, though, and worth thinking about a bit. Thanks.

Re:

[misscora.livejournal.com]

I see the resemblence, but I'm with Ely. They'd have done better if they'd gone for the full mustache, rather than the funny little scraggly thing they did.

Re:

[jlh.livejournal.com]

He actually looks more like Robert Donat in The 39 Steps. But Lupin's resembles Mr Chips in more ways that the physical, of course.

[ballyharnon.livejournal.com]

Dude. By some incredible coincidence, the Peter O'Toole version is on TV at this very moment, as I speak (or type, as it were). And you know? You're right. Lupin is Mr. Chips.

Re:

[ballyharnon.livejournal.com]

Indeed I did. The pic of Hardbroom is from the TV film, at the bit where she's holding the photo of Tim Curry and having an orgasm over it. I got it from this website. (http://www.x-entertainment.com/messages/433.html) I flipped the image and used Photoshop's lighting effects to take out some of the unfortunate shadow.

Re:

[misscora.livejournal.com]

*nod* Yeah, I can totally see that.

Re:

[sisterpandora.livejournal.com]

That was one of my favorite movies when I was little. I was trying to find some picts a while back, I can't remember why, but I came up rather empty handed. Thanks for the link, now I have a whole file full. (Maybe I'll eventually remember what I wanted them for.)

And while I can't agree with the review author there, I will say that the Grand Wizard video section is one of the best showcases of all the worst special effects used in the 1980s - it's so horrible it's great.

Re:

[sisterpandora.livejournal.com]

I have a pict around here where I got rid of the mustache, and OMG it makes him look so much younger and less smarmy. I would post it here but I don't want to clog up our Clio's journal, and I'm feeling too lazy to throw it to the web somewhere.

Re:

[misscora.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Probably just as well...