Big Hollywood Visits Hillsdale College: The Films of 1939, Part II

The imposing but elegant Central Hall houses the administrative offices of Hillsdale College. I know it looks like classic MGM, but it’s actually Second Empire architectural style.

UPDATE: The location of the Winston Churchill statue has been corrected.

No tattoos. No body piercings.

That’s the first thing that hits me about the students here at Hillsdale College.

This is an environment that is free from self-mutilations, an affliction that seems rampant among America’s young.

Hillsdale prides itself as a place “where an education in the permanent things is a matter of precedent, plan and procedure.”

The educational mission at Hillsdale rests upon two foundational principles: academic excellence and institutional independence. The college does not accept federal or state taxpayer subsidies for any of its operations. All funding come from donors and tuition.

A bastion of conservative thought, Hillsdale is a college where, among other studies, you can major in Latin and Greek. Here, the Constitution is taken seriously and the Western Canon is revered in their core curriculum.


A sculpture of Winston Churchill stands in the entrance of the Hillsdale’s Grewcock Student Union. I was told that the artist was a biology major here at Hillsdale. Larry P. Arnn, president of Hillsdale, worked as Director of Research for Sir Martin Gilbert, the official biographer of Winston Churchill.

But this is no dusty, stodgy institution. Hillsdale has vital and active arts programs. There is a wonderful theater department. There are dance and sculpture studios. There are arty kids and nerdy kids. But from what I’ve seen Hillsdale students are refreshingly absent post-modern attitudes and ironic posturing.

The last time I saw so many women in skirts was when I visited my daughters at Yeshiva University Stern College for women.

This afternoon, a group of us met with several theater majors. We discussed career goals and dreams. Those of us with experience in film or theater, offered our advice. The students—incredibly mature and respectful—listened, took notes and asked relevant questions. I’ve met far too many theater students who project a sullen and tragic personae—getting all Stanislavsky—as if playing a romantic role. The Hillsdale students were, in contrast, good-natured, enthusiastic, if a bit nervous, to meet life’s challenges after graduation.

Dan Ford, director John Ford’s grandson, and author of Pappy: The Life of John Ford, offered valuable insights into the thicket of a Hollywood career.

My main advice to the Hillsdale actors and actresses was: talent is important but tenacity is even more important.

Last night we screened Goodbye, Mr. Chips, a wonderful film starring Robert Donat and Greer Garson. Because the film is modestly helmed—no fancy, attention-grabbing shots—by the fine craftsman Sam Wood, it’s not readily apparent that this is, like Gone With the Wind, a great saga of a particular time, place and people. Wood’s camera is always in the right spot capturing, with admirable restraint, the magnificent drama and vital emotions that need to be laid end to end in order for the film’s complex narrative to cohere.

Greer Garson and Robert Donat in Goodbye Mr. Chips, 1939.

Donat’s performance is so finely tuned, so modestly scaled that he was awarded the Oscar for best actor in that overpowering year of 1939 when the other nominees were Clark Gable (GWTW), Laurence Olivier (Wuthering Heights), James Stewart (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) and Mickey Rooney (Babes in Arms.) Wood, sadly reviled because of his right wing politics, directs with such a sure hand that the narrative, covering over fifty years in a man’s life, moves by with seamless precision.

As the film ended, all around me, there were barely suppressed sniffles and sobs.

This deeply moving film about the life of a teacher and his students in a fine old English school was particularly appropriate because, it seems to me, that Hillsdale is the American version of the film’s Brookfield Public School, where tradition and Western values are paramount.

Film scholar David Thomson delivered a dazzling lecture about the Hollywood of 1939. Speaking of the massive audiences that went to see films in 1939, Thomson memorably noted that going to the movies was not just a communal experience, but a “patriotic gesture.”

The applause that greeted this observation brought tears to my eyes.

A striking statue of Abraham Lincoln on campus. Hillsdale was the first American college to prohibit in its charter discrimination based on race, religion or sex. It was the second college in the nation to grant four-year liberal arts degrees to women.

Click here for Hillsdale’s exceptional website.