Cheers for Miss Bishop (1941)

Dedicated Midwestern teacher Ella Bishop is distressed when her fiancé runs off with her vixenish cousin Amy. After Amy dies in childbirth, Ella is left to care for Amy's daughter Hope.

Director:

Tay Garnett

Writers:

Bess Streeter Aldrich (novel), Stephen Vincent Benet (screen adaptation)

Stars:

Martha Scott, William Gargan, Edmund Gwenn

Nominated for 1 Oscar.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Martha Scott	...	Ella Bishop
William Gargan	...	Sam Peters
Edmund Gwenn	...	President Corcoran
Sterling Holloway	...	Chris Jensen
Dorothy Peterson	...	Mrs. Bishop
Sidney Blackmer	...	John Stevens
Mary Anderson	...	Amy Saunders
Donald Douglas	...	Delbert Thompson
Marsha Hunt	...	Hope Thompson
John Archer	...	Richard Clark (as Ralph Bowman)
Lois Ranson	...	Gretchen Clark
Rosemary DeCamp	...	Minna Fields
Knox Manning	...	Anton Radcheck
John Arledge	...	'Snapper' MacRae
Jack Mulhall	...	Professor Carter

Storyline

Spinster septuagenarian Ella Bishop, on the brink of retirement from her fifty-two year career as the freshman English teacher at small town Midwestern University, her alma mater, wants to look toward the future, but can't help reflect upon her past, what brought her to this point. Although she always wanted to be a teacher and was both surprised and ecstatic when her mentor, Midwestern's then President James Corcoran, offered her the English teacher opening upon graduation, she only saw it as one short phase of her life until she got married and had a family, unlike her younger cousin, Amy Saunders, who solely needed romance and love to feel fulfilled. She thinks about the two men with who she was mutually in love and would have married if she could have if it not for one circumstance or another, and the one man whose love for her was and is unrequited, at least in the romantic sense, but who was and has always been there for her. Although never haven given birth to a child of her ...

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Plot Keywords:

schoolteacher | false accusation | unrequited love | social change | infidelity | 

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Taglines:

One of the year's most inspired pictures...a warm, glowing story of real American people...their gayety and laughter, the dreams and desires, their problems, their loves...all the poignant romance and exciting drama of living...manifold elements that make up the very fabric of American life...brilliantly combined in a great film.

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Genres:

Drama | Romance

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Certificate:

Passed

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

21 February 1941 (USA)

Also Known As:

Dueña de su destino

Filming Locations:

University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Richard A. Rowland Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

95 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Film debut of Rosemary DeCamp.

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Quotes

Ella Bishop: [giving a toast] So here's to our nation: she's young, she's growing too fast, she makes a lot of mistakes, but somehow she does manage to keep her people free. May she always.

User Reviews

Life And Job Become Bound As One

Most of Cheers for Miss Bishop is told in flashback as Martha Scott reminisces with old friend William Gargan about her fifty years as a professor of English at Midwestern University. In fact the whole film is held together by Martha Scott's powerful performance in the title role.

Scott tells of her life beginning with her accepting a position at a small college after graduating from same as an English teacher. She's one of those rare people who's life and job become bound as one and finds she has no use for the other aspects of life like home and family. Even Robert Donat's Mr. Chips married Greer Garson albeit ever so briefly.

Not that she didn't have chances to marry, but her career and her students came first.

Martha Scott gets good support from a nice ensemble of players that also include Edmund Gwenn and John Hamilton as her college presidents, Dorothy Peterson as her mother, and Mary Anderson as her great niece.

Particularly impressive to me was Rosemary DeCamp as a young Scandinavian immigrant student who Scott recognizes intuitively as being an incipient genius with a photographic memory. When she's accused of cheating Scott saves her from expulsion by having her recite the Declaration of Independence from memory. It's a very powerful screen debut for Rosemary DeCamp.

Still the film is Martha Scott's show and a good show it is too.