Cheers for Miss Bishop

Miss Ella Bishop (Martha Scott) is a teacher at Midwestern University. The story is told in flashback and takes place over many years, from the 1880s to the 1930s, showing her from her freshman year to her retirement as an old woman. At the beginning, she lives with her mother and her vixenish cousin Amy (Mary Anderson); she remembers when her father had a farm near the town. Ella is an inhibited girl whose frustration grows as she approaches womanhood. She dreams of becoming a teacher. When she graduates from Midwestern University, she is thrilled when its president, Professor Corcoran (Edmund Gwenn), offers her a position on the faculty.

Ella becomes engaged to lawyer Delbert Thompson (Don Douglas), but Delbert is led astray by Amy and eventually has to marry her, despite loving Ella. The couple move away. After Amy becomes pregnant, Delbert abandons her. Amy dies in childbirth, leaving Ella to care for Amy's daughter Hope (Marsha Hunt). Hope grows up and marries Richard (John Archer), and they move away and have a daughter named Gretchen (Lois Ranson). Ella also has a fling with another teacher, the unhappily married John Stevens (Sidney Blackmer), but John's wife cannot give him a divorce for religious reasons, forcing Ella to break off the relationship. Later, she is distressed to learn that John has been killed.

Through all the years, Ella is supported by her friend Sam Peters (William Gargan), a local grocer who loves her. Another source of support is Professor Corcoran, who persuades her to stay when she considers leaving. His death is a blow to Ella.

As Ella reaches old age, she reflects back and realizes she allowed the years to go by without achieving what she believes to be true fulfillment. When the new president pressures her to finally retire, she agrees. However, the years have not been without glory; and her moment of triumph arrives when her numerous, now-famous students from over the years return to a testimonial dinner at the school to honor their beloved Miss Bishop.

• Martha Scott as Ella Bishop
• William Gargan as Sam Peters
• Edmund Gwenn as Professor Corcoran
• Sterling Holloway as Chris Jensen
• Dorothy Peterson as Mrs. Bishop
• Sidney Blackmer as John Stevens
• Mary Anderson as Amy Saunders
• Donald Douglas as Delbert Thompson
• Marsha Hunt as Hope Thompson
• John Archer as Richard Clark (as Ralph Bowman)
• Lois Ranson as Gretchen Clark
• Rosemary De Camp as Minna Fields
• Knox Manning as Anton Radcheck
• John Arledge as 'Snapper' MacRae
• Jack Mulhall as Professor Carter
• Howard C. Hickman as Professor Lancaster (as Howard Hickman)
• Helen MacKellar as Miss Patton
• William Farnum as Judge Peters
• Anna Mills as Mrs. Peters
• John Hamilton as President Watts
• Pierre Watkin as President Crowder
• Charles Judels as Cecco
• Sue Moore as Stena
• Rand Brooks as 'Buzz' Wheelwright

Scholars such as David Bordwell have noted Cheers for Miss Bishop as one of the first films to incorporate autobiographical voiceover in its use of the flashback.[1] The film begins with Sam and Ella in their older ages, leading Ella into flashbacks of her life, each marked with autobiographical voice-overs, from her graduation at Midwestern University in the 1880s to her retirement in the 1930s. The director uses fading transitions to symbolize the change in time. The makeup director, Don L. Cash, ably aged the actors distinctly through decades. Another technology the cinematographer used was dollies, to capture moving motion and to zoom out of scenes.

Cheers for Miss Bishop was adapted as a radio play on the March 17, 1941, broadcast of Lux Radio Theater with Martha Scott and William Gargan reprising their film roles and on the November 6, 1946, broadcast of Academy Award Theater starring Olivia de Havilland.[2] Scott also reprised the role in a radio adaptation for Hallmark Playhouse in 1949.

Cheers for Miss Bishop earned Edward Ward an Academy Award nomination for Best Scoring of a Dramatic Film. He was also nominated for scoring two other 1941 films, Tanks a Million and All-American Co-Ed. Ward earned seven Oscar nominations between 1939 and 1944, including one for the score of Phantom of the Opera (1943).[3]

• Cheers for Miss Bishop at IMDb
• Cheers for Miss Bishop is available for free download at the Internet Archive
• Cheers for Miss Bishop at AllMovie
• Cheers for Miss Bishop at the TCM Movie Database
• Cheers for Miss Bishop at the American Film Institute Catalog