Million Dollar Baby

Whilst May Robson is on the screen this film is entertaining.As soon as she disappears the film goes down the drain.Priscilla Lane seems to think that the quicker you deliver lines the funnier they will be.Reagans character is so poorly written that you don't know if he is meant to be funny or serious.This must be the umpteenth film of this era where a popular musician had written a symphony.Lynn is plain anonymous.In my view there is only one reason why a film like this seems to have permanently disappeared from sight.The reason is that it simply is not funny or entertaining any more.So don't bother to waste your time watching this film.Watching paint dry is much more interesting!

May Robson excelled in parts of eccentric characters. We saw this in "Lady for A Day," which earned her a best actress nomination and years later was the Glenn Ford-Bette Davis vehicle of "Pocketful of Miracles."

In this 1941 wonderful film, Miss Robson plays a very wealthy dowager who learns that her father swindled a man causing the latter to commit suicide. To be repentant, Robson leaves Europe to come to N.Y. and give the granddaughter, a wonderful Priscilla Lane, $1,000,000.

Lane is living in a small housing tenement with an assortment of characters. Her boyfriend, a pianist, lives there. Ronald Reagan is just great here in a comical turn as well as being moody and philosophical about life. This is his second best performance to "King's Row."

This Cinderella-like tale conveys the idea that money can't bring happiness. Jeffrey Lynn is in fine form as Miss White's attorney who gives Lane the money and falls for her romantically.

A wonderful film with the venerable May Robson stealing the show.

For years I have wanted to found a city just to be able to name one of the nicest streets "Priscilla Lane." Of course, I'd want two more to name Rosemary and Lola, too.

But Priscilla is the star of "Million Dollar Baby," giving one of her most sparkling performances. She is so lovable, so adorable that even if she had ever given a bad performance, this role would wipe it out.

Ronald Reagan also gives one of his best performances, with him as a pianist/composer hitting just -- pardon the pun -- the right note. It's worth saying twice: He gives one of his best performances.

Jeffrey Lynn is also great. He was a good-looking guy and extremely likable in this role.

May Robson probably couldn't give a bad performance, and she certainly didn't in "Million Dollar Baby."

Very interesting is John Qualen, in a sympathetic role and not speaking with a Scandinavian accent.

There are some wonderful lines in this intelligent script, even if some of us watching are puzzled by some of the characters' attitude toward money, and toward getting wads of it.

Oh, look for the handsome Charles Drake in an uncredited role.

He was just one of a large and excellent cast, far too many of whom didn't get credit, including the great Herb Vigran (whom I had met when he was in a play with Richard Thomas, and than whom he was a better actor), and he was on screen so briefly I didn't even see him, but he's listed here at IMDb.

One other standout among the un-credited is Irving Bacon as the repulsive federal PIG (Person In Government). Though the scene was no doubt intended as comedy, today's headlines make it too true to be funny.

Seriously, this is a very good movie. I'll watch it again.

I love Priscilla Lane, who was great at light comedy but could also play characters with real depth when given the chance. (Check her out in "Blues in the Night"). Her role here is not very demanding, and I could see it being played by many of the other talented movie comediennes of the era. Anne Sheridan was apparently considered, and I could also see Ginger Rogers in the part, but I can't imagine anyone would've played it with more charm and gusto than Priscilla.

May Robson is also great, as always, but the one sour note for me in the movie (no pun intended) is the performance of Ronald Reagan as Priscilla's aspiring composer boyfriend. Ronnie could be a good light comedy leading man, but somehow I just can't buy him as a struggling, tormented artiste. Even worse, he's an entitled, arrogant jerk. I get that he's frustrated playing piano in a "spaghetti restaurant" and not Carnegie Hall, but why does he take it out on Priscilla, who does nothing but give him love and encouragement? His behavior towards her is bullying and borderline abusive, and she must have some serious self-worth issues to put up with him. Sorry if it sounds like I'm looking at a 1941 movie through a 2020 lens, but there were other movies of the period in which women didn't act like such door mats. Maybe it's the way he was directed, but Ronnie needed to bring a lighter touch to his scenes with Priscilla in order for us to understand what she sees in him. (I could see Jimmy Stewart being very good in this role.)

As a movie made during the tail end of the Depression it has that frequent Hollywood theme that money can't buy happiness, and so we see Priscilla having to give away her new found fortune in order to find true love. It's also a favorite Hollywood trope of the time that a real man would never let himself be supported by a wealthy wife. (I doubt that was ever true. Certainly a pianist who wants to spend his time composing symphonies would be happy to have a wealthy benefactress). The business of Priscilla giving her money away gets a bit silly, and the scenes are not directed with the skill of a Capra or Preston Sturges. By the time the movie comes to its anticipated "happy ending" I was sad to say goodbye to Priscilla but feeling a bit exhausted by the whole thing. ("Happy ending" is in quotation marks, because if this were reality, Priscilla would discover she's married a perpetual malcontent, who considers himself too good to play in a restaurant, too good to play in a swing band, and whose symphony got booed, showing that he really isn't anywhere near as talented as he imagines himself.)

As a side note, as a native New Yorker I can tell you that even in 1941 the provided Greenwich Village address of the boarding house was in a pretty nice neighborhood, and not a slum as depicted. Now, in 2020, it's smack in the middle of the richest zip code in America.

Ronald Reagan is actually marvelous as ne'er-do-well boyfriend. Jeffrey Lynn is quite handsome as his rival for Priscilla Lane's attentions. Priscilla, an underrated actress in serious dramas and light comedies alike, does a very professional turn on an airy, yet pleasing, script. Worth a watch. 6/10