Martha Scott stars in the title role, and the other cast members include William Gargan, Edmund Gwenn, Sterling Holloway, Dorothy Peterson, Marsha Hunt, Don Douglas and Sidney Blackmer.

As Ella reaches old age, she reflects back and realizes that she allowed the years to pass without achieving what she believes to be true fulfillment.

However, her moment of triumph arrives when her many successful students from the past return to attend a testimonial dinner in her honor.

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 flashback narrative[2] as Ella remembers her life from her graduation at Midwestern University in the 1880s to her retirement in the 1930s.

And that is why a goodly number will probably find much comfort and delight in Richard Rowland's sentimental survey of a simple and homely life well-spent ... For there is nothing about this Miss Bishop and the even and ordered world in which she lived to disturb or upset the thoughts of any one in this hectic day.

[3]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.

Cheers for Miss Bishop earned Edward Ward an Academy Award nomination for Best Scoring of a Dramatic Film.