The Corn Is Green (1945)

Middle-aged Lily Cristobel Moffatt (Bette Davis) sets up a school in a Welsh coal mining town, despite the determined opposition of the local squire (Nigel Bruce). Eventually, she considers giving up. Then she discovers a promising student, Morgan Evans, a miner seemingly destined for a life of hard work and heavy drink. With renewed hope, she works hard to help him realise his potential.

Through diligence and perseverance, Morgan gets the opportunity to take an examination for Oxford University with, hopefully, a prized scholarship. Moffatt, the rest of the teachers, and their students are hopeful Morgan will pass the Oxford interview, and so he does.

However, Bessie Watty (Joan Lorring), a young woman who has recently given birth to Morgan's child, blackmails the faculty into giving her part of Morgan's scholarship money in order to help raise the baby. The scheming young woman has designs on another male suitor. Instead, Moffatt agrees to adopt the child so that Morgan's academic future will not be ruined and Watty will be free to marry another man, unfettered by her responsibility to the child (since she and her affianced never really cared for it in the first place). Morgan quickly hears about Watty's scandalous, self-serving motives, and insists upon raising the child himself. Through a heartfelt and persuasive conversation, Moffatt convinces the young man to continue his higher education and contribute something to the world.