Music For Millions

In this sweet musical comedy/drama, Jimmy Durante, June Allyson, and conductor José Iturbi share the screen with precocious eight-year-old Margaret O'Brien, who won a special Academy Award for Outstanding Child Actress of 1944 the year the film came out. Little "Mike" (O'Brien) tries to help her pregnant older sister (Allyson), a cellist in Iturbi's orchestra who is pining away for her soldier husband. Among the musical highlights in the movie is Jimmy Durante giving a stirring rendition of his famed nightclub piece "Umbriago." Music for Millions was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, Screenplay.