Million Dollar Baby

Million Dollar Baby, American dramatic film, released in 2004, that was directed by Clint Eastwood and starred Eastwood and Hilary Swank. It garnered rapturous reviews and four Academy Awards, including that for best picture.

(Read Gene Tunney’s 1929 Britannica essay on boxing.)

The movie is narrated by Eddie “Scrap-Iron” Dupris (played by Morgan Freeman) and opens on a boxing match in Los Angeles in which “cut man” and trainer Frankie Dunn (Eastwood) is in the corner of “Big” Willie Little (Mike Colter). Maggie Fitzgerald (Swank) watches the match and later asks Frankie to train her, but he refuses. Frankie is also reluctant to let Big Willie fight in a title match. Frankie runs the Hit Pit boxing gym, and Scrap is his best friend and the maintenance man for the gym. Maggie, a waitress from the Ozarks region of Missouri, starts working out at the gym. Scrap gives Maggie some tips and lets her borrow a speed bag. Big Willie drops Frankie as his manager and signs with the more aggressive Mickey Mack (Bruce MacVittie). Frankie then reluctantly agrees to train Maggie but states that he will not manage her. After months of training, Maggie is given a manager, but during her first fight, Frankie decides to take over as her manager, and she then knocks out her opponent. Maggie becomes an extraordinarily successful fighter, always knocking out her opponent in the first round. However, managers stop pitting their fighters against her as a result, and Frankie, out of necessity, moves Maggie up to the next weight class. She is equally dominant at this level, and she begins to attract high-profile opportunities, but Frankie turns down such offers. Scrap tells Maggie that Frankie is overprotective of his boxers and arranges for Maggie to meet Mickey Mack, but Maggie remains loyal to Frankie.

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Oscar-Worthy Movie Trivia

(Read Martin Scorsese’s Britannica essay on film preservation.)

Frankie accepts a fight in London for Maggie and gives her a green silk robe with the Gaelic phrase “Mo Cuishle” on the back. Frankie, who studies Gaelic, tells Maggie that he does not know what the phrase means. Maggie becomes a popular fighter in Europe, where people cheer for her as “Mo Cuishle.” When Maggie and Frankie return to the United States, Maggie takes Frankie to meet her mother, for whom Maggie has bought a house. Maggie’s mother, Earline (Margo Martindale), and sister, Mardell (Riki Lindhome), respond to the gift with disdain, and they tell Maggie that her boxing career has made her a laughingstock. Maggie is devastated, and she and Frankie leave. On their return to Los Angeles, Frankie agrees to let Maggie travel to Las Vegas to face Billie “The Blue Bear” (Lucia Rijker) for the welterweight title. The Blue Bear has a reputation for aggressiveness and for fighting dirty. In the first two rounds, the Blue Bear’s cheap shots get the best of Maggie, but Maggie gains a distinct upper hand in the third. As Maggie heads back to her corner after the end of the round, however, the Bear ambushes her with a blow to the head. Maggie falls, hitting her head on the stool in her corner. She suffers a catastrophic spinal cord injury that leaves her quadriplegic. A heartbroken Frankie seeks other opinions to no avail and then has her transferred to a rehabilitation clinic in Los Angeles. After losing a leg to gangrene, Maggie asks Frankie to kill her, as living in this condition is intolerable to her, but he will not. After Maggie bites through her tongue in an effort to bleed to death, however, he changes his mind. He later goes to Maggie’s room, tells her that “Mo cuishle” means “my darling, my blood,” and accedes to her request. Scrap’s narration informs viewers that Frankie never returned to the gym, and it emerges that the story that he has been telling is the text of a letter that he has been writing to Frankie’s estranged daughter.

Million Dollar Baby was based on stories in Rope Burns: Stories from the Corner (2000), written by veteran boxing trainer and manager Jerry Boyd under the pen name F.X. Toole, and was adapted for the screen by Paul Haggis. The movie caused a great deal of controversy. Some writers excoriated it as being a politically motivated piece to argue in favor of legalizing euthanasia, while disability-rights activists complained that the movie wrongly gave the impression that people living with a disability would be better off dead, maintaining that a better ending would have shown Maggie overcoming her despair and embracing her new life. The controversy failed to dent the film’s popularity.

Production notes and credits

• Studios: Warner Brothers, Lakeshore Entertainment, Malpaso Productions, and Albert S. Ruddy Productions
• Director: Clint Eastwood
• Music: Clint Eastwood

Cast

• Clint Eastwood (Frankie Dunn)
• Hilary Swank (Maggie Fitzgerald)
• Morgan Freeman (Eddie "Scrap-Iron" Dupris)

Academy Award nominations (* denotes win)

• Picture*
• Lead actor (Clint Eastwood)
• Lead actress* (Hilary Swank)
• Supporting actor* (Morgan Freeman)
• Direction*
• Editing
• Writing (screenplay)