The Most Precious Thing in Life is a 1934 American film directed by Lambert Hillyer and starring Richard Cromwell, Jean Arthur, Donald Cook, Anita Louise, and Mary Forbes. The film tells a story about secret and selfless maternal devotion with elements of Madame X (1929) and Stella Dallas (1937). It is the third film of Jean Arthur with Columbia.

Ellen Holmes mothers a child for upper-crust college student Bob Kelsey, only to be ejected from the family's bosom by his parents who believe Ellen has married well above her social station. Twenty years later Ellen is a floor scrubber at the very college attended by her ex-husband and befriends Chtis Kelsey - a wealthy student...who turns out to be her son but he doesn't know it - and saves the romance he is having with Paddy O'Day, an indigent girl from going the same way as Ellen's life.—Les Adams <[email protected]>