The confusion over the division into "Original Score" and "Scoring" was eased by renaming the categories "Music Score of a Dramatic Picture" and "Scoring of a Musical Picture." The following year will bring a further clarification that what the Academy meant was "a Dramatic or Comedy Picture." Of course, this division presumes that there will always be musical pictures to nominate, but for the time being it works. What would grow to be a problem was the practice of allowing each studio or production company to submit a nomination. Hence the twenty nominated films in the first category, including the attempt of poverty row studio Monogram Pictures to secure an Oscar for King of the Zombies, among other somewhat surprising nominations.
The nominees were ...
(Music Score of a Dramatic Picture)
- Cy Feuer, Walter Scharf, Mercy Island
- Louis Gruenberg, So Ends Our Night
- Richard Hageman, This Woman Is Mine
- Bernard Herrmann, All That Money Can Buy
- Bernard Herrmann, Citizen Kane
- Werner Heymann, That Uncertain Feeling
- Edward Kay, King of the Zombies
- Alfred Newman, Ball of Fire
- Alfred Newman, How Green Was My Valley
- Miklos Rozsa, Lydia
- Miklos Rozsa, Sundown
- Frank Skinner, Back Street
- Max Steiner, Sergeant York
- Morris Stoloff, Ernst Toch, Ladies in Retirement
- Edward Ward, Cheers for Miss Bishop
- Edward Ward, Tanks a Million
- Franz Waxman, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
- Franz Waxman, Suspicion
- Meredith Willson, The Little Foxes
- Victor Young, Hold Back the Dawn
(Scoring of a Musical Picture)
The Disney music department can't be called "unsung" heroes, for obvious reasons. But their contribution is sometimes ignored in the acclaim for the visual wit and charm of the films. Dumbo was a departure from the fairy-tale features Snow White and Pinocchio. It's less sentimental and sugary than many Disney features, and its music has a lively, contemporary swing character in songs like "Casey Jr." and "When I See an Elephant Fly." The "Pink Elephants" fantasy, when Dumbo and Timothy accidentally get drunk, is a psychedelic riot long before psychedelia was ever heard of, and the music that accompanies it perfectly complements the images on screen. The one song nominated from the film, "Baby Mine," is more conventional, a lullaby, but a charming one.
- Frank Churchill, Oliver Wallace, Dumbo
- Anthony Collins, Sunny
- Robert Emmett Dolan, Birth of the Blues
- Cy Feuer, Ice-Capades
- Emil Newman, Sun Valley Serenade
- Charles Previn, Buck Privates
- Heinz Roemheld, The Strawberry Blonde
- Morris Stoloff, You'll Never Get Rich
- Herbert Stothart, Bronislau Kaper, The Chocolate Soldier
- Edward Ward, All-American Co-Ed
(Song)
- "Baby Mine," from Dumbo; music by Frank Churchill, lyrics by Ned Washington
- "Be Honest With Me," from Ridin' on a Rainbow; music and lyrics by Gene Autry and Fred Rose
- "Blues in the Night," from Blues in the Night; music by Harold Arlen, lyrics by Johnny Mercer
- "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B," from Buck Privates; music by Hugh Prince, lyrics by Don Raye
- "Chattanooga Choo Choo," from Sun Valley Serenade; music by Harry Warren, lyrics by Mack Gordon
- "Dolores," from Las Vegas Nights; music by Lou Alter, lyrics by Frank Loesser
- "The Last Time I Saw Paris," from Lady Be Good; music by Jerome Kern, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II
- "Out of the Silence," from All-American Co-Ed; music and lyrics by Lloyd B. Norlind
- "Since I Kissed My Baby Goodbye," from You'll Never Get Rich; music and lyrics by Cole Porter
(Music Score of a Dramatic Picture)
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| Bernard Herrmann |
Orson Welles's partisans, taking note of the fact that Herrmann was also nominated for his Citizen Kane score, may be inclined to take this choice as a snub. But Herrmann had a prior association with Welles in any case, having worked with him on the celebrated Mercury Theater radio shows, and had been brought to Hollywood by Welles. So if the Academy had wanted to snub Welles, they should have given the Oscar to another nominee. This was Herrmann's first year as a film composer, and he would go on to be celebrated for his work with Alfred Hitchcock. In fact, if you're looking for snubs, consider the fact that Herrmann was never nominated for his work on a Hitchcock film, not even for Psycho or Vertigo. This was Herrmann's only Oscar out of five nominations. He died in 1975 after completing the recording for Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver, which is dedicated to his memory. All That Money Can Buy is an adaptation of Stephen Vincent Benét's story "The Devil and Daniel Webster," which was the film's original title. Weak box office led RKO to change the title to the one under which it was nominated, and when that didn't work, the studio released it under at least two other titles, Daniel and the Devil and Here Is a Man. It's hard to say why audiences didn't respond to the film. It's very entertaining, with excellent performances by Walter Huston as Mr. Scratch, the devil who tempts a young farmer (James Craig) into selling his soul, and by Edward Arnold as the eminent orator Daniel Webster, who proves to be more than a match for Scratch.
(Scoring of a Musical Picture)
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| Frank Churchill |
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| Oliver Wallace |
(Song)
"The Last Time I Saw Paris," from Lady Be Good; music by Jerome Kern, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II.
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| Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern |
"The Last Time I Saw Paris" has often been treated as a song about lost love, but it was in fact a song about a lost city: a response to the fall of Paris to the Nazis, an event that so moved Hammerstein that he wrote the lyrics before asking Kern to provide a tune, the reverse of his usual practice with songwriting partners like Richard Rodgers. Producer Arthur Freed asked Hammerstein to write a bit of dialogue preceding the song in the film -- an otherwise routine backstage musical starring Ann Sothern and Robert Young as a married songwriting team -- that makes explicit that it's designed as "a salute to a lost city." Hammerstein, whose career was centered in the theater, not movies, used this opportunity to obtain a favor from MGM: the screen right to the play Green Grow the Lilacs, which the studio held. Three years later his musical adaptation with Rodgers of the play would be staged as Oklahoma!
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