Best Music, 1942

Awards presented March 4, 1943

The Academy had ironed out most of the wrinkles in its new category names, reassuring people that scores for comedies were as welcome to be nominated as those from dramas. There still remained some problems with allowing each studio or production company to submit a nominee. Universal nominated a song called "Pig Foot Pete," which it said was in Hellzapoppin', the film version of a Broadway revue that starred Ole Olsen, Chic Johnson, and Martha Raye. The trouble was, the song wasn't in the film. It had actually been sung by Raye in Universal's 1941 release Keep 'Em Flying, an Abbott and Costello movie, and hence was ineligible for the Oscar. The Academy admits that it has no idea how this mistake happened.

The nominees were ... 
(Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture) 

• Frank Churchill, Edward Plumb, Bambi 
• Leigh Harline, The Pride of the Yankees 
• Richard Hageman, The Shanghai Gesture 
• Werner Heymann, To Be or Not to Be  
• Frederick Hollander, Morris Stoloff, The Talk of the Town 
• Edward Kay, Klondike Fury 
• Alfred Newman, The Black Swan 
• Miklos Rozsa, Jungle Book 
• Frank Skinner, Arabian Nights 
• Max Steiner, Now, Voyager 
• Herbert Stothart, Random Harvest 
• Max Terr, The Gold Rush 
• Dimitri Tiomkin, The Corsican Brothers 
• Roy Webb, I Married a Witch 
• Roy Webb, Joan of Paris 
• Victor Young, Flying Tigers 
• Victor Young, Silver Queen 
• Victor Young, Take a Letter, Darling 

(Scoring of a Musical Picture) 

• Robert Emmett Dolan, Holiday Inn 
• Roger Edens, Georgie Stoll, For Me and My Gal 
• Leigh Harline, You Were Never Lovelier 
• Ray Heindorf, Heinz Roemheld, Yankee Doodle Dandy 
• Alfred Newman, My Gal Sal 
• Hans Salter, Charles Previn, It Started With Eve 
• Walter Scharf, Johnny Doughboy 
• Edward Ward, Flying With Music 

(Song) 

• "Always in My Heart," from Always in My Heart. Music by Ernesto Lecuona; lyrics by Kim Gannon
• "Dearly Beloved," from You Were Never Lovelier. Music by Jerome Kern; lyrics by Johnny Mercer 
• "How About You?" from Babes on Broadway. Music by Burton Lane; lyrics by Ralph Freed 
• "It Seems I've Heard That Song Before," from Youth on Parade. Music by Jule Styne; lyrics by Sammy Cahn
• "I've Got a Gal in Kalamazoo," from Orchestra Wives. Music by Harry Warren; lyrics by Mack Gordon
• "Love Is a Song," from Bambi. Music by Frank Churchill; lyrics by Larry Morey 
• "Pennies for Peppino," from Flying With Music. Music by Edward Ward; lyrics by Chet Forrest and Bob Wright 
• "Pigfoot Pete," from Hellzapoppin'. Music by Gene de Paul; lyrics by Don Raye. [See note above.]
• "There's a Breeze on Lake Louise," from The Mayor of 44th Street. Music by Harry Revel; lyrics by Mort Greene 
• "White Christmas," from Holiday Inn. Music and lyrics by Irving Berlin      

... when they should have been ...  

(Song) 

• "Always in My Heart," from Always in My Heart. Music by Ernesto Lecuona; lyrics by Kim Gannon
• "At Last," from Orchestra Wives. Music by Harry Warren; lyrics by Mack Gordon
• "How About You?" from Babes on Broadway. Music by Burton Lane; lyrics by Ralph Freed 
• "I'm Old Fashioned," from You Were Never Lovelier. Music by Jerome Kern; lyrics by Johnny Mercer 
• "It Seems I've Heard That Song Before," from Youth on Parade. Music by Jule Styne; lyrics by Sammy Cahn
• "Love Is a Song," from Bambi. Music by Frank Churchill; lyrics by Larry Morey 
• "Pennies for Peppino," from Flying With Music. Music by Edward Ward; lyrics by Chet Forrest and Bob Wright 
• "There's a Breeze on Lake Louise," from The Mayor of 44th Street. Music by Harry Revel; lyrics by Mort Greene 
• "White Christmas," from Holiday Inn. Music and lyrics by Irving Berlin

And the Oscar went to ... 

(Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture) 

Max Steiner, Now, Voyager. 

Max Steiner

Between his first Oscar, for The Informer, and this one, Steiner had also composed the score for Gone With the Wind. The next year he would write the music for GWTW's chief rival for the Great Hollywood Romantic Movie, Casablanca. Interestingly, he won the Oscar for neither of them. But the unstintingly romantic score for Now, Voyager is one of his best.   

(Scoring of a Musical Picture) 

Ray Heindorf, Heinz Roemheld, Yankee Doodle Dandy. 

Ray Heindorf

Heinz Roemheld

Heindorf was signed to a contract at Warner Bros. in 1932 and remained there for his entire career as a film composer, becoming head of the music department at the death of Leo Forbstein in 1948. This was the first of his three Oscars out of a total of eighteen nominations. This was Roemheld's second nomination and his only Oscar. A child prodigy on the piano, Roemheld was born in Wisconsin, but studied in Berlin. A prolific composer, his music has been used in more than 400 films.

(Song) 

"White Christmas," from Holiday Inn. Music and lyrics by Irving Berlin.       

Irving Berlin

Virtually overnight, "White Christmas" became one of the most popular songs of all time. Berlin had written the song in the 1930s and set it aside, but it was a perfect fit for Holiday Inn, when Berlin himself came up with the idea for a musical set in a hotel that opens only on holidays. He was also nominated for original story for this idea. The instant popularity of the song owed much to the film's release during the first year of the United States's involvement in World War II, when it captured the mood of homesick soldiers and the families that missed them. This was Berlin's only Oscar, even though he composed dozens of great songs for the movies, notably for the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals of the 1930s, Top Hat, Follow the Fleet, and Carefree. A Berlin song, "Blue Skies," was one of the first ever sung on the screen, in 1927's The Jazz Singer. His last work for the movies came thirty years later, the title song for Sayonara, which had once been proposed as a Broadway musical for Berlin.