The nominees were ...
(Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture)
- Hugo Friedhofer, The Bishop's Wife
- Alfred Newman, Captain From Castile
- David Raksin, Forever Amber
- Miklos Rozsa, A Double Life
- Max Steiner, Life With Father
- Daniele Amfitheatrof, Paul J. Smith, Charles Wolcott, Song of the South
- Ray Emmett Dolan, Road to Rio
- Johnny Green, Fiesta
- Ray Heindorf, Max Steiner, My Wild Irish Rose
- Alfred Newman, Mother Wore Tights
- "A Gal in Calico," from The Time, the Place, and the Girl. Music by Arthur Schwartz; lyrics by Leo Robin
- "I Wish I Didn't Love You So," from The Perils of Pauline. Music and lyrics by Frank Loesser
- "Pass That Peace Pipe," from Good News. Music and lyrics by Ralph Blane, Roger Edens, and Hugh Martin
- "You Do," from Mother Wore Tights. Music by Josef Myrow, lyrics by Mack Gordon
- "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah," from Song of the South. Music by Allie Wrubel, lyrics by Ray Gilbert
... when they should have been ...
(Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture)
(Song)
- "A Gal in Calico," from The Time, the Place, and the Girl. Music by Arthur Schwartz; lyrics by Leo Robin
- "I Wish I Didn't Love You So," from The Perils of Pauline. Music and lyrics by Frank Loesser
- "Pass That Peace Pipe," from Good News. Music and lyrics by Ralph Blane, Roger Edens, and Hugh Martin
- "Time After Time," from It Happened in Brooklyn. Music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Sammy Cahn
- "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah," from Song of the South. Music by Allie Wrubel, lyrics by Ray Gilbert
And the Oscar went to ...
(Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture)
This was the second of three Oscars for Rózsa, whom the Academy nominated this time as "Dr. Miklos Rozsa," honorific titles -- Rósza had studied at the University of Leipzig and the Leipzig Conservatory -- apparently mattering more than diacritical marks.
(Scoring of a Musical Picture)
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| Lobby card for Mother Wore Tights |
You can tell from the title that it's yet another of 20th Century-Fox's string of period musicals. The studio apparently had a wardrobe full of bustles and boas and, yes, tights for stars like Alice Faye, June Haver, and in this case Betty Grable to wear while singing antique standards like "Put Your Arms Around Me, Honey" and "Swinging Down the Lane," plus some new songs by Josef Myrow and Mack Gordon. This is one of the better ones, with Grable and Dan Dailey as a vaudeville team trying to raise a family and keep their act together at the same time. It won Newman the fifth of his nine Oscars. Pleasant as the movie is, however, neither it nor the other mostly forgotten musicals among the nominees suggests that Hollywood was on the brink of another great era of musicals.
(Song)
"Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah," from Song of the South. Music by Allie Wrubel, lyrics by Ray Gilbert.
This bright and cheery song gives no hint that Song of the South is the most controversial of all the movies Walt Disney produced during his lifetime, one of the few still unreleased in the United States on video. If you want to see it today, you'll have to track down one of the various foreign video releases. It's about young Johnny (Bobby Driscoll), who goes to live on an Old South plantation with his mother (Ruth Warrick) and grandmother (Lucile Watson). He's unhappy and determined to run away until Uncle Remus (James Baskett) tells him the stories of Br'er Rabbit, Br'er Fox, and Br'er Bear. The movie is undeniably executed with finesse: The animated versions of the Joel Chandler Harris tales are wonderful, and the live-action episodes are beautifully filmed by Gregg Toland -- one of his few movies in color. But Disney naïvely failed to anticipate how post-World War II black audiences would react to racial stereotyping and the sugar-coated portrayal of the plantation South. (The setting is supposedly post-Civil War, but the plantation is seemingly unscathed by the war. It's apparently near Atlanta, but Sherman must have marched around it.) One understands the Disney people's reluctance to court controversy today, and the fact that the movie is unsuitable for the young viewers it usually serves, but it would be nice to have a Blu-ray version, perhaps with extras dealing with the controversy and the realities of post-Civil War America. That way we wouldn't be deprived of Baskett's fine performance. He received an honorary award that made him the first African-American male to be honored by the Academy for acting.
This bright and cheery song gives no hint that Song of the South is the most controversial of all the movies Walt Disney produced during his lifetime, one of the few still unreleased in the United States on video. If you want to see it today, you'll have to track down one of the various foreign video releases. It's about young Johnny (Bobby Driscoll), who goes to live on an Old South plantation with his mother (Ruth Warrick) and grandmother (Lucile Watson). He's unhappy and determined to run away until Uncle Remus (James Baskett) tells him the stories of Br'er Rabbit, Br'er Fox, and Br'er Bear. The movie is undeniably executed with finesse: The animated versions of the Joel Chandler Harris tales are wonderful, and the live-action episodes are beautifully filmed by Gregg Toland -- one of his few movies in color. But Disney naïvely failed to anticipate how post-World War II black audiences would react to racial stereotyping and the sugar-coated portrayal of the plantation South. (The setting is supposedly post-Civil War, but the plantation is seemingly unscathed by the war. It's apparently near Atlanta, but Sherman must have marched around it.) One understands the Disney people's reluctance to court controversy today, and the fact that the movie is unsuitable for the young viewers it usually serves, but it would be nice to have a Blu-ray version, perhaps with extras dealing with the controversy and the realities of post-Civil War America. That way we wouldn't be deprived of Baskett's fine performance. He received an honorary award that made him the first African-American male to be honored by the Academy for acting.
... when it should have gone to ...
(Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture)
Bernard Herrmann, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.
The widowed Lucy Muir (Gene Tierney) moves into a seaside cottage that's haunted by the ghost of Capt. Daniel Gregg (Rex Harrison). This charming sentimental romance could have gone overboard with too much whimsy or too many tears, but it manages a good balance, thanks to the leads, the engaging screenplay by Philip Dunne, the intelligent direction of Joseph L. Mankiewicz, the cinematography by Charles Lang, and most of all the atmospherically romantic score by Bernard Herrmann. The Academy's blind spot to Herrmann's music is once again glaringly apparent.
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| Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir |
(Song)
"Time After Time," from It Happened in Brooklyn. Music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Sammy Cahn.
An agreeable little musical with Frank Sinatra as an ex-GI who wants to stop being a shipping clerk and make it as a singer, Peter Lawford as the shy heir to a dukedom, and Kathryn Grayson as a schoolteacher who wants to sing opera. Jimmy Durante is the high school janitor Sinatra shares a room with. Nothing great here except for the byplay between Sinatra and Durante, but the stars are all pleasant, and if you've ever wanted to see Sinatra and Grayson sing the Don Giovanni-Zerlina duet "Là ci darem la mano," this is your chance. Styne and Cahn were unforgivably overlooked for this song, but they shared seven nominations and won once, for "Three Coins in the Fountain."
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| Jimmy Durante and Frank Sinatra in It Happened in Brooklyn |
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