Best Music, 1947

Awards presented March 20, 1948

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 

(Scoring of a Musical Picture) 

• 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   

(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 
• "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) 

• Bernard Herrmann, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir 
• David Raksin, Forever Amber 
• Miklos Rozsa, A Double Life
• Max Steiner, Life With Father
• Roy Webb, Out of the Past 

(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)  

Miklos Rozsa, A Double Life. 

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)

Alfred Newman, Mother Wore Tights. 

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.      

... when it should have gone to ... 

(Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture) 

Bernard Herrmann, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. 

Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison in 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.  

(Song) 

"Time After Time," from It Happened in Brooklyn. Music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Sammy Cahn.

Jimmy Durante and Frank Sinatra in It Happened in Brooklyn

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." 

Best Music, 1941

Awards presented February 26, 1942

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) 

• 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 

And the Oscar went to ... 

(Music Score of a Dramatic Picture) 

Bernard Herrmann, All That Money Can Buy. 

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) 

Frank Churchill, Oliver Wallace, Dumbo. 

Frank Churchill

Oliver Wallace

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.   

(Song) 

"The Last Time I Saw Paris," from Lady Be Good; music by Jerome Kern, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. 

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!