Nowhere did the end of studio-submitted nominees have more impact than in the music categories. For the 1945 awards there were twenty-one nominees for score of a dramatic or comedy picture, twelve for scoring a musical, and fourteen for song. This year there were only five in each category.
The nominees were ...
(Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture)
(Scoring of a Musical Picture)
(Song)
- "All Through the Day," from Centennial Summer. Music by Jerome Kern; Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II
- "I Can't Begin to Tell You," from The Dolly Sisters. Music by James Monaco; Lyrics by Mack Gordon
- "Ole Buttermilk Sky," from Canyon Passage. Music by Hoagy Carmichael; Lyrics by Jack Brooks
- "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe," from The Harvey Girls. Music by Harry Warren; Lyrics by Johnny Mercer
- "You Keep Coming Back Like a Song," from Blue Skies. Music and Lyrics by Irving Berlin
(Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture)
Hugo Friedhofer, The Best Years of Our Lives.
Friedhofer began a long association with movie music as an accompanist for silent films in his native San Francisco, then became a studio musician in Los Angeles in 1929. His musicianship attracted the attention of Warner Bros. department head Max Steiner and composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and he began working as an orchestrator for them. He also composed incidental music for films, and in 1938 did his first complete score, for The Adventures of Marco Polo. Frustrated by Warners' desire to keep him primarily in the role of arranger and orchestrator, he left the studio to freelance. Alfred Newman, who had worked at the Samuel Goldwyn studios before become head of the 20th Century-Fox music department, recommended Friedhofer to Goldwyn as the composer of the score for The Best Years of Our Lives. It was his only Oscar win out of nine nominations.
Friedhofer began a long association with movie music as an accompanist for silent films in his native San Francisco, then became a studio musician in Los Angeles in 1929. His musicianship attracted the attention of Warner Bros. department head Max Steiner and composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and he began working as an orchestrator for them. He also composed incidental music for films, and in 1938 did his first complete score, for The Adventures of Marco Polo. Frustrated by Warners' desire to keep him primarily in the role of arranger and orchestrator, he left the studio to freelance. Alfred Newman, who had worked at the Samuel Goldwyn studios before become head of the 20th Century-Fox music department, recommended Friedhofer to Goldwyn as the composer of the score for The Best Years of Our Lives. It was his only Oscar win out of nine nominations.
(Scoring of a Musical Picture)
Morris Stoloff, The Jolson Story.
Stoloff had been a violin prodigy and one of the youngest members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic before being hired by Paramount as concertmaster for its studio orchestra. In 1936 he moved to Columbia as the studio's first music director, a position that ensured him a string of Oscar nominations, even for films like The Jolson Story on which he didn't actually compose or orchestrate the score -- he racked up seventeen nominations in this position. This was the second of three wins.
 |
| Morris Stoloff |
Stoloff had been a violin prodigy and one of the youngest members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic before being hired by Paramount as concertmaster for its studio orchestra. In 1936 he moved to Columbia as the studio's first music director, a position that ensured him a string of Oscar nominations, even for films like The Jolson Story on which he didn't actually compose or orchestrate the score -- he racked up seventeen nominations in this position. This was the second of three wins.
(Song)
"On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe," from The Harvey Girls. Music by Harry Warren; Lyrics by Johnny Mercer.
Judy Garland stars in a pleasant, brightly colored musical about the waitresses in Fred Harvey's chain of restaurants that were opened to serve passengers on the railroads spanning the United States. The prim and starchy young women compete with the saloon girls for customers, and Garland competes with Angela Lansbury for the attentions of saloon-keeper John Hodiak. This Freed Unit musical, directed by George Sidney, features Garland in fine form and a cast that includes Ray Bolger, Virginia O'Brien, Marjorie Main, Chill Wills, and Cyd Charisse. Except for the Oscar-winning song, the Warren-Mercer score is forgettable, perhaps because Hodiak couldn't sing, so no memorable love songs were written for him and Garland. (Howard Keel had yet to appear as MGM's leading man who could also sing.) It was the first of Mercer's four Oscars, and the last of Warren's three wins.
 |
| Judy Garland in The Harvey Girls |
... when it should have gone to ...
(Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture)
William Walton, Henry V.
When it comes to English music, William Walton is often looked on as a bridge between Edward Elgar and Benjamin Britten. Walton broke with the stately Elgar tradition with his early works, including the collaboration with poet Edith Sitwell on Façade, which caused a storm of controversy and labeled him an avant-garde composer. But by 1937 he was so much a part of the mainstream that he was called on to compose a march for the coronation of George VI, since Elgar was dead. And when World War II broke out, he was exempted from military service so he could compose scores for British propaganda films -- the best of which was Laurence Olivier's Henry V. Walton had earlier written the score for Paul Czinner's film of As You Like It, which starred Olivier, and he would collaborate with Olivier on two more Shakespeare films, Hamlet (for which he received his second nomination) and Richard III. In all, he scored thirteen films, but he was dismissive of his work for the movies. Today, the suites that have been arranged from his film scores by others are among his most-performed works. The Henry V score, with its blend of Elizabethan-style themes and stirring mood pieces, remains one of the classics of film music.
William Walton, Henry V.
