The Oscar-winning Songs Countdown: 1946

I was really rooting for Moonlight to win the Best Picture Oscar; in fact I made a bet with myself, in the unlikely case that it won, I would do a week full of Oscar things on this blog, before returning to our usual stories. So, it's time for our time machine to take us back to the distant past - and visit the year of 1946.

1946 was the first post WWII year; it was also the year that Hollywood began to feel a degree of trepidation towards European Cinema. It offered audiences a sense of realism that Hollywood wouldn't offer till then. Indeed, the post-war audience were gravitating towards more serious fare.

From Italy came Roberto Rosselini's Open City (Roma, Citta Aperta), featuring Anna Magnani and filmed on the streets of Rome in 1944 and '45 after the Allies had captured the city - a tribute to the anti-Nazi underground. The critics in the US were as enthusiastic as those from all over the world.

France's Children Of The Paradise (Les Enfants Du Paradis) was a romantic epic set in the theatrical districts of 19th-century Paris. It was secretly filmed by Marcel Carné during the German Occupation and reels of the film were hidden throughout the city until the three-hour movie was completed. The New York Times heralded it as "the French reply to Gone With The Wind".

The majority of foreign hits in America, however, came from Britain: Noel Coward was back with Brief Encounter, about a love affair between two middle-aged people, based on one of his plays, and directed by David Lean. The New York Herald Tribune felt that "Brief Encounter is so far removed from the ordinary run of screen romances that it speaks, as it were, in another cinematic language". The film was a big box-office hit.

Another British romance, The Seventh Veil, was also a big hit in the States. It certainly made James Mason an international star. But the most successful foreign film of all was made by Laurence Olivier. During the war, Olivier dreamed of starring in a film of Shakespeare's Henry V, feeling that the heroism of the title character paralleled the courage of the British people.

Olivier asked William Wyler to direct. Wyler said, "Do it yourself", and Olivier did, filming in Ireland in 1944. Time magazine was beside itself. The New York Daily News said Olivier "has shown Hollywood the way to put Shakespeare on the screen". Audiences lined up to see the film, which ran for 46 weeks in New York.

Hollywood took notice: Samuel Goldwyn countered the European invasion with The Best Years Of Our Lives, a drama about the adjustment problems of returning war veterans. He assigned the film to his pet director, William Wyler, the man with the most Oscar nominations for directing: 12 nominations and 3 wins. He also put together a top-drawer cast, and kicked off an ad campaign that stressed the film's gravitas. Most reviews were very positive, especially praising Wyler's direction.

There was, however, trouble in paradise: Wyler claimed that Goldwyn had reneged on a promise to bill The Best Years Of Our Lives as "A William Wyler Production". He then left Goldwyn's employ to form a production company, Liberty Pictures, with fellow directors Frank Capra and George Stevens, a move that Goldwyn took as a personal affront. After a working relationship that had begun in 1936, they were no longer on speaking terms, the raves for The Best Years Of Our Lives notwithstanding.

The Best Years Of Our Lives, along with most other major Oscar hopefuls, were released by the studios during the last 5 weeks of the year, so that they would be fresh in the voters' memory, when voting came around early in 1947. This pattern would more or less prevail and continue until today.

Darryl Zanuck's contribution to this more serious "thinking person's cinema" was The Razor's Edge, an adaptation of Somerset Maugham's 1944 bestseller, Tyrone Power's around-the-world search for spiritual fulfillment. The mixed reviews didn't deter Zanuck, who found enough quotations extolling the movie and the performances to keep the trade papers saturated with Oscar ads.

Publicity-wise, no one could compare with what David O. Selznick was up to on Duel In The Sun. He set aside a then-astronomical advertising budget of over $1 million for his $7 million epic western. Teaser ads appeared as early as June 1945, a full year and a half before the movie was released.

All this didn't help much: the movie got a meh reaction from the critics upon release, summed up in this quote from Daily Variety: "Actually, Duel In The Sun is a glorified Western." The film also had problems for its so-called "immorality", especially with the Catholic Church. In spite of all this, the public rushed in droves to see the film.

MGM's Oscar bait of the year was The Yearling, M.K. Rawlings Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about a boy and his fawn. The movie starred rising star Gregory Peck and Jane Wyman (married to Ronald Reagan at the time), and went down well, with the critics as well as with the audience.

Previously mentioned Frank Capra and newly-formed Liberty Pictures released a movie that would go on to become the ultimate Christmas classic: It's A Wonderful Life, starred James Stewart, his first movie since coming back from the war as an air force hero. The critics were praising the movie to high heavens and the public followed suite.

Two classic Film Noirs also came out in 1946; they each transformed their respective leading ladies into eternal sex symbols. One was The Killers, starring Burt Lancaster in his first movie role and Ava Gardner as the femme fatale, in her first major movie role. The film did well with the critics and the box-office, making movie stars out of both Lancaster and Gardner.

The other film was Gilda; Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford had been making movies for years, in fact Hayworth was already a leading lady. It was Gilda, however, which immortalized her into the perfect femme fatale. Even those who haven't seen the movie will surely be aware of the image of Hayworth in a clinging strapless gown, he flaming red hair crowning her shoulders and a lighted cigarette in her hand.

Columbia's Oscar bet was a musical biography of the biggest Pop Star of the 10s ans 20s, Al Jolson. The film, called The Jolson Story, starred unknown Larry Parks, who was praised for the impressive impersonation of Jolson. The film received good reviews, especially for Parks and co-star Demarest, and did very well at the box-office.

Warner Brothers weren't so lucky this year: their two "Oscar movies", starring their two biggest female stars, failed to win over either the critics or the public. The were Deception starring Bette Davis and Humoresque starring Joan Crawford.

Other women were luckier than Bette or Joan; Bette's best friend, Olivia De Havilland, had two movies that were part of the Oscar discussion: De Havilland was worried that a split in the voting might deprive her of a nomination. She decided that aging 30 years and suffering nobly in Paramount's well-mounted soap opera To Each His Own would get more votes than playing good-and-evil twins in Universal's psychological mystery melodrama The Dark Mirror, so she asked Universal to quit campaigning for her.

The most heavily advertised actress, however, was Rosalind Russell for her portrayal of the Australian nurse who worked against infantile paralysis in Sister Kenny.

The Nominations

The ads paid off for De Havilland and Russell; they were both nominated (To Each His Own was also nominated for Best Story). The other three nominees for Best Actress were Jane Wyman for The Yearling, Celia Johnson for Brief Encounter and Jennifer Jones for Duel In The Sun. To the chagrin of Selznick, this was one of the just two nominations the film had received; the other was for Supporting Actress, for the film veteran Lillian Gish. Also nominated in the Supporting Actress category were Anne Baxter for The Razor's Edge, Ethel Barrymore for the mystery drama The Spiral Staircase, Flora Robson for Saratoga Trunk, a New Orleans-based romance starring Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman, and Gale Sondergaard for Anna And The King Of Siam, the non-musical version that preceded The King And I, which was also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Art Direction, and Score.

The big Oscar contenders included: The Best Years Of Our Lives (8 nominations: Best Picture, Director, Actor for Fredric March, Supporting Actor for non-professional Harold Russell, who lost both hands in WWII, Adapted Screenplay, Editing, Sound and Score). The Yearling (7 nominations: Best Picture, Director, Actor for Gregory Peck, Actress for Jane Wyman, Cinematography, Art Direction, and Editing). It's A Wonderful Life (5 nominations: Best Picture, Director, Actor for James Stewart, Editing, and Sound). Henry V (4 nominations: Best Picture, Actor for Laurence Olivier, Art Direction, and Score). The Razor's Edge (4 nominations: Best Picture, Supporting Actor for Clifton Webb, Supporting Actress for Anne Baxter, and Art Direction).

The Jolson Story received 6 nominations: Best Actor for Larry Parks, Supporting Actor for William Demarest, Cinematography, Editing, Sound and Score. The Killers received 4 nominations: Best Director, Adapted Screenplay, Editing, and Score. Brief Encounter received 3 nominations: Best Director, Actress for Celia Johnson, and Adapted Screenplay.

Together with Harold Russell, Clifton Webb, and William Demarest, also nominated for Best Supporting Actor were Charles Coburn for the screen adaptation of A.J. Cronin's The Green Years and Claude Rains as Ingrid Bergman's evil husband in Hitchcock's classic Notorious.

Open City (Roma, Citta Aperta) was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. Children Of The Paradise (Les Enfants Du Paradis) was nominated for Best Original Screenplay. The Seventh Veil was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay. Gilda, unfortunately, received no nominations.

What about the music? The five nominees for Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture were the following:

The Best Years of Our Lives (Hugo Friedhofer):

Anna and the King of Siam (Bernard Herrmann):

Henry V (William Walton):

Humoresque (Franz Waxman):

The Killers (Miklós Rózsa):

The five nominees for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture were the following:

The Jolson Story (Morris Stoloff):

Blue Skies (Robert Emmett Dolan):

Centennial Summer (Alfred Newman):

The Harvey Girls (Lennie Hayton):

Night and Day (Ray Heindorf, Max Steiner):

The five nominees for Best Original Song were the following:

On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe: from The Harvey Girls • Music: Harry Warren • Lyrics: Johnny Mercer • sung by Judy Garland:

All Through the Day: from Centennial Summer • Music: Jerome Kern • Lyrics: Oscar Hammerstein II • sung by Larry Stevens:

I Can't Begin to Tell You: from The Dolly Sisters • Music: James V. Monaco • Lyrics: Mack Gordon • sung by John Payne:

Ole Buttermilk Sky: from Canyon Passage • Music: Hoagy Carmichael • Lyrics: Jack Brooks • sung by Hoagy Carmichael:

Here's the full version:

Here's the film version:

You Keep Coming Back Like a Song: Blue Skies • Music and lyrics: Irving Berlin • sung by Bing Crosby:

The following songs were eligible, but failed to get nominated, which was a great pity:

Put The Blame On Mame, from Gilda: sung by Anita Ellis as the singing voice of Rita Hayworth:

You Make Me Feel So Young, from Three Little Girls In Blue: sung by Vera-Ellen & Charles Smith:

Here's a classic version by Frank Sinatra:

Give Me The Simple Life, from Wake Up And Dream: sung by John Payne:

Here's Ella Fitzgerald's version, live at Montreux:

The Anniversary Song, from The Jolson Story: sung by Al Jolson as the singing voice of Larry Parks:

The Awards

It was a landslide for The Best Years Of Our Lives, which won 7 out of its 8 nominations: it only lost Best Sound to The Jolson Story, which also won Best Scoring of a Musical Picture. One of the 7 awards for The Best Years Of Our Lives was Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture. Wyler received his second out of three Oscars, March also received his second, while Harold Russell was the first non-professional actor to receive an acting Oscar. Apart from the Best Supporting Actor award, he was also given a honorary award " For bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans through his appearance in The Best Years of Our Lives."

Laurence Olivier also received a honorary award "For his outstanding achievement as actor, producer and director in bringing 'Henry V' to the screen."

De Havilland was crowned Best Actress, while the Supporting Actress award went to Anne Baxter. Original Screenplay went to The Seventh Veil, while Original Story went to yet another British film, Vacation From Marriage (original title: Perfect Strangers). Black-and-White Cinematography and Art Direction went to Anna And The King Of Siam, while Color Cinematography and Art Direction went to The Yearling. Finally, Best Visual Effects went to another adaptation of a Noel Coward play directed by David Lean, Blithe Spirit.

Best Original Song went to On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe, from The Harvey Girls. It isn't a bad song, in fact I think that it was the best of the nominated five. However, if it were up to me, I would certainly give the Oscar to one of the non-nominated songs, either to Put The Blame On Mame or to You Make Me Feel So Young. On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe hasn't aged well, and doesn't really work outside the movie. For these reasons, the song is at #77 in my countdown of the Best Original Song winners. See you soon!