If I Was To Create a Soundtrack for Each Best Supporting Actress Oscar Winner (Part I)

Recently, I made a pair of videos tracing every Best Supporting Actress from 1936 onwards. 

Through the process of making my own YouTube videos, I've discovered that choosing your own music to provide background is one of the more creatively fulfilling parts of the project. I always thought it was obnoxious of documentarians to overly indulge in their own music as part of their narrative.

I'm pretty old school with my music collection. I don't use Spotify or Itunes plus. I just have my own cloud-backed collection of songs that numbers around 275 right now. With an exception or two, I thought it would be fun to just stick to what I had in my library. Here's how I settled on my choices for this video.

1936: Gale Sondegaard, Anthony Adverse

Testing 1, 2, 3, Barenaked Ladies

 

1.       I make a pun about how Anthony Adverse can be mistaken for school-house rock, and Barenaked Ladies has always struck me as a kindergarten-friendly band.

2.       Testing, 1, 2, 3 sounds like a good way to kick off the series

3.       I wanted to set the template right away as a series in which I would be anachronistic in my selections

4.       The line in the song “Can anybody hear me?” is the way I feel about the series, and it’s sung in a more shruggish way, which I hope to adopt.

1937: Alice Brady, In Old Chicago

How High the Moon, Hoagy Carmichael, performed by Todd Lines

 

1.       Simply an old-timey song for a movie set in the 1880s

2.       A need for balance from the Baranaked Ladies

 

1938: Faye Bainter, Jezebel

Ex’s and Oh's, Ellie King

1.       Jezebel is a film about a woman who’s shamed for being sexually loose.  The narrator of Ex’s and Oh’s  is clearly promiscuous and unapologetic

2.       The line in the chorus “the Ex’s and Ohs they haunt me” is symbolic of the shunning that happens in Jezebel

 

 

1939: Hattie McDaniel, Gone with the Wind

Set Fire to the Rain, Adele

1.       To honor the first Black Oscar winner, it seems fitting to have something that feels gospel-like and Adele’s voice feels like comparable to a Black diva like Whitney Houston or Aretha Franklin.

2.        Hattie McDaniel’s win also marks social change, and setting things on fire seems sweeping.

3.       The city of Atlanta literally burns down.

1940: Jane Darwell, Grapes of Wrath

Hoedown, Aaron Copeland

 

1.       Pretty simple here. It’s a film set alongside Westward expansion. Copeland was pure Americana and Hoedown (the “Beef, it’s what’s for dinner” commercial soundtrack) is synonymous audially with the West

1941: Mary Astor, The Great Lie

Hollywood, Marina and Her Diamonds

1.       In this installment, I discussed Astor’s past of scandal and how it almost ruined her.

2.       This song is sung by a European popstar who is obsessed with Hollywood. I suspect the narrator is speaking more of the tabloid culture of Hollywood

2.       The glamour of Hollywood might be better represented in the Maltese Falcon—the movie with the tagline “The Stuff Dreams are made of”—that came out in the same year

 

1942: Teresa Wright, Mrs. Miniver

Extraordinary, Liz Phair

1. Extraordinary is a descriptor of Wright’s talent. She was such a remarkable catch on Broadway that multiple studios bid over her

2. Teresa Wright was also determined to be taken seriously for her acting and not as a sex symbol. She went so far as to create a contract by which it would be virtually impossible to portray her in a sexy manner  

3.       3. I'm not that familiar with Liz Phair outside of some songs she heavily plugged on the talk show circuit in the 2003-2004 era when I was more glued into Live with Regis and Kelly and the late night talk shows. But this is very much a girl power ballad

1943: Katina Paxinou; For Whom the Bell Tolls;

Another Life, Soundtrack to Bridges of Madison County (performed by Whitney Bashor)

1.       I’m digging the idea of linking one soundtrack to cover.

2.       This is one of the films I didn’t’ see, but it’s about a romance during a war. Written by Hemmingway, it can’t be anything but nostalgic which is what the song is drenched with

3.        

 

1944:  Ethel Barrymore, None but the Lonely Heart

I’ve Got Rhythm, George Gerswhin, covered by jazz pianist Hiromi

 

1.       I love Japanese jazz pianist sensation Hironi. Like someone a little more obscure like Marina and her Diamonds, it’s fun to promote them

2.       The Barrrymore family clearly is a talented one

1945: Anne Revere, National Velvet

Sports Song, Weird Al Yankovic

This song is a parody of spectator sports, and what can I say, National Velvet is kind of a bland movie. Not every song in my library is one that I like. Sometimes you download something based on the artist's previous reputation and the title of the song. At least I have a use for it now.

1946: Anne Baxter, Razor’s Edge

Everything’s Just Wonderful, Lilly Allen

Baxter plays an alcoholic on the verge of losing it. Allen’s song -- with a whirling chord structure that intentionally deceives the listener about where the tonic is (Coldplay's "Clocks" is another example) -- has a sense of spinning out of control with the music while the lyrics falsely belie a sense of coming together.
 
1947: Celeste Holm, Gentlemen’s Agreement
Caution, The Killers

1.       This was not an easy one to pick because there weren’t that many songs in my library about infiltrating the Jewish community to fight anti-semitism. I thought the movie wasn’t particularly credible so I don’t think the hippie-ish songs in my library really captured how I felt about the film

2.       Again, I liked something anachronistic here.

3.       There is an unbridled optimism of the song which reflects both Celeste Holm’s character, Anne Dettrey, in the film along with the closing speech of the film by (a somewhat jarring) speech by  Gregory Peck’s mom that she  thinks the future is going to be a better place.

4.     Gregory Peck’s character is certainly a muckraker, which matches this sort of gleeful lyric:
“If I don’t get out of this town. I just might be the one who burns it down”

5.     Anne is a character who’s kind of glamorous and the film explores class in a lot of ways, which matches the lyrics:

“Never had a diamond on the sole of her shoes

Just black top, white trash

Straight out of the news”

1948: Claire Trevor, Key Largo
Kokomo, Beach Boys

This is the obvious choice because these are the two first words of the song and it does take place in a tropic climate. If I were to be really nitpicky, I would point out that this is more of a noir than a beach film like the Tom Cruise flick Cocktail. But I had to work with the confines of my library.

1949: Mercedes McCambridge, All the King’s Men
Saints Hallelujah (Traditional/G.F. Handel mash-up),arranged and performed by Canadian Brass

 

1.       All the King’s Men is about the governor’s race in Louisiana, so I knew I had to go with the wonderful array of New Orleans jazz

2.       This song mashes a traditional New Orleans tune with a classical element. Louisiana is a big melting pot anyway.

3.       This song also has a call and response element with jazz riffs (typical to New Orleans jazz) that echoes the energy between a politician and his supporters at a rally. Even the word Hallelujah can be used as an “amen” in response to a political point

 

1950: Josephine Hull, Harvey
Human, The Killers

The song is about a narrator re-examining his humanity. This is what Josephine Hull’s character is badly in need of in this film about a man whose positive contributions to the world are through an imaginary rabbit.

1951: Kim Hunter, Streetcar Named Desire

Summertime, George Gerswhin, covered by Scary Pockets featuring Olivia Kuper Harris

 

1.     The film is set in a poor multi-cultural neighborhood in New Orleans. It’s a Southern setting (again, New Orleans), so I wanted something jazzy again.

2.       Gerswhin was a precursor to big band jazz and the funk group  Scary Pockets gives this jazz tune a fine remix. I didn’t want something that was squarely in the jazz era

3.       You have to admit this gives the jazz tune a nice twist

4.       There’s a sense of the sweltering heat in this tune

1952: Gloria Graeme, Bad and the Beautiful
Entry March of the Boyars, Johan Halvorsen, performed by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra

I haven’t seen Bad and the Beautiful, so I mostly riffed off the circus film “Greatest Show on Earth” which came out in the same year. I always associate circuses with Eastern European gypsy culture. This is a Russian march.

1953: Donna Reed, From Here to Eternity
Don’t Worry Baby, Beach Boys

This is the quintessential Hawaii film so the Beach Boys fits. Additionally, it’s a very fitting theme of quelling the calm before the storm.

1954: Eva Marie Saint, On the Waterfront

Diamonds are Forever, Shirley Bassey

This has more to do about the fact that Eva Marie Saint’s role in North by Northwest was a predecessor to the classic Bond girl than anything with the movie.

1955: Jo Van Fleet, East of Eden

Hazy Shade of Winter, Bangles

1. The song begins: “Time, time, time, see what’s become of me, as I look around to my possibilities” (matched by a very odd uncanny valley between major and minor resolution). This film is an allegory for the Garden of Eden where time didn’t really exist and then it did when they were banished

2. Additionally, a lot of the shots of Jo Van Fleet as brothel owner Kate look old and withered

3. The song is also very place-specific. There’s a verse of the salvation army band (religious allegory, again?)

4. James Dean, the star of the film, is also frozen in time

1956: Dorothy Malone, Written on the Wind

Havana, Camilla Cabello

Although it’s set in Texas, I tried to make the point that Douglas Sirk was the predecessor of R-rated envelope-pushing drama.  So I needed something very sensual and modern to push the envelope.

1957: Miyoshi Umeki, Sayonara

Chinatown, My Chinatown; Glenn Mills, arranged by Luther Henderson, performed by Canadian Brass

This jazz number--more tin pan alley than dixieland—is a lively tune that couldn’t sound more oriental when It first crosses your ears. This is to honor the first East Asian actress to win an Oscar. I’d almost be concerned it was just a flat racial stereotype, but Umeki also appeared in Flower Drum Song.

1958: Wendy Hiller, Separate Tables
Marriage of Figaro, Mozart

This is a stuffy British film (albeit a good one), so I needed something classical.

1959: Shelley Winters, Diary of Anne Frank

Inside My Mind This Time, Welcome to Florida

I figured there wasn’t anything I could use to capture the tragedy of the Holocaust. My only other option was Schindler’s List but I figured that would be too derivative. In place, I felt that this punk rock song about doing things by your own tune was the best.

1960: Shirley Jones, Elmer Gantry

Henney Buggy Band, Sufjan Stevens

This film is about a Midwestern preacher and huckster. It’s an inversion of Midwestern Americana. Shirley Jones most famous roles are in the most Middle American of musicals in The Music Man and Carousel. This is very much a Middle American song: A peppy folk number.