Remastered and Remaindered: Debussy's Music, Nat King Cole's

Song, and David O. Selznick's attempt at High Art on a Low Budget

Abstract: With the 1948 film Portrait of Jennie producer David O. Selznick wanted to
create the motion picture version of "high" art. By using the music of Claude
Debussy as the basis for the film's score, Selznick aimed for a score that would lend
the movie the intrinsic quality of "great" art. Yet a closer look at decisions regarding
music for Jennie shows how Selznick could not control the signifying process.
Jennie thus provides us with an important site for understanding the complexity of
musical signification. The use of Debussy's music as the basis for the majority of the
film's score not only projects the image of "high" art, but also that of the banal. In
opposite fash- ion, a "popular" song left out of the score, due to its supposed
banality, through the years takes on a new kind of artful quality, achieving the
timelessness that Selznick desperately sought for his movie.

Keywords: David O. Selznick; Portrait of Jennie; Claude Debussy; Dimitri Tiomkin

Released on Christmas Day in 1948, David O. Selznick's Portrait of Jennie tells the
story of a penniless painter, Eben Adams, a young girl, Jennie, and their complex
"out of time" relationship. The first time they meet, Jennie talks of events that, in
Adams's reality, occurred decades earlier. Over the course of a single year of
Adams's life, Jennie ages many years, growing into a young woman, while the two
fall in love. In the climactic scene for which the film won an Academy Award for
special effects, Adams attempts to save Jennie during a violent coastal storm.
Tragically, Jennie does not survive this storm- hence the story's focus on the eternal
quality of their love; that is, once a person loves, their love remains eternal.

This romantic storyline is supported by plot and structural elements that explore the
difference between the "eternal" quality of "great" art versus run-of-the-mill, banal
art.* 1 Early in the film we see Adams as a landscape painter who is always out of
money and uses his paintings to make rent. Adams's landscape paintings are
deemed suitable only as background elements, wallpaper, not as something worthy
of attention or contemplation in itself. As the docent who appears at the end of the
film, states, there is "nothing distinguished in any of Adams's earlier work; but all of
his later period is now recognized as being greatly inspired." It is not until Jennie
inspires him that he produces a masterpiece. Jennie takes on the role of muse,
enabling Adam to move from a producer of banal, everyday art, to one of an artist
with aesthetic prestige.

The transformation is marked in the film's plot in several key places. For example,
when buying Adams's first sketch of Jennie, the art dealer Matthews opines about
how the women in all of the great portraits of the past have an eternal quality. In the
last scene of the film, the camera pans down from the vaulted arched architecture of
the ceilings in the Metropolitan Museum in New York before coming to rest on the
"Portrait of Jennie." A group of young schoolgirls are shown admiring the portrait
suggesting that if a work of art is a piece of "high" art, it is something that each new
generation will revisit and admire. Thus, Portrait of Jennie explores differing models
of art: on the one hand, reproduction, art as commodity; on the other hand, the
eternal, transcendent entity of "high" art-art that belongs in a museum and to future
generations.

Interestingly, these tensions are also reflected in the history of Portrait of Jennie's
production and its score. The tensions between conceptions of "high" and "low" art
are reinforced in the music used for the film and Selznick's attempts to score the
film. Like the other art represented in Portrait of Jennie, the score on the whole is
intended to project the aura of great art.2 Selznick, already legendary for his
micromanagement, was very active in decisions regarding music for his films-never
more so than with for Jennie.3 Nathan Platte argues Portrait of Jennie "represents
the producer's strongest effort to control as many musical details as
possible...[leaving] little to chance."4 Selznick was very concerned with both the
quality and style of score. For one, the score needed to bridge the credibility gap in
the film's storyline. But, also, Selznick aimed for a score that would create a kind of
cultural uplift for the film, a score that would bring to the movie the connotations of
"high" art. In short, Selznick wanted his score to suggest a uniform interpretation,
but a closer look at decisions regarding music, and the music used and not used in
the film, will show how the score becomes a hybrid signifier of both "high" and "low"
art.

Portrait of Jennie thus provides us with an instructive case for understanding the
complexity of musical signification. While both Brown and Platte have discussed the
film's score and its use of Claude Debussy's music, little has been said about how
the tensions between the differing conceptions of art play out in Selznick's behind-
the-scenes effort to score the film. Selznick wanted the music to support the signifier
of "high" art that he projected for the movie, but he could not keep the music from
assuming additional meanings. The result is that the use of Debussy's music as the
basis for the majority of the film's score not only projects the image of high art, but
also that of the banal. In opposite fashion, a "popular" song left out of the score, due
in part to its supposed banality, through the years takes on a new kind of artful
quality, achieving the timelessness that Selznick so desperately sought for his
movie.

"The Most Distinguished and Revolutionary Score Ever Written"

Selznick's goal for the music for Jennie was to produce a score that would change
the industry's approach to music for film. At one point in the process he stated that
the score to Jennie "has the chance of being the most distinguished and
revolutionary score ever written," but he also wanted one that was cheaper than
industry standards to produce.5 Selznick's method for creating a distinguished score
on the cheap was to use existing music.6 Selznick's argument for the use of existing
music was twofold. First, Selznick thought that the current crop of film composers
was substandard in comparison to composers of "classical" music. Second, Selznick
believed that, by using existing music, the production company could save money.7
While Selznick considered the work of multiple composers, including Benjamin
Britten, Gian Carlo Ménotti, and Norman O'Neill, ultimately he never fully swayed
from the idea of using Debussy's work.8 In a memo dated July 24, 1947 (dictated
July 23), Selznick notes Debussy's music "has exactly the right quality...and couldn't
be duplicated by even a Bernie Herman [sic]".9 While Selznick originally pursued
Bernard Herrmann, in the end Herrmann did not score Jennie.10 As quickly as the
deal with Herrmann dissolved, Dimitri Tiomkin was hired to compose the score.* 11
By the time Tiomkin was hired, Selznick was fully set on using music by Debussy as
the basis of the score, but did not yet have permission from the Debussy estate.
Although Selznick was sure the estate and its publishers would easily give
permission, the negotiation process dragged on until October 1, 1948.12

Mike Cormack notes that often directors-and, in the case of Portrait of Jennie, the
producer-turn to classical music for a film's score because of cost: often it is a
cheaper means of scoring a film.13 In addition, Cormack argues that using classical
music allows the director, or producer, to maintain a high level of control over the
content of the score without sacrificing the size of orchestral forces-obviously an
issue with a micromanager such as Selznick.14 While Selznick wanted to use
existing music because of its potential to save money, it is clear from his memos
that Selznick also wanted Debussy's music to contribute the added value of a
certain aesthetic quality to the film. Both Cormack and Dean Duncan note that using
classical music in a score brings a set of predetermined connotations to the film as,
in Duncan's words, classical music "evokes notions of class, culture and
accomplishment."15

Yet, while noting that directors and producers will use classical music as a means of
bringing specific connotations of class and culture to the film, Cormack argues that
using classical music "may add complexity to the film.. .which may even cause
problems of interpretation rather than remove them."16 Cormack notes that classical
music, especially that without words, lacks a fixed meaning and that
recontextualizing the music within a film score inevitably further destabilizes the
music's meaning and increases the range of possible meanings.17 The expansion
of possible meanings that Cormack discusses is further multiplied when the music is
reorchestrated, altered, and otherwise manipulated as film scoring. The result is
that, while classical music can and will function as a sign of culture and
accomplishment, its augmented signification will also create openings for additional
meanings that may complicate or even undermine the intended signification. With
Tiomkin taking Debussy's themes and melodic fragments and weaving them into a
larger work, the score, while still containing the "high" art signifier of Debussy so
valued by Selznick, becomes capable of signifying a wider range of meanings. Thus,
the score itself becomes a site for exemplifying the tensions of "high" and "low" art
found in the story. In addition, the marketing of the film further replicates the issues
echoed in the score, imbuing additional meaning. While Selznick may have wanted
Debussy's music, with its right "style" and "quality," to be a marker of "great" art, the
use of the music also allows it to also signify the commodity, to become an aural
equivalent to Adams's early landscapes/wallpaper.

When Tiomkin began work on scoring Jennie, he was a well-established film

composer known for his large orchestras, thick orchestrations, and frequent use of
wordless chorus. Tiomkin himself was a concert pianist familiar with the Debussy
repertoire, and the score he produced for Portrait of Jennie demonstrates his
thorough knowledge of Debussy's music and the Western Art music tradition
(especially the musico- dramatic conventions of the Romantic era), while also being
reflective of the scoring traditions in Hollywood at the time. The license that Selznick
Studios received from the publishers Durand and Jobert for the use of Debussy's
music allowed for "unlimited usage of special orchestration provided these
arrangements are dignified concert versions, without burlesque, swing or jazz."18
Tiomkin took full advantage of the provision allowing for reorchestrations and
produced a score with large instrumental sections and thick textures, as well as a
wordless chorus. In short, he arranged a typical Tiomkian score. The musical cues
for Jennie are not straightforward quotations from Debussy's works; rather, Tiomkin
re-composed the music using themes and melodic fragments from the licensed
works and basic musical motives characteristic of Debussy.19 Platte argues, while
"impressively" following Selznick's directions, Tiomkin also "enriched the musical
cogency of the score" such that the score for Jennie is one of the film's bright
spots.20 My intent here is neither to discuss the merits of Tiomkin's score and how
the music functions within the film as means of enhancing the overall product nor
the reception history of the score.21 Rather, as noted above, I reflect on the
accumulation and destabilization of signification that takes place when Debussy's
music is used as the basis for the film's score.

Tiomkin alters and manipulates Debussy's music to create the score for Jennie in
two different ways. First, Tiomkin made significant use of the opening theme to
Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, which served as leitmotif whenever Jennie and
Eben meet.22 Debussy's score opens with a sweetly expressive melody for a solo
flute at a relaxed tempo. By contrast, for its use in the first half of the film, the theme
is scored for novachord and solo violin playing harmonics and the tempo is
quickened and distorted.23 The result is an "unnatural," truly uncanny sound. Platte
notes that later in the film, for the reunion scenes, per Selznick's directions, the
theme is over orchestrated, "intentionally overdone," all romance and little
Debussy.24 No longer eerie, the orchestration now reflects the producer's desire for
the quintessential Hollywood love theme. With both extremes of orchestration, the
Prélude theme is consistently rendered in such a way that it is music that the viewer
knows, but it is presented in a radically different form than the original.

Secondly, while the Prélude theme is used as a thematic whole, often Tiomkin pairs
down Debussy's music to short motivic fragments fused together with motivic
segments from other Debussy pieces.25 To successfully create a sense of whole,
the score of the original fragments are altered to create a homogenized
orchestration of various musical fragments. With its emphasis on the string section,
the reorchestration generally washes out the distinctive colors found in Debussy's
music. This is not the music of Debussy, but a score composed by Tiomkin, using
motifs and themes by Debussy. The arrangement allows Tiomkin to arrange various
strands and motives of Debussy's music into one continuous cue, to create a rapidly
shifting blend of motivic bits. The main title music can serve as an example: The cue
begins with 26 seconds from "Nuages" followed by three seconds from "Sirènes,"
and then 52 seconds from Prélude à l'après- midi d'un faune. Next is 12 seconds of
music from the Prélude and "Sirènes" combined and the cue finishes with 28
seconds of "Nuages."26 This pastiche of motivic ideas necessitates an alteration of
Debussyan qualities due to its motivic fragmentation and by featuring orchestrations
heavily reliant on thick string timbres, instrumental doublings, and other orchestral
measures alien to Debussy's style.

Selznick wanted the audience to hear Debussy's music to help grant the stature of
"high" culture to the film itself. Yet, as argued earlier, by altering the music and
placing it in the context of a film score, space is created for the music to take on
additional signification. Debussy's music may have intended to be the musical
correlative to Adams's portrait of Jennie, but it also becomes the portrait's
counterpoint. The score may still signify high art, but it also becomes a signifier of
mundane art, akin to Eben's wallpaper flowers which his landlady will no longer take
as payment, or the tavern's mural. While Selznick's aim for Debussy's music was to
bestow the signification of "great" art on the film, through his and Tiomkin's
manipulation of the music, the signifier of the banal also takes shape in the film's
use of Debussy's music.

The high-culture aspect of Debussy's music also was emphasized through the
studio's marketing of the movie. Yet, even here, the musical artifacts accumulate
unintended signification. Despite the fact that Debussy's music had been used in
films since at least 1934,27 Vanguard Films advertised Portrait of Jennie as the first
film for which Debussy's estate granted permission to use his music. A press
release from September 1948 from the studio's Assistant Publicity Director Merv
Houser states that the Debussy estate had

relaxed an iron clad rule concerning the music by the late composer in regards to its
use in motion pictures. As a result ...Portrait of Jennie becomes the first motion
picture ever to use Debussy's music for a musical score and also the first motion
picture ever to be scored solely from the works of a standard composer of
Debussy's stature.28

A month later, another press release went a step further in tying Debussy and Eben
Adams together as modern masters when it stated, "it has seemed appropriate to
use the themes of another artist whose genius found inspiration in what he alone
saw in the atmosphere around him-Claude Debussy."29 As one of the promotional
tie-ins to the movie, the Selznick Studio, along with United Music Publishers,
produced sheet music containing the Debussy piano pieces used in the movie and
piano reductions of the thematic fragments that were used from the orchestral
pieces.30 While the piano works were reprinted in full, the orchestral works are
presented in one- to one-and-a-half-page thematic snippets which trail off mid-
measure, never extending beyond thirty measures total, in piano score reduction.
Thus, in promotional materials the orchestral music is reduced and fragmented in
such a way that the sheet music is not functional as performable works for at home
pianists. Instead, they are a sort of wallpaper for the music stand.

The use of Debussy's music in the score already leans towards the unacknowledged
idea of art as a commodity. In the memo quoted earlier in which Selznick argues for
the use of Debussy's music owing to its "right quality," he also speculates that the
company "could get a score for ten to fifteen thousand dollars" using Debussy's
music and Herrmann's "little tune."31 In short, as noted, Selznick thought using
Debussy's music would allow Jennie to be scored for a low price. In the end,
Selznick paid much more than $15,000 for the score to Jennie. After much
negotiation, in October of 1948 Vanguard Films licensed the rights to six pieces by
Debussy for the cost of $19,800.32 Tiomkin's initial contract was for $12,500, but
owing to delays in getting the film to Tiomkin and changes requested by Selznick, in
the end Tiomkin was paid $17,500.33 Thus, simply for the use of the Debussy music
and Tiomkin's fee, Selznick paid $37,300. This figure does not include payment to
orchestrators, musicians, sound personnel, etc., which one must assume Selznick
was not figuring into his original estimate.34 Anything but priceless, Debussy's
music is bought at $19,800, manipulated by Vanguard Films and sold as an object
of mass production.

In "The Structure of Bad Taste" from The Open Work, Umberto Eco states that a
certain work is "kitsch not only because it aims at producing sentimental effects but
also because it is constantly trying to convince its readers that if they enjoy these
effects, then they will share a privileged aesthetic experience."35 If we follow Eco's
argument, then Portrait of Jennie is kitsch par excellence. Relentlessly hammering
the idea of the timelessness of art into the spectators' minds by way of dialogue,
storyline, and music, the film attempts to sell itself as high art. Yet the sentimental
effect of the movie comes prepackaged or, to use Eco's phrase, "ready made."36
The economy of signification in the film thus undermines the very status of "great"
art that the signifier of Debussy was intended (and purchased) to uphold.37

A "Lovely, Romantic Song"

While reorchestration of Debussy's themes dominate the musical score to Jennie,

the tension between the possible polarized meanings in the film's music also
surrounds music that never made it into the film. Before a composer was hired,
Selznick began asking for a stand-alone hit song to come out of Jennie that would
tie into the movie and could garner significant radio exposure. Early in the
production, in February of 1947, Selznick sent a memo to Ted Wick, Director of
Radio Advertising and Exploitation, and James Stewart, Technical Supervisor,
stating, "We have an opportunity to get a really haunting, lovely romantic song we
can call POJ" and that whomever ended up being hired to score the movie should
be told from the outset to be "thinking about this and the composing of the
melody."38 After deciding to use Debussy's music as the basis for the score,
Selznick turned to Debussy as a source for his hit song; he was sure the Debussy
estate would allow for arrangements of the composer's melodies. While, Selznick
desired a hit moneymaking song, he wanted one with the right "quality," and for
Selznick the signifier of this quality would come from Debussy.

Meanwhile, prior to finalizing an agreement with the Debussy estate, Mark Warnow
Publishing approached Vanguard Pictures with a newly composed popular song by
J. Russel Robinson and lyrics by Gordon Burge titled "Portrait of Jennie" and
dedicated to Jennifer Jones.39 Selznick disapproved of the song and in July 1947
ordered Wick to turn down any offer of a tie-in to the film. In addition, Selznick states
that Warnow publishing "can't claim any vested rights to do a song to be called POJ"
and that the name belongs to Vanguard Films.40 Warnow continued to pursue
publishing the song causing Vanguard Films to issue cease-and-desist letters.41 In
April and early May of 1948 multiple memos were sent to Selznick informing him the
song was to be published and was scheduled to be broadcast on the "Sound Off!"
radio program.42 Selznick seemingly did not receive these memos before being
surprised with a copy of the song by the orchestra leader of the El Morocco one
evening when he arrived for dinner.43 Selznick was irate about the song's
publication, blaming Wick for creating a "serious and damaging situation" and again
ordering legal steps to be taken.44 One week later Selznick again asks for an
injunction.45 Nevertheless, the song was broadcast on "Sound Off!" on June 7,
1948.46

As noted, all of the issues with the Robinson- Burge song were taking place well
before any sort of agreement with the Debussy estate had been formalized. Thus,
Selznick continued to pursue a song using melodies by Debussy. In September
1948, a song arrangement of "La fille aux cheveux de lin" was made for Selznick,
but he did not care for it and directed Wick and MacNamara to look into other
Debussy themes.47 Later that month Selznick requested that Tiomkin look at
Prélude à l'après- midi d'un faune as a source for a "popular song."48 Meanwhile,
Wick, while Selznick was in negotiations with the Debussy estate, talked directly to
the representative of Debussy's music publishers who informed him that "the
Debussy Estate will NOT grant permission to adapt any of his [Debussy's] melodies
for popular songs" [Wick's emphasis].49 Selznick, quite annoyed that Wick had
interfered with the negotiations, was positive he would get permission. In this
instance, he was sure money would trump aesthetics, as he couldn't "see any
French estate turning down additional revenue if the song isn't an offense to
Debussy's memory."50 In the end, Wick was correct: the Debussy estate would not
allow for a song to come from Debussy's work. In specific, the license that was
formalized in October 1948 directly addresses this issue stating, "None of these
compositions are to be used for vocal adaptations, excepting only that the actress
[playing Jennie] may sing to the theme of'Sirens (Sirenes)' the words of 'Jennie's
Little Song'."51 With no song forthcoming using Debussy's themes, Selznick
seemingly had two choices. He could either deal with Warnow Publishing and use
their song in marketing the movie, or he needed to change the name of his film so
that it would not be associated with the Robinson-Burge song.

Wick and Robert Dann, Vice President and General Counsel for Selznick Studios,
argued for some type of engagement with Warnow Publishing so as to be in a
position to profit from royalties. In the lengthy memo referenced above, Wick argued
that they were "dead ducks" if the Debussy estate would not allow arrangements
and the masses did not care who wrote the melody to a song as long as they liked
it.52 Wick, directed to come up with a high-grossing marketing tie-in, was doing his
job in trying to find a popular song that could go with the movie, and the Robinson-
Burge song had been shown to have popular appeal.53 Selznick, on the other hand,
neither liked the song itself nor its style, describing it as "cheap and corny."54 In the
lengthy August 2, 1948 memo to Wick, Selznick stated in comparison to the
Robinson-Burge song Debussy's music was "infinitely better music, and additionally,
that it would properly represent the picture in terms of quality of music and style of
music" [Selznick's emphasis].55

The quotation from Selznick's memo raises the issues of two conceptions of art.
Here Selznick describes Debussy's music as "better," of "quality," and in the right
"style". On the other hand, Selznick viewed the Robinson-Burge song as being
without quality, completely banal. In a memo written just days earlier, Selznick
spelled out his issues with the Robinson-Burge song to MacNamara. Here Selznick
states:

The music of the picture in my opinion has every chance of being the most
distinguished and revolutionary score ever written. To have the exploitation
musically of the picture of a cheap song... to me is to completely deny the picture's
quality with its [Robinson and Burge's song] exploitation... and everything we are
planning from an exploitation viewpoint is completely out of tune with so ordinary
and banal a popular song.56

The film was intended to be of "quality" and in Selznick's opinion, the Robinson-
Burge song did not belong: it lacked the style necessary for the song to represent
"great" art. Not only that, Selznick's rhetoric implies that the style of the Robinson-
Burge song directly countered the film's style and quality and the Robinson-Burge
song, by merely being associated with Portrait of Jennie, would lower the intended
quality of the film.

In the end, Selznick indirectly admitted that he was unable to judge the Robinson-
Burge song. On October 8, 1948 Selznick sent a telex to William Paley, Chief
Executive of CBS, asking Paley to solicit the head of CBS's record company for his
"candid opinion" of the song's chances to be "a really outstanding success."57
Selznick requests a response within two days. While Paley's response is unknown,
one has to assume it was positive, as six days later, on October 14, 1948, Vanguard
Films granted permission "for the immediate publication of the song 'POJ' in
connection with the forthcoming Selznick production of that name."58 Promotion
was started immediately on both coasts. Sheet music was published in which the
cover featured a background picture of Jennifer Jones and Joseph Cotton as Jennie
and Eben. The portrait of Jennie appears in the lower foreground. In addition to
being "respectfully dedicated to Miss Jennifer Jones," under the title appears the
misstatement "Inspired by the David O. Selznick Production."59 In addition, Capitol
Records quickly released a recording of the song by Nat King Cole, with Jennie's
name misspelled as "Portrait of Jenny."60 The label on the record includes the
wording "Inspired By The David O. Selznick Production 'Portrait of Jenny'." Selznick
flirted with placing the song somewhere in the score, as this was the only way for
the song to be eligible for an Oscar, but in the end the song does not appear in the
movie.

The Robinson-Burge song did well with the listening audience. According to Wick,
letters received after its broadcast indicated that the "song had mass appeal."61 The
work was performed, seemingly with Selznick's permission, by Cole at Giro's to a
standing- room-only crowd on July 16, 1948.62 According to biographers James
Haskins and Kathleen Benson, "Cole favored his audience with a new song, 'Portrait
of Jennie'...which brought the house down.63 In addition to Cole's recordings, after
the agreement was reached to tie the song to the movie, LA disc jockeys had
access to recordings by both Harry Babbitt and Curt Massey. In a telex dated
December 6, 1948, Wick notes that disc jockeys in Los Angeles had played
recordings by Babbitt and Massey "432 times since November ll."64 In addition to
the initial positive response, the song has proven to have lasting appeal. The song
became a mainstay in Cole's repertoire and has since become a jazz standard
having been recorded by many other artists throughout the last half-century and into
the twenty-first century.65 It has been included in three fake books, including
volume two of The Real Book.66 The song has become a composition that jazz
musicians have returned to over and over throughout the decades and continue to
perform and record. With an elegant, singable melody typical of the Great American
Songbook, the song has a quality prized by vocalists and instrumental soloists. In
short, Robinson and Burge's song has proven to have an artful quality to it that over
the past century has taken on a sense of timelessness. While a jazz standard may
not be of the same style as Debussy's music, the song "Portrait of Jennie" has
proven to contain its own eternal characteristics. One could say, to use Selznick's
words, time has shown it to be a "lovely, romantic song".

The End of an Era

In the late 1930s and early 1940s Selznick was at the height of his career in the film
industry, having produced such films as Gone With the Wind (1939), Rebecca
(1940), and Since You Went Away (1944). But, as the forties progressed, Selznick
went into a downward spiral producing films Thomas Schatz describes as
"progressively less interesting and less memorable" and "indicative of independent
filmmaking at its unbridled, self indulgent worst."67 Platte notes that, when Selznick
established his own production company, his goal was to make "prestige pictures-
expensive films that featured major stars, high production values and pointedly
artistic aspirations".68 Yet Selznick was not able to combine his aesthetic goals with
financial success. By the time the film Portrait of Jennie went into production, his
production company was under significant financial duress. As Paul MacNamara,
the then Vice President in charge of Public Relations for Vanguard Films, noted,
Jennie was slotted to be "the first picture in the new Selznick low-budget series"
after banks had pulled their "no controls" funding.69 While a low-budget, high-
grossing film was the goal for MacNamara and other Vanguard executives, Selznick
still aimed for prestige, the motion picture version of high art, with Jennie. Ultimately,
though, Jennie was both an aesthetic and financial failure. According to David
Thomson, the film cost $4.041 million to make, yet by June 1950 rentals were a
meager $1.51 million; and, while the film has wonderful moments of artistic beauty,
the overall product is, at best, confused.70 Platte's description may be most apt:
Jennie "is not a film in which the whole exceeds the sum of its parts; if anything, the
reverse is true."71 Jennie marked the end of Selznick's fabled career, as it would be
his last Hollywood production.

Platte has shown that Selznick looked to the past as a means of creating a sense of
distinction to Portrait of Jennie, describing the film as a flashback to the era of silent
cinema, working to create an "overall effect of yesteryear prestige."72 Platte notes
that the "film itself, seems to be from a bygone era."73 In short, Selznick references
classic films of the past as a means of granting an "eternal" quality to his new film.
Using the music of Claude Debussy was just another way Selznick invoked a past
master as an attempt to create the signification of "high" art for the film. Yet, with all
of his meddling, the film was doomed, and even the fleeting moments of beauty
found in the film could not salvage the overall mess. As the ultimate micromanager,
Selznick tried to control every detail of the film, but he could not control the semiotic
process and thus, while he aimed for "great" art, and at certain moments achieves it,
overall the film projects the signification of the banality of art as a commodity.74 In
addition, by looking to the past for markers of prestige, Selznick was blinded to the
art of the present and the future. He was disdainful of the Robinson-Burge song, not
only disliking its style but also its substance. Yet songs like "Portrait of Jennie" and
artists like Nat King Cole created music that, while having immediate mass appeal,
also, as the years have passed, has acquired its own kind of artful transcendence.
Ironically, while Selznick aimed to create a film of quality and high style, it is the
song he describes as "cheap and corny" and "banal" that has gained a signification
of quality art through the ages.

In summary, the music associated with Portrait of Jennie can function as a nodal
point for exploring the tensions between "high" art "low" art, the questions
surrounding the difference between prestige and banal, and the complexity of
musical meaning. While Debussy can and will always bring the signification of
accomplishment and culture, as Cormack notes, the process of extracting classical
music works "from their original context...and recontextualizing them in a film
increases ambiguity" of its meaning.75 The context of the musical setting informs
the signification of music when used in film.

Footnote

* Parts of this manuscript are based on my conference paper "Commodity vs.

Artwork: Timeless in Portrait of Jennie" presented at Hollywood Musicals and Music
in Hollywood, Boulder, CO, August 2001. Additional research was funded by a Big
Twelve Faculty Fellowship from the University of Oklahoma. Special thanks go to
Matthew Stock, Dan Emery, Lisa Foster, Kim Marshall, Ellen Rubenstein, Erika
Robb-Larkins, Michael Lee, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback.

1 Matthew Brown discusses in detail the film's exploration of the difficulties artists
face in creating a successful work of art in his chapter on the film in Debussy Redux:
The Impact of His Music on Popular Culture (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University
Press, 2012), 51-65.

2 See Brown, Debussy Redux, 58-60.

3 Selznick was markedly aggressive with his micromanagement in any film in which
his mistress, later wife, Jennifer Jones, who played Jennie, was involved.
4 Nathan R. Platte, "Musical Collaboration in the Films of David O. Selznick, 1932-
1957" (PhD diss., The University of Michigan, 2010), 355.

5 Memo to MacNamara, July 30, 1948. David O. Selznick Collection, Harry Ransom
Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin, Box 944, Folder 4.
Hereafter, citations of the documentation from the Selznick Collection will appear in
the following format: SELZ 944.4. See also Platte, "Musical Collaboration in the
Films of David O. Selznick," 346.

6 The idea of using existing music was not new for Selznick. In his article
"Conducting the Composer: David O. Selznick and the Hollywood Film Score" Platte
details Selznick's gradual turn to existing music and presents a detailed analysis of
the score to Jennie as a final installment in this process. See Platte, "Conducting the
Composer: David O. Selznick and the Hollywood Film Score," in Music, Sound and
Filmmakers: Sonic Style in Cinema, ed. James Wierzbicki (New York: Routledge,
2012), 122-137. See also Platte, "Musical Collaboration in the Films of David O.
Selznick," 330-34.

7 Selznick spells out in detail his opinions on using "old music" in general and
specifically in Jennie in a memo to James Stewart, July 24, 1947, SELZ 569.11.

8 Thomas DeMary, "The Mystery of Herrmann's Music," The Journal of Film Music
1, no. 2/3 (2003): 161 and 171.

9 Memo to Stewart, July 24, 1947 (dictated July 23), SELZ 569.11.

10 The trials and tribulations of the attempt to hire Bernard Herrmann and the
eventual signing of Dimitri Tiomkin have been thoroughly discussed by both Thomas
DeMary and Platte. See DeMary, "The Mystery of Herrmann's Music," 159-73 and
Platte, "Musical Collaboration in the Films of David O. Selznick," 317-30. DeMary
speculates that the issues of existing music caused the deal to break down with
Herrmann, as Herrmann was steadfastly opposed to arranging other composers'
works. DeMary, "The Mystery of Herrmann's Music," 154. This is despite the fact
that Herrmann had begun composing music for the film, specifically a song entitled
"Jennie's Song" and three sequences amounting to around three-and-a-half
minutes' worth of music. "Jennie's Song," setting text from the novel by Robert
Nathan on which the movie is based, does appear in the movie. See DeMary, "The
Mystery of Herrmann's Music," 178-79.

11 The Letter of Agreement with Tiomkin can be found in SELZ 1151.9. See also
DeMary, "The Mystery of Herrmann's Music," 170. Jennie would not be the first
movie Tiomkin scored by arranging existing music, as he made extensive use of the
second movement of Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony no. 7, Op. 92 in the 1937
film The Long Night. For one of his first full film scores, written for Mad Love, he
used music by Frédéric Chopin and Siegfried Idyll by Richard Wagner. For a
discussion of the use of Chopin and Wagner's music in the film, see Sarah
Reichardt, "Music, Madness and Modernity in Karl Freund's Mad Love (1935),"
Horror Studies, 2, no. 1 (2011): 3-13. Thank you to William Rosar for pointing out
Tiomkin's use of Beethoven's music in The Long Night.

12 The original signed license for the use of Debussy's music can be found in SELZ
944.4.

13 Mike Cormack, "The Pleasures of Ambiguity: Using Classical Music in Film," in

Changing Tunes: The Use of Pre-existing Music in Film, ed. Phil Powrie and Robynn
Stil well (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2006), 19.

14 Cormack, "The Pleasures of Ambiguity," 19. However, with Tiomkin scoring the
film, a lack of orchestral forces would never be a question.

15 Dean Duncan, Charms that Soothe: Classical Music and the Narrative Film (New
York: Fordham University Press, 2003), 137. See also Cormack, "The Pleasures of
Ambiguity," 19.

16 Cormack, "The Pleasures of Ambiguity," 20.

17 Cormack, "The Pleasures of Ambiguity," 21.

18 SELZ 994.4.

19 For a detailed discussion of the score see Platte, "Musical Collaboration in the
Films of David O. Selznick," 343-416 and Platte, "Conducting the Composer," 132-
34.

20 Platte, "Musical Collaboration in the Films of David O. Selznick," 375. See also
Brown's discussion of the score's structure in comparison to that of Debussy's opera
Pellêas and Mêlisande, 58-65.

21 For a thorough discussion of the production of Portrait of Jennie, its score, how
the score functions in the film, and the reception history of the film and its score, see
Platte's chapter on the movie in "Musical Collaboration in the Films of David O.
Selznick," 310-431. See also Brown, Debussy Redux, 58-65.

22 See Brown, Debussy Redux, 59-60, and Platte, "Musical Collaboration in the
Films of David O Selznick," 351-354 for discussions of the use of leitmotifs in the
film.

23 Originally the orchestration also included the theremin. Tiomkin successfully

argued that the theremin was not appropriate and it was not used when the score
was recorded. In a memo to James Stewart dated August 14, 1948 Tiomkin states,
"After careful analysis and thought I have come to the definite conclusion that I
cannot use the theremin, because of the nature of my score which is based on
DEBUSSY. Have written so many sequences I feel certain that I can achieve the
effect of an eerie and fantastic mood without the use of an instrument about which
people have made so many remarks and done so much kidding." SELZ 1151.9 (1 of
2). See Platte, "Musical Collaboration in the Films of David O. Selznick," 380-81.
24 Platte, "Musical Collaboration in the Films of David O. Selznick," 382.

25 At times, Debussy's music is stripped down to such small motivic units that it was
difficult to define a specific piece the musical idea was derived from. After the
release of the movie both Jobert and Durand complained that Debussy's music was
misused in the film. Durand contested that La Mer was used without permission
(Biosnard to Downing, January 25, 1950, SELZ 994.5). In an interview recorded in
1977, James Stewart, Technical Supervisor for Portrait of Jennie, noted that when it
came to the music for Jennie, "If there wasn't any melody in the music, he didn't
want it. It was no good...When [Tiomkin] wrote the...uh...music for Portrait...naturally,
he had to write transition things to get from one theme to the other." Yet, when the
music was played for Selznick, if he didn't hear a melody, he didn't like it. Stewart
notes they "had to take them [the transitions] all out." James G. Stewart, interview
by Craig Reardon, tape recording, Hollywood, CA, February 3, 1977.

26 The agreement with the Debussy estate and its publishers, Durand and Jobert,
required Vanguard Films to create a complete list of music used and timings for
every music cue, as well as the total amount of time music by each publisher is
used. These lists can be found in SELZ 1149.6.

27 See Platte, "Musical Collaboration in the Films of David O. Selznick," 471- 74 for
a discussion of the use of Debussy's music in early cinema.

28 Sent from Merv Houser to Bob Gill ham, New York Office Publicity Director,
SELZ 569.11. This is not altogether true, as most of the diegetic music for the film is
not based on Debussy's music.

29 Houser to Gillham, October 7, 1948, SELZ 3377.7.

30 SELZ 944.4. The sheet music was released only in the United Kingdom.

31 Selznick to Stewart, July 24, 1947, SELZ569.il.

32 See license, SELZ 944.4.

33 In a memo to Dann dated December 27, 1948, Stewart provides a page- long
breakdown of the studio's use of Tiomkin and admits that Tiomkin was owed
additional money, SELZ 569.11 and 992.20.

34 See Brown, Debussy Redux, 55, for a more comprehensive discussion of the
costs to score the film.

35 Umberto Eco, The Open Work (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1989), 185.

36 Eco, The Open Work, 185.

37 Brown comes to a similar conclusion stating the Jennie lacks "aesthetic depth"
resulting in "pure kitsch rather than genuine art," Brown, Debussy Redux, 62.
38 Selznick to Wick and Stewart, February 19, 1947 (dictated February 18), SELZ
569.11. DeMary notes that Wick was a bit flummoxed by this memo, as it was
difficult to tell a composer to work on a song, if a composer had yet to be hired. See
DeMary, "The Mystery of Herrmann's Music," 161.

39 The Robinson-Burge song was originally titled "Portrait of Jenny." Sheet music,
without a cover page, with that spelling can be found in SELZ 1677.2. The confusion
about the correct spelling of Jennie seems to have surrounded the production and
still remains. The Robinson-Burge song is still often referred to with its original
spelling "Portrait of Jenny" and in his highly regarded history of film, The Genius of
the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era (New York: Henry Holt and
Company, 1996), Thomas Schatz barely makes mention of the film and when he
does he misspells the title Portrait of fenny (40 5).

40 Selznick to Wick, July 11, 1947 (dictated July 8), SELZ 944.4. Selznick must
have known he could not stop Warnow from using the title "Portrait of Jennie," as
song titles cannot be copyrighted.

41 By August 8, 1947 Dann asked Wick to "look into the legal angles of this and
write them a letter," SELZ 944.4. On September 9, 1947 a letter was sent warning
Warnow music to desist further publication or Vanguard Films "will be compelled to
take such action...as we deem proper," SELZ 944.4.

42 See Dann to Selznick, April 10, 1948 (SELZ 569.11) and Wick to Selznick, May
6, 1948 (SELZ 944.4) (the same memo is also in SELZ 569.11).

43 Memo from Selznick to MacNamara, dated May 15, 1948; the memo can be
found in both SELZ 944.4 and 569.111.

44 From Selznick to MacNamara dated May 16, 1948; the memo can be found in
both SELZ 944.4 and 569.11.

45 Selznick to MacNamara dated May 21, 1948 (dictated May 20), SELZ 944.4.

46 Wick to Hungate, June 8, 1948, SELZ 944.4. While Warnow seems to be

insistent in pushing the song, in a June 9, 1948 memo to Hungate, Wick states that
"unless a definite tie-in could be established between this song and the release of
our film, 'Portrait of Jennie,' that all plans to proceed further with the song would be
abandoned [by Warnow] ...they have no desire to become embroiled in any legal
tangles." SELZ 944.4.

47 Memo dated September 3, 1948, SELZ 944.4.

48 Memo to Dann and Stewart, September 27, 1948, SELZ 944.4.

49 Wick to Selznick, August 2, 1948, SELZ 944.4.

50 Selznick to Wick, August 3, 1948, SELZ 944.4.

51 SELZ 944.4. "Jennie's Little Song" comes from the original book by Robert
Nathan on which the screenplay was based.

52 Wick to Selznick, August 2, 1948, SELZ 944.4.

53 Mark Warnow conducted the orchestra on "Your Hit Parade," a CBS radio
program and thus had leverage to get the song air time.

54 Selznick to MacNamara, July 30, 1948, SELZ 944.4.

55 Selznick to Wick, August 3, 1948, SELZ 944.4.

56 Selznick to MacNamara, July 30, 1948, SELZ 944.4.

57SELZ 569.il.

58 Houser to Gillham, October 14, 1948, SELZ 569.11.

59 A copy of the sheet music can be found in SELZ 1151.9, 1 of 2.

60 Capitol Records 15387. It is not clear as to when the song was recorded. Cole
biographer Leslie Gourse lists the song as being recorded on January 14, 1949.
Gourse, Unforgettable: The Life and Mystique of Nat King Cole (New York: Cooper
Square Press, 2000), 271. James Haskins and Kathleen Benson list the album as
being originally released in 1947. Haskins and Benson, Nat King Cole (New York:
Stein and Day, 1984), 185. In a memo dated December 27, 1948 from Wick to Gil
ham, Wick lists three "records that are now set for the song POJ" with the statement
"King Cole-Capitol-released January 15th" (SELZ 1247.1). The use of past tense
implies that song was recorded before the strike by the American Federation of
Musicians took effect on January 1, 1948 causing a nearly year-long stoppage of
recordings and was originally released in 1948, with a second release coming in
early 1949 to tie the song to the movie. It is clear the song was in circulation with the
LA disc jockeys in late 1948. The song was released in the UK in May 1949 (Capitol
UK CL13096).

61 Wick to Selznick, August 2, 1948, SELZ 944.4.

62 A memo from Selznick to MacNamara dated July 30, 1948 includes a

handwritten note from Dann stating, "our permission was confined to Giro's," SELZ
944.4.

63 Haskins and Benson, Nat King Cole, 74. According to the authors, those in
attendance included "Prince Mohammed Ali and Princess Hanrede of Egypt, the
Louis Jourdans, and Ronald Reagan and Betty Blyth."

64SELZ 569.il.

65 See jazzdiscography.com and http://www.jazzdisco.org/.

66 See http://jazzrealbook.net/Real-Book-Master-Index.pdf.

67 Schatz, The Genius of the System, 383.

68 Platte, "Conducting the Composer," 127.

69 Paul McNamara, Those Were the Days, My Friend: My Life in Hollywood with
DandO. Selznick and Others (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1993), 113- 14.
Selznick's production company changed names over the years, starting with
Selznick International Pictures before becoming David O. Selznick Productions. By
the time Jennie went into production, the company name was Vanguard Films.

70 David Thomson, Showman: The Life of David O. Selznick (New York: Knopf,
1992), 502.

71 Platte, "Musical Collaboration in the Films of David O. Selznick," 311.

72 Platte, "Musical Collaboration in the Films of David O. Selznick," 313.

73 Platte, "Musical Collaboration in the Films of David O. Selznick," 314.

74 Thomson notes the long shots "in which Jennie appeared and disappeared are
still among the most stirring in all of Selznick's work," Showman, 498-99.

75 Cormack, "The Pleasures of Ambiguity," 30.

References

Bibliography

Brown, Matthew. 2012. Debussy Redux: The impact of his music on popular culture.
Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Cormack, Mike. 2006. The pleasures of ambiguity: Using classical music in film. In
Changing tunes: the use of pre-existing music in film, ed. Phil Powrie and Robynn J
eananne Stilwell. Aldershot, UK; Burlington, VT: Ashgate.

DeMary, Thomas. 2003. The mystery of Herrmann's music for Selznick's Portrait of
Jennie. The Journal of Film Music 1, no. 2/3: 153-82.

Dieterle, William. 2000. Portrait of Jennie. Starz/Anchor Bay.

Duncan, Dean. 2003. Charms that soothe: Classical music and the narrative film.
New York: Fordham University Press.

Eco, Umberto. 1989. The open work. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Course, Leslie. 2000. Unforgettable: The life and mystique of Nat King Cole. New
York: Cooper Square Press.
Haskins, James, and Kathleen Benson. 1984. Nat King Cole. New York: Stein and
Day.

Jazz Discography Project, http://www.jazzdisco.org.

JazzDiscography.com. http://www.jazzdiscography.com.

McNamara, Paul. 1993. Those were the days, my friend: My life in Flollywood with
David O. Selznick and others. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press.

Platte, Nathan R. 2010. Musical collaboration in the films of David O Selznick, 1932-
1957. The University of Michigan.

_____. 2012. Conducting the composer: David O. Selznick and the Hollywood film
score. In Music, Sound and Filmmakers: Sonic Style in Cinema, ed. James
Wierzbicki, 122-37. New York: Routledge.

Real Book Master Index. http://jazzrealbook.net/Real-Book-Master-Index.pdf.

Reichardt, Sarah. 2011. Music, madness and modernity in Karl Freund's MadLove
(1935). Florror Studies 2, no. 1: 3-13. http://dx.doi.Org/10.1386/host.2.l.3_l

Schatz, Thomas. 1996. The genius of the system: Flollywood filmmaking in the
studio era. New York: Henry Holt and Company.

Thomson, David. 1992. Showman: The life of David O. Selznick. New York: Knopf.

AuthorAffiliation

SARAH REICHARDT ELLIS

University of Oklahoma

sjr@ou.edu

Publication title: Journal of Film Music; La Jolla

Volume: 4
Issue: 2
Pages: 115-124
Number of pages: 10
Publication year: 2011
Publication date: 2011
Section: ARTICLE
Publisher: Equinox Publishing Ltd.
Place of publication: La Jolla
Country of publication: United Kingdom
Publication subject: Motion Pictures, Music
ISSN: 10877142
Source type: Scholarly Journals
Language of publication: English
Document type: General Information
ProQuest document ID: 1626670563
Document URL: http://0-
search.proquest.com.cisne.sim.ucm.es/docview/1626670563?accountid=14514
Copyright: Copyright Equinox Publishing Ltd 2011
Last updated: 2014-11-22
Database: Music Periodicals Database