Journal of Film Music 4.

2 (2011) 115-124 ISSN (print) 1087-7142

doi:10.1558/jfm.v4i2.115 ISSN (online) 1758-860X

Article

Remastered and Remaindered: Debussy’s Music,

Nat King Cole’s Song, and David O. Selznick’s
attempt at High Art on a Low Budget*

Sarah Reichardt Ellis

University of Oklahoma
sjr@ou.edu

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

R 
eleased 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
* 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.

© Copyright the International Film Music Society, published by Equinox Publishing Ltd 2014, Office 415, The Workstation, 15 Paternoster Row, Sheffield, S1 2BX.
116   THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC
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.
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.
© The International Film Music Society 2014.
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 Menotti, and Norman O’Neill, ultimately he
never fully swayed from the idea of using Debussy’s
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.

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
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 Stilwell (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.
© The International Film Music Society 2014.
Remastered and Remaindered   117
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
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.
118   THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC
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
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 Pelléas and Mélisande, 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.
© The International Film Music Society 2014.
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
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.

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
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 Gillham, 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.
© The International Film Music Society 2014.
Remastered and Remaindered   119
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
31 Selznick to Stewart, July 24, 1947, SELZ 569.11.
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.
120   THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC
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
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 Jenny (405).
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
© The International Film Music Society 2014.
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
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.

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:
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.
© The International Film Music Society 2014.
Remastered and Remaindered   121
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
56 Selznick to MacNamara, July 30, 1948, SELZ 944.4.
57 SELZ 569.11.
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 Gilham, 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
122   THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC
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 Ciro’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 11.”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”.
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
Ciro’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.”
64 SELZ 569.11.
65 See jazzdiscography.com and http://www.jazzdisco.org/.
66 See http://jazzrealbook.net/Real-Book-Master-Index.pdf.
© The International Film Music Society 2014.
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
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
David O. 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.
 Remastered and Remaindered   123

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.

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.

© The International Film Music Society 2014.

124   THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC

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

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———. 2012. Conducting the composer: David O. Selznick and the Hollywood film score. In Music, Sound
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© The International Film Music Society 2014.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without
permission.