Yesterday, Michael S. wrote:
Re:
MY FUNNY VALENTINE Reply #384 on: February 14, 2009, 11:19:08 PM
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Quote from: Druxy on February 14, 2009, 08:19:10 PM
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Quote from: JRand58 on February 14, 2009, 06:57:12 PM
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I made the mistake of switching to TCM and finding LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING.....one of my favorite romantic/tragic movies.....
And such beautiful music...and lovely CinemaScope photography....
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Did you know that the title song for that film, written by Paul Francis Webster and Sammy Fain, was almost thrown out of the picture?
No major recording artist wanted to record it. Not Tony Martin. Not Doris Day. Not Nat "King" Cole. Nobody!
Finally, Fox got The Four Aces to record it, but in order to do that, they had to cover the cost of an entire album.
Of course, the tune went on to win the Oscar and become one of the greatest love songs of all time.
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but didn't Frank Sinatra sing it in the film uncredited?
No, its lyric was introduced in the film by the 20th Century-Fox chorus at the end of the film.
Sinatra sang "Three Coins in the Fountain", uncredited, the year before, but it was The Four Aces who made a commercial hit with it first.
I know that Fox introduced the song prior to the film's release by getting it out to radio stations and the fact that it was recorded by The Four Aces instead of a single artist may be where this allegation about no one wanting to record it came from.
I would imagine the reverse is more likely true. Since The Four Aces had scored so big with "Three Coins...", it would have been strange for Fox to have had any reservations about the song or that the studio would have gone with anyone else. The Four Aces were huge in the early 1950s and made hits of songs like "Secret Love" and "Mr. Sandman." With the previous year's mega-hit "Three Coins in the Fountain" and the succeeding year's "Love is a Many-Splendored Thing" and the title tune to Fox's "(It's A) Woman's World," Fox and The Four Aces were HUGE on the radio waves.
Also, at the time the song began playing on radio, it had already been integrated into Alfred Newman's score because he felt it set the right tone throughout the film. It would have taken a serious misfire during previews for the song to have been taken out.
