John Cromwell Collectors Guide: Since You Went Away (1944)

by Brent Reid
Brent Reid
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  • Home front drama inspired by letters to the frontline from a devoted soldier’s wife
  • Superb performances from all-star ensemble cast ensured award-winning, box office hit
  • But for all its wholesome, morale-boosting ambitions, controversy lurked behind the scenes
  • Publicity campaign rendered one of its Oscar-winning stars invisible… because of her skin colour
  • Art imitates life: romantic leads were played by a real-life married couple with two small children
  • But powerful svengali producer stole the wife, leading to her scorned husband’s tragic early death
  • Original composer and partially-written score jettisoned when producer’s first choice became free 
  • Sister drama: I’ll Be Seeing You reunites many of the cast and crew, and is equally worthy of attention

Since You Went Away, Part 2: Soundtrack

Since You Went Away (1944) US insert poster

US insert poster

Contents

Production

Intro | review

The WWII home front is vividly portrayed in this poignant drama that stars Claudette Colbert, Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Shirley Temple, Monty Woolley, Agnes Moorehead and Hattie McDaniel. Produced and written by David O. Selznick, Since You Went Away was nominated for a total of nine Oscars. The film’s opening words describe it perfectly: “This is the story of the Unconquerable Fortress: the American Home…1943.”

When Tim Hilton joins the army, his wife, Anne (Colbert), and two daughters, 17-year-old Jane (Jones), and Bridget (Temple), who’s in her early teens, are devastated. Anne does her best to keep the girls’ morale up, but is herself daunted by the very idea of running a household alone. Wartime shortages, rationing, and tight money don’t make things easier. To help make ends meet, they take in Col. Smollett (Woolley) as a boarder. The stodgy, demanding, blustery man isn’t much fun to have around, but the family’s spirits are always raised by visits from Tim’s best friend, Tony Willet (Cotten), a gregarious, worldly painter who’s now a naval officer.

There may not be combat on the home front, but there are “battles” of a different kind. For Jane, this is a time of growing up. She develops a crush on Tony, and enters into a relationship with the Colonel’s grandson. Bill (Robert Walker). a young soldier who will soon be sent overseas. For Anne, it’s a time of waiting that becomes an ordeal of uncertainty when Tim is reported missing in action. For Col. Smollett, it becomes an opportunity to resolve the anger he has long felt towards his grandson.

Nice photo but someone’s missing: Black History in Since You Went Away – Bobby Rivers

L-R: Shirley Temple, Jennifer Jones, Claudette Colbert, Joseph Cotten, Monty Woolley, Robert Walker and Lionel Barrymore (seated) in Since You Went Away (1944)

L-R: Shirley Temple, Jennifer Jones, Claudette Colbert, Joseph Cotten, Monty Woolley, Robert Walker and Lionel Barrymore (seated)

Shirley Temple: Life Goes to Her Birthday Party | first day of shooting | tie-ins: she uses tooth powder and drinks cola!

David O. Selznick’s Personal War Effort

With World War II affecting every family in America, David O. Selznick wanted to make a film that would express what those at home were experiencing, and at the same time boost the morale of its audience. With this end in mind, he gave his story department the job of finding “a war story without battles”. After nine months of constant searching, the producer still didn’t have what he was looking for. Then Selznick learned about a new book, Since You Went Away: Letters to a Soldier from His Wife (1943).* It was simply a collection of letters a Dayton woman had written to her husband, in which she described day-to-day life at home. Selznick saw its potential instantly, hired the woman, and assisted her in giving the letters dramatic structure. Then he wrote the screenplay himself, using the pseudonym Jeffrey Daniel (the names of his sons). Selznick broadened the scope of the book to evoke life on the home front for everyone, and at last had his “war story without battles”.

Colbert, Jones and Woolley received Oscar nominations for their excellent performances, and the film was nominated as Best Picture of 1944. Enhanced by Max Steiner’s lyrical, Oscar-winning score and featuring Agnes Moorehead, Lionel Barrymore and Guy Madison (in his film debut), Since You Went Away is a deeply moving story of a family—and a nation—whose spirit truly is unconquerable. – US CBS/Fox LD (1991) LDDb

Movie of the Week: Since You Went Away – Life (cover, p.11)

*Said book was penned by Margaret Buell Wilder; here’s another letter from her husband. Do read a similar, equally brilliant eponymous collection and its editors’ attendant essay; the pair have also penned many other first-rate books on this and related subjects:

Controversies

What You Didn’t Know About Hattie McDaniel!

Four of the leads were Best Actor/Actress Oscar winners and arguably at the top of their game: Lionel Barrymore (A Free Soul), Claudette Colbert (It Happened One Night), Hattie McDaniel (Gone with the Wind) and Jennifer Jones (The Song of Bernadette). But only one of them was conspicuously excluded from all publicity materials – and happened to be Black. Even 14th-billed Guy Madison, bless him, was mentioned on the posters instead of eighth-billed McDaniel. Even the expansive, 84-page US pressbook only gives her one significant mention and one shared photo, and in both she’s simply described as “buxom”. The same thing happened countless times including, to a slightly lesser degree, with Canada Lee in the same year’s Lifeboat. You can always rely on reductive, racist Hollywood.

 David O. Selznick and the Marketing of Since You Went Away – Mark  Fenster

There were equally insalubrious happenings elsewhere on the lot: at that time, Jennifer Jones and powerful producer David O. Selznick, who had brought Alfred Hitchcock over to the States five years earlier for his most recent film Rebecca, were both married to other people and openly embroiled in a tempestuous affair. Selznick was 17 years his underling’s senior and they had two children apiece from their respective marriages. Selznick cast Jones opposite her by now estranged husband Robert Walker and in a terrible case of art imitating life, they played doomed young lovers; all under the punishing, watchful eye of the sadistic producer – who wrote this film, remember. Anyway, Selznick made a point of being constantly on set and forcing the couple to do retake after retake, much to their distress. Truly sick.

Since You Went Away: A Classic – Alan Royle

Since You Went Away (1944) US lobby card

US lobby card. Sometimes art can be a mirror and a hammer.

From the minute he first laid eyes on Jones, Selznick had aggressively pursued his new employee and soon famously exerted a Svengali-like hold over her career, simultaneously boosting and constricting it, much as 33-years-older William Randolph Hearst had done with Marion Davies two decades earlier. Walker later related to his co-star Katherine Hepburn on the set of Song of Love (1947), “My personal life has been completely wrecked by Selznick’s obsession for my wife. What can you do to fight such a powerful man?” Walker went on to star in many other films over the next few years, including an acclaimed performance in Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train. But he never really recovered from the destruction of his marriage and died under tragic circumstances in 1951, aged only 32. With a life paralleling Laird Cregar’s in The Lodger, he was yet another victim of the Hollywood machine. Somewhat ironically for an infamous megalomaniac who seldom showed signs of possessing one, Selznick died of a heart attack in 1965 at the age of 63. But not soon enough.

L-R: Michael Walker, Jennifer Jones, Robert Walker and Robert Walker Jr.

In happier times. L-R: Michael, Jennifer, Robert and Robert Jr. Both sons also became actors.

Since You Went Away bears close comparison with similarly-themed Samuel Goldwyn-produced, William Wyler-directed The Best Years of Our Lives, released two years later. Both concern life on the home front and how “They also serve who only stand and wait”, as the poet John Milton so memorably enunciated. The ironically-titled, nine-Oscar-scooping latter film is also a three-hour magnum opus illustrating the difficulties faced by said loved ones and returning soldiers, not all of whom bear their scars on the outside. Much more realistic and less sentimental than its predecessor, it rightly became the highest-grossing film of the 1940s. Do seek both films out and watch them on the biggest screen you can find – but have your hanky at the ready.

Home video

Since You Went Away (1944) US Kino Lorber Blu-ray

Kino Lorber’s US BD, with artwork based on the US one sheet poster, is the best release to date

There are surprisingly few legit home video options for this important film but, less surprisingly, the bootlegs more than equal them in number. There’s the usual array of Spanish and Italian rip-off DVDs, but also a crappy Spanish BD-R from Blackfire/Llamentol. Stick to these quality releases which, also surprisingly for such an important film, have no extras bar the odd appearance of the theatrical trailer above.

Bootlegs: Argentina (Emerald), Brazil (ClassicLine/2-DVD), Chile (Cinematekka/4-DVD), Italy (30 Holding), Korea (LGkid, Sky Cinema), Spain (Blackfire BD-R, Regia/2-DVD).

Alexandre Tansman

As mentioned above, Steiner’s score was the second attempted, as composer Alexandre Tansman was originally recruited by Selznick but then discarded the Polish émigré’s initial efforts after securing his first choice. However, some of Transman’s pieces did make it into the finished film, albeit uncredited. He became a French citizen in 1938 but fled the Nazis for Hollywood, staying there from 1941–1946 before returning to Paris. His Hollywood residency was facilitated with the help of his friend Charlie Chaplin, for whom he had written an eponymous piano concerto in 1927.

Though widely renowned for his huge contribution to classical music, Transman’s modest tally of film scores amounts to 20-odd minor productions, for most of which his input was limited to uncredited stock music. But he did have one significant screen success, when his score for 1945’s Paris Underground, titled Madame Pimpernel in the UK, was nominated for an Oscar. It’s a great wartime thriller starring Constance Bennett and Gracie Fields, and well worth a look but ensure you get the sole legit release:

Source music

Since You Went Away is peppered with a whole host of American standards and recent hits, both quoted in Steiner’s score and as diegetic music. The most prominent is the 1928 classic “Together”, which appears throughout in both contexts. Already popular with and without lyrics, the film’s showcasing led to a revival and it’s now been recorded a staggering number of times – easily over 100 (alt) – though the most prominent, the film version, is by an unknown band and singer.

The song sold well on tie-in sheet music in the US (variant), UK and Oz, and chief among the versions spawned in the wake of the film’s success was that by Dick Haymes and Helen Forrest, backed by Victor Young and His Orchestra. Released on 78rpm 10″, it was a top three hit on the Billboard charts, paired with their rendition of the even more popular standard, “It Had to Be You“. That song had appeared in an uncredited version in the none-too-imaginatively titled Eddie Cantor musical Show Business, a box office hit just two months prior to Since You Went Away.

Lastly, the film itself inspired a tie-in song of the same name which was also sold as sheet music (variant) and a 78rpm 10″ recorded by Jerry Wald and His Orchestra with chorus vocals by Ginnie Powell.

Other recordings

Amazingly, though it begs for a complete digital stereo re-recording, there are only a few brief partial revisitations of Steiner’s beautiful score. The first is Paul Weston and His Orchestra’s mini-suite of three themes – Love, Jones’ leitmotif and Waltz – which featured on their tribute album to Mrs Jones alongside instrumentals from The Song of Bernadette, Duel in the Sun and Portrait of Jennie.

Next is an excellent 1973 rendition of the Main Title, laid down at Kingsway Hall in London by American arranger-conductor-producer Charles Gerhardt.

1988 was the centenary of Steiner’s birth, prompting an album of covers from his and Franz Waxman’s films by American guitarist Gregg Nestor, including Since You Went Away’s Love theme.

I’ll Be Seeing You (1944)

I’ll Be Seeing You, Selznick’s equally worthy follow-up to Since You Went Away, was released just six months later and treads very similar ground. It sees the return of 22 cast and crew including leads Joseph Cotten and Shirley Temple; indeed, John Cromwell was also initially slated to direct before William Dieterle took over. But there are only a few legit releases, with Kino Lorber’s remastered transfer including an audio commentary on top, and sadly none whatsoever for its fine Daniele Amfitheatrof score.

Lux Radio Theatre: I’ll Be Seeing You, December 24, 1945 – Joseph Cotten and Dorothy McGuire

Since You Went Away, Part 2: Soundtrack

I started Brenton Film because I love film – quelle surprise! The silent era, 1930s and 1940s especially get my literary juices flowing, so you'll see a lot about those. For more, see the About page and read this before emailing.

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