1935_ Sanders of the River, directed by Zoltán Korda, music by Mischa Spoliansky. In the early decades of the Venice Film Festival, there was a temptation to include an award for the best soundtrack. This temptation seems to have been entirely eliminated since the 1950s.In 1935, the award went to Mischa Spoliansky, who began his career in the cabarets of Weimar-era Berlin and during those years composed what is considered the first homosexual song, Das lila Lied.
1947_Siréna, directed by Karel Steklý, music by E.F. Burian. The award for the best soundtrack, like a subterranean river, returns in 1947 with this film about a strike in a Bohemian mining town, a solid work of socialist realism.
1948_The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, directed by John Huston, music by Max Steiner.
The soundtrack receives the award for the best musical score (afterward, the award seems to disappear from the Venice Film Festival’s list of winners, but we may be mistaken, as our research is not exhaustive). An enduring soundtrack, the result of absolute talent both in creative composition and lavish orchestral arrangement.
