Three Coins in the Fountain

Cahn and Styne wrote this title song after seeing rough footage of the film — with no completed script and no finished score — and delivered it the same day. That spontaneity produced one of the great movie songs: Sinatra’s recording won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, Cahn’s first Oscar, while the Four Aces’ version reached #1 on the Billboard charts.

A song born in a single afternoon that has outlasted nearly everything else from 1954 — the Trevi Fountain still draws tourists throwing coins, and this is part of the reason why.