Bad Accents in Movies

[bart]

I wouldn't be surprised to hear some young foreign actor say that they learned an American accent from watching "Friends" and "Grey's Anatomy" on loop for a few weeks.

It certainly seemed to work that way with American music. I had a number of friends who improved their English, or learned a kind of colloquial English not taught in schools, by listening to U.S. pop and rock albums over and over.

[zerbinetta]

I don't have a copy of Cornelius Ryan's The Longest Day handy, so I can't check on whether the Flanagan character is an actual historical person, or a Zanuck-invented "Greek chorus" for the movie. Would this migration have been in place long enough for a 30something "career private" in the British Army in 1944?

I'm afraid of getting rather off-topic here, but, briefly, from 1871 - 1961 more Irish left Ireland than were born there. In 1861 the population was 4.4 million; in 1961 the population was 2.8 million. The majority went to the US or UK.

The 'age of mass migration" lasted from 1871 - 1927, which would seem to answer the Flanagan question.

[carbro]

Whatever the reason, there has been a trend towards more American-sounding accents among Europeans among the boomers. When I was growing up in the '50s and '60s, most Europeans who spoke English did so with accents tending toward a standard English pronunciation. Their children definitely have American vowels and Rs, etc. It's possible that they were taught that in school.

I think the British Empire's stamp in so much of Asia may have slowed a transformation in most of those countries. Time will tell if they Americanize or not.

I hope the accents of many African countries -- with their wonderful musicality and rhythms -- stay exactly as they are.

[Mashinka]

(just listen to the difference between Queen Elisabeth and her grandchildren), but the new London accent is much closer, mainly in its slurring of sylables, to a generic American accent.

That would be "Estuary English" and its taking hold fast.

I think the British Empire's stamp in so much of Asia may have slowed a transformation in most of those countries. Time will tell if they Americanize or not.

Quite possibly, but the rhythms and intonations of the myriad languages of the Indian sub-continent have an uncanny resemblance to Welsh.

[Mel Johnson]

I finally got hold of a copy of Ryan's The Longest Day, and find that the "Flanagan" character in the movie is a composite of three in the book, none of whom were named Flanagan. I wondered how this character fell into the water on Gold Beach, encountered Colin Maud on Juno Beach with the Canadians, and then fell in with Lord Lovat and his Commandos on Sword Beach. It looks like another case of Producer's Disease. See Gone With the Wind - one or the other of Scarlett's sisters is discovered on, reading David Copperfield. In the book, it's Les Miserables. Why? Selznick preferred Dickens over Hugo, and besides, he'd never read the latter book.

[dirac]

It looks like another case of Producer's Disease. See Gone With the Wind - one or the other of Scarlett's sisters is discovered on, reading David Copperfield. In the book, it's Les Miserables. Why? Selznick preferred Dickens over Hugo, and besides, he'd never read the latter book.

It’s Melanie reading from David Copperfield. I also figured the substitution had something to do with choosing a book with a non-foreign title. And in the book Melanie praises Dickens, so the choice isn’t completely out of left field.

Another person who has played many nationalities, usually without varying his accent, is Omar Sharif. He's Egyptian I think, but not sure if that is the accent one hears. So not a Russian in Dr.Zhivago,

He was also a highly unlikely Nicky Arnstein in Funny Girl, with the same accent.

[carbro]

The Katherine Healy thread reminded me that one of the many, many, many problems with her film, Six Weeks, (Kathy conspicuously not among the problems) was the fact that Dudley Moore, British accent and all, was supposed to be a candidate for the US House of Representatives. At the time I found it bizarre that he didn't even attempt an American accent, but given the accent of California's current Governor, there may have been no need to suspend disbelief.

[miliosr]

Brad Pitt's "British" accent in Troy is unfortunate. He should have just stuck with his regular speaking voice rather than reaching for something he couldn't achieve.

[bart]

Brad Pitt's "British" accent in Troy is unfortunate. He should have just stuck with his regular speaking voice rather than reaching for something he couldn't achieve.

I wonder if there is a "standard" American accent -- one that that is immediately recognizable as American but which does not call attention to its regional or class origins? If so, can anyone give an example of an actor who can speak in such an accent? And where in this country one might find it?

On the other hand, he might have gone for Greek. A few viewings of Zorba might have made Pitt's Achilles a little more lively. A ouzo-drinking, plate-breaking, line-dancing competition with Hector? Fun!

[Mel Johnson]

In different schools of drama, there's a thing called "Standard English diction" which is neither British nor American, but could be either if it's done properly. Pitt's founders somewhere in the North Atlantic Ocean, which is too bad. I've been told that I sort of fade into it when I'm doing first-person interpretation of Revolutionary War-era people. The British and the Americans sounded very much alike, which is why John André didn't get nailed immediately as a British officer when acting as gobetween for Gen. Sir Henry Clinton and Benedict Arnold. In my mind, though, I realize that what I do isn't really correct, as what I use is a 20th-century construct in pronunciation. People in a better position than I to know say that they all sounded much more Celtic in pronunciation, whether your Celts were Welsh, Scottish, or Irish. The Saxons were a whole other trip. And the old power families in the late 18th century were also mostly connected to the Norman Conquest. That had an effect on their diction. The accent we think of today as an "English" accent probably owes a lot to David Garrick and his "Italianate Speech" about which Dr. Johnson gave him such trouble. Maybe John Burgoyne talked that way, but most of them wouldn't have. Sir Henry Clinton, the British Commander-in-Chief in North America in 1780 had spent more time in America than in England. He was born in Halifax, and lived in New York City until he was 16. He sounded more like the Americans than some of the Americans.

[papeetepatrick]

In different schools of drama, there's a thing called "Standard English diction" which is neither British nor American, but could be either if it's done properly.

That reminds me of something I may have made up (but don't think it's entirely so), but has to do with a lot of Hollywood diction from esp. the late 30s into the 50s. I thought there was some phrase about 'Hollywood elocution', but no google found it. Anyway, the carefully tight accents from everybody from Joan Blondell to some of Cary Grant to Lana Turner to Betty Grable to Loretta Young to Gracie Allen--anyway, it's this very 'neat-sounding' thing that might be related to standard English diction. Anybody know what I'm talking about? I don't recall any of the European stars thinking they needed to bother with it, and anybody with a slouch or low-slung nonchalance managed to never use it, althogh Barbara Stanwyck sometimes seemed to fall into it, speaking as if without opening her mouth sometimes, and Angie Dickinson sometimes used this speech--more in women than men, I think. But not in smoky-sexy types like Kim Novak who spoke more expansively, etc. I could probably think of a lot more, but secretaries in movis especially all had this neat kind of sound. I don't think you ever hear this any more, but Nicole Kidman may be close to it when she uses her American accent (I concede I'm also always surprised when I then hear speaking in Australian accent.) Janet Leigh used it occasionally, many others. I think it is a specific, taught form of speech for film actors in the Golden Age Hollywood period, not sure.

[carbro]

I'm thinking of Bette Davis with her extra-crispy T's and understated R's. Is that it?

[papeetepatrick]

I'm thinking of Bette Davis with her extra-crispy T's and understated R's. Is that it?

I did think of her while I was writing my vague post, but thought she was mostly a little too expressive for the pure form of what I think I'm talking about. It's kind of like what you'd here in very pedestrian lines like 'He'll be right with you, Mr. Stanford', with the name pronounced neatly 'Mistah Stan-fahd'. Or those classic cliches like "You-uh huh-ting me" or ''We'll get the money and go away togethuh..." Bette may talk like that too when she's calmed down (somewhat rare occurrence), but when she does, she makes even the standard sounds idiosyncratic, since incapable of not doing so. I bet dirac can help us on this Hollywood Elocution Fugue State I'm suffering.

[klingsor]

Harvey Keitel in "The Duellists".

I thought he was brilliant, though.

And I'm not sure Edward G. Robinson was doing his natural accent in The Ten Commandments. Sounded more like his "Little Caesar" accent. Loved it, though.

[dirac]

I think it is a specific, taught form of speech for film actors in the Golden Age Hollywood period, not sure.

Everyone got very Britishy in the early days of sound, with Joan Crawford et al. saying “cahhhnt” for “can’t” and so forth under the influence of the diction coaches. Even after sound production became more sophisticated, actors had to project more loudly and clearly than they do nowadays to ensure the mikes picked them up – there was not a lot of mumbling going on in the Golden Age, even from Bogart.

Bette may talk like that too when she's calmed down (somewhat rare occurrence), but when she does, she makes even the standard sounds idiosyncratic, since incapable of not doing so.

That’s not quite fair, I think – Davis could sound perfectly unaffected, especially in her younger days.

Harvey Keitel in "The Duellists".

I thought he was brilliant, though.

Hello, klingsor. He was great, so I gave him a pass. And it’s not as if Keith Carradine sounded wildly appropriate, either.

Brad Pitt's "British" accent in Troy is unfortunate. He should have just stuck with his regular speaking voice rather than reaching for something he couldn't achieve.

Especially because he would lapse back into good old Americanese at unexpected moments. I cherish in particular the moment when he's charging around the gates of Troy yelling "Hectorrrrr!" (You know, like "Stellaaaahhhh!")

[papeetepatrick]

That’s not quite fair, I think – Davis could sound perfectly unaffected, especially in her younger days.

I hadn't meant affected, I had meant that even if and when she was using standard diction as a basis for some of her speech, she would automatically make it her own, not garden variety; hence, idiosyncratic, which to me doesn't mean affected.

It's actually this standard diction that's so overly pruned and neat that sounds affected to me, esp. with the (often) shallower actors like Lana Turner who have little ear (it works well enough in things like 'Cass Timberlane', much less well in 'Diane'.) The sound is apparent also in a very good actress like Cloris Leachman in her debut as the doomed woman at the beginning of 'Kiss Me Deadly'.

[papeetepatrick]

Jennifer Jones in 'Beat the Devil', watching it right now. I guess it's supposed to be Englsh, but it comes out as this ridiculous-sounding thing that makes you think of dentures (and sometimes they disappear as she can't sustain this). I've never seen this picture, and someone wanted me to, plus it's got Bogart. But even though I have a serious allergy to all of this actress's performances, this is perhaps the most grotesque and grating. Another one that needed a name change bad: Phyllis Flora Isley from Oklahoma. I'll never understand how she made it.

[miliosr]

I don't know if any of you watch Gossip Girl but Ed Westwick, who plays the villainous Chuck Bass and who hails from England, does a great American accent. (The show actually used this to amusing effect when Chuck posed as an English lord to trick his on-again/off-again girlfriend Blair Waldorf and got to use his real accent!)

[bart]

I just saw, for the first time, a portion of the American tv series House. Hugh Laurie -- a British actor, educated at Eton and Cambridge -- uses what sounds like a flawless accent playing a cantankerous but brilliant American physician in New Jersey.

You have to have seen him in British comedy -- especially as the thick-as-a-plank Prince of Wales (c. 1790) and the even thicker upperclass military twit (c. World War I) in the 3rd and 4th Blackadder series -- to appreciate how miraculous this American make-over is.

[sandik]

I just saw, for the first time, a portion of the American tv series House. Hugh Laurie -- a British actor, educated at Eton and Cambridge -- uses what sounds like a flawless accent playing a cantankerous but brilliant American physician in New Jersey.

You have to have seen him in British comedy -- especially as the thick-as-a-plank Prince of Wales (c. 1790) and the even thicker upperclass military twit (c. World War I) in the 3rd and 4th Blackadder series -- to appreciate how miraculous this American make-over is.

And didn't he do a Jeeves and Wooster series with Stephen Fry?

I didn't watch House at the beginning, but have been dipping into the reruns on USA and am really enjoying it.

[sandik]

I just read through this thread, and so am replying to old stuff...

Why is it, I wonder, that almost everyone does better with upper class accents than with other kinds. I can mimic fairly accurately upper-class twit (Bertie Wooster), Oxford, Knightsbridge, old-school RADA, etc., but am hopeless in, let's say, East London.

Because everybody wants to be upper-class English, therefore the enthusiasm for more practice is greater even though one is still Wallis Simpson underneath.

For the same reasons that when people talk about past lives, they're always princesses and noblemen instead of laundresses and hod carriers?

Another example of a awful accent (or actually a spot-on use of a grating accent): Jean Hagen as Lina Lamont in Singing in the Rain. Her nails-on-a-chalkboard voice as the silent screen star is stunning, and makes her painful attempts at an upper class accent even more amazing. In real life, she had a lovely speaking and singing voice -- indeed, when Debbie Reynolds is supposed to be dubbing her voice, it's actually Hagen we hear.

[Marga]

I love hearing Hugh Laurie in interviews, when he speaks normally. His appearance on "Inside the Actor's Studio" was wonderful.

Another Brit who speaks American well is Mark Addy (a few years younger than Hugh Laurie) on the sitcom "Still Standing", now in reruns. He had a great role in the movie "The Full Monty", speaking British English, of course.

[Ray]

Emma Thompson's "Queens" accent in one of her characters (a nurse?) in the HBO version of Angels in America. Yikes!

[papeetepatrick]

For the same reasons that when people talk about past lives, they're always princesses and noblemen instead of laundresses and hod carriers?

I don't know how many things Shirley MacLaine was in past lives, since she's talked about them the most, but several of them were hookers, according to her. I think she said something about that's what she was 'channelling' in 'Irma la Douce' and 'Sweet Charity', as well as other roles with suspect pasts as in 'Some Came Running' and 'The Apartment' (in which especially good, both.)

Agree, sandik, about excellent work at chalkboard-nails accent of Jean Hagen. I believe that was supposed to be based on Norma Talmadge's voice, wasn't it? one of the many who didn't make the transition to talkies. I don't think I ever heard Talmadge's voice though.

[sandik]

I believe that was supposed to be based on Norma Talmadge's voice, wasn't it? one of the many who didn't make the transition to talkies. I don't think I ever heard Talmadge's voice though.

Thinking about it, I'm not sure I've ever heard Talmadge's "real" voice. What I've heard of her (Idiot's Delight, mostly) is really plummy.