Alan Ladd as Southerner?
Alan Ladd sounded like he had never left California. Not a trace of a southern drawl and while everyone seems to know he was a Confederate soldier, no one mentions the fact that he sounds more Yankee than the bad guys.
shareDid you miss the part where he said he's been away from the South for years searching for his son and then once he found him up north travelling to find a cure for him? People lose accents they might have if they're not living in the area where that accent is from. Hell, I've gone to England seven times and each time I've come back, my friends make fun of me because I've got a slight English accent going on (saying pro-cess instead of pra-cess for just one example).
But c'mon, this was made in 1958, things like "it's set in Illinois but is obviously not filmed there" and "he doesn't sound Southern" weren't big concerns then. Considering how much grief actors today get when they do accents --Freddie Highmore is incredible as Norman Bates but people on IMDb criticize an Englishman for not sounding like he's completely American for just one example-- I'm *glad* he didn't do an accent. Hell, they could have made his character a Reb from Kansas or whatnot, but not a big deal for me as I don't look to movies to be accurate reflections of reality at all.
Interesting observation. Gone With the Wind was made in 1939. Do you think it would have been effective if Vivien Leigh spoke in her native British accent?
No, duh, but I've read more than a few criticisms of Vivien Leigh's accent from Southerners because, guess what, she's not from the American South! I mean, it's a pointless exercise: How come John Wayne doesn't have a Texan accent in The Searchers or why do some actors sound like they're straight off the bus from the Bronx when they're playing Californians? Why does George Saunders so often sound like he's ready to dine with the Queen even though he's playing an American character? And so on.
shareOddly enough, Margaret Mitchell, the author of GWTW and a native Georgian,liked Vivien Leigh's accent although she also found her too pretty for the Scarlett she envisioned in her book. Can you really imagine GWTW being the same film if Leigh and Leslie Howard spoke in their native British accents? Please.
John Wayne sounds as Texan to me as Ted Cruz.
George Sanders (not Saunders) frequently played Brits. Unlike Ladd's character in Proud Rebel, he never lost the accent despite decades of living in the US. I think your theory was that Ladd could have lost every vestige of his southern drawl looking of his son for a couple of years in the North.
I think basically Ladd didn't have the acting chops to pull off even a slight Southern drawl whereas Vivien Leigh won an Academy Award with hers. I still think the screenwriter should have covered up Ladd's deficiencies with a one liner, like schooling, birthplace etc. .
What do you think "I spent all that time in the north and the midwest" is if not a brief summary of that aspect? As for acting chops, Alan Ladd had them, it's just that unlike you, a lot of people back in 1958 didn't really care about proper accents or being absolutely true to reality in movies.
And yes, I got Sanders name wrong, sorry about that.
I am not sure you are right about reality in 1958. Looking at the top grossing movies of 1958 ( the ones people back then spent there money on) excluding comedies and musicals, Cat on a Hot tin Roof ( Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman with southern accents), Vertigo, The Young Lions (Marlon Brando with a German accent)and Some Came Running. All pretty realistic with accents when needed.
Alan Ladd was clearly a motion picture star, but no great actor. He didn't even get an Academy Award nomination for Shane (or anything else).