Almost all of the characters certainly have English accents. Roger and Anita definitely do, though Roger suddenly loses his and sounds VERY American when he starts singing (eg. an American was the character's singing voice). However they exhibit standard RP of the 1960s where the vowel sounds are unlike most people in the UK today. For example, people back then were more prone to pronounce 'land' a bit like 'lend'. If anything, most British accents have become somewhat 'stronger' in modern terms over the last 30 years or so.
Jasper and Horace have proper regional accents, and in many cases so does the nanny. Actually to me she seems to have an extremely old-fashioned accent from further north - the kind of thing you'd find in the Midlands back in the 1940s.
As previously mentioned, the voice actor who played Pongo was actually Australian, but his English accent is quite accurate for the era. In fact, aside from him, almost all of the main voice actors are actually from England. The only other main exception is the woman who played Cruella, who is actually American (from Tennessee, if you can imagine that!) Her accent is actually extremely good (virtually perfect, really). There are no slips in the non-rhotic 'r', she exhibits full use of diphthongs etc. Extremely convincing for the character.
As also previously mentioned, the only characters in the film with obviously non-English accents are the puppies, owing to the fact that almost all of the voice actors for the puppies were American kids. Even the light attempts at an English accent for the puppies are largely unsuccessful.
Overall, it is worth bearing in mind that aside from proper working class regional accents like Cockney, most accents in Britain (particularly RP) have shifted MASSIVELY since this film was made. Most people in the UK today under the age of 65 or so sound radically different from the characters in the film, but the accents in the film (aside from the puppies) are largely correct for the film's time period.
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liscarkat (18460)
4 years ago
The "voice actor" who played Pongo was Rod Taylor, a live-action movie star leading man of the time. Taylor grew up in Australia, but played Americans in most of his films, with a perfect American accent.
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