Forgive me, but I don't know much about this film and was hoping to know more. I can see on the main page that this film is in Italian but the movie stars Burt Lancaster who was an American actor. I know he did foreign productions (I have seen him in 1900) but there he spoke English. Did he speak Italian and do so for this film or was his voice dubbed into Italian. Thank you for your help.
shareI waited for years to see this film distributed on dvd, and then the choices were maddening. The American version is dubbed all except for Lancaster and one other actor who was an Englishman. The international version dubbed Lancaster's voice in Italian -the entire film is in Italian with subtitles. Now I know that Cardinale and Delon speak English, and I imagine that some of the other actors do also. I would have preferred to hear Delon's natural voice as well as Cardinale's. I guess the distributors were trying to please everybody, but it left a lot to be desired -the dubbing that is. Otherwise the film is stunning.
shareIn the end, would you reccomend it? You do praise the film highly in the end but your use of the word "maddening" is troublesome, to say the least.
shareOh, yes, I would definitely recommend it. My disappointment centered on the fact that the international version (or Italian version) is supposed to be far superior, even though the film is basically the same except for about 10 minutes deleted in the American version. I guess the subtlties expressed in Italian did not translate well into English. And, my other objection is that I have been a long-time Lancaster fan and this has to be by far his best work. In fact, in the special features section someone who was interviewed remarked that Lancaster felt it was his best work solely because of Visconte's direction. He and Visconte became devoted friends. I wanted to hear Lancaster's voice, and thus I had to watch the American version first, and then the Italian version. They are both in the Criterion Collection distribution dvd along with extended special features.
shareDude the Italian Version is better! The American version cuts out the whole part of Angelica's mother and the dubbing in English is absolutly terrible. Burt Lancaster does a great job, hands down, but the dubbed Italian voice just adds an air to the character that Lancaster's own voice couldn't bring.
share> The international version dubbed Lancaster's voice in Italian -the entire film is in Italian with subtitles.
But my dear, this film is supposedly an Italian film, about Italian aristocrats.
> The American version is dubbed all except for Lancaster and one other actor who was an Englishman.
Leslie French.
But the American version (which by the way is the International version, distributed World-wide via 20th century Fox) is awful, even Sydney Polack who directed it says its "lousy," and hated to cut it down et all.
> I guess the distributors were trying to please everybody, but it left a lot to be desired -the dubbing that is.
Well, Luchino at first wanted Larry Olivier, who turned him down. He wanted an actor with a physique representing the majesty of the Prince, and the voice or the speaking language didn't matter as from the very beginning it was going to be dubbed entirely as was the custom of Italian movies back then.
Eventually, Goffredo Lombardo imposed Lancaster to Luchino, he was furious, but was convinced to meet the actor in person, they spend a couple of hours by themselves in Lancaster's hotel room in Rome, and since then became best friends (and let us not start suspecting what was happening behind THAT closed doors... both were gay...).
Knowing that he was going to be dubbed, Lancaster still learned his dialogues in Italian and spoke Italian on the set. The work done on the dubbing is magnificent too.
Another film that Luchino did with Lancaster, Conversation Piece, was shot sync sound in English.
Help to close Guantanamo http://www.tearitdown.org/
I read that Visconti also offered the role to Nikolai Cherkassov, the great Stalinist-era Russian actor (Alexander Nevsky, Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great).
shareCharlton Heston would have been great in the role. So would John Wayne. I also like Spencer Tracy for it.
Tancredi could have been played by:
Charles Bronson
Clint Eastwood
James Coburn
I see Angelica as
Angie Dickinson
Paula Prentiss
or
Mary Ann Mobley
His casting in this movie is an atrocity upon mankind.
share