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Watching a martial arts movie from the 1960's or 70s, I had the hope that
all the people doing the dub into English took their job with utmost sincerity
and respect. I realize that legislation probably was eventually enacted that made it
a crime to not do so. When did dubbing start? I am not talking about
dubbing done in later years to older movies but when dubbing started, and
which movies might still have early dubbing on them?

Hard to say as there's a fair amount of post-synching on silent-shot material in the early days of sound (here's an example).

I assume that some of the early international art house hits (the likes of Carnival in Flanders, Mayerling, etc.) were dubbed but we never see them that way now, so who knows how good those dubbing jobs were?

A lot of dubs have indeed vanished completely. I know for example many French-Italian peplums in the '50s and '60s had English dubs but I only know that because their scipts survive in the New York State Archive. I used those scripts by way of subtitles. Only very rarely do English dubbed prints turn up. (The exception is Due notti con Cleopatra which is available in almost all languages that it must have been dubbed in. Not the best example perhaps.)

Dubbing must have started at least before the war?

Actually when I look at the pre-war example I thought had (Amphitryon), it appears to be subtitled. (It's an interesting example because instead of dubbing this German film in French, it was shot simultaneously with a French cast.)


Also, apparently "Under Mussolini films spoken in any language other than Italian were eventually dubbed, often quite skillfully, into Italian because he was so nationalistic he didn't want audiences to hear speech from any other country in Italy's cinemas. During the early 30s when dubbing hadn't quite been perfected the solution was to remove the dialogue track (except for songs) and insert intertitles in Italian, as if it was a silent film." - There are a few German films that now only survive as "silenced" versions.


So how did they show foreign films in the '30s and '40s?

Okay, I just went to the NYT reviews of the time and I may be wrong about 30s foreign films being dubbed; the review for Ozep's It Happened in Gibraltar mentions that Herman G. Weinberg did the titles (fittingly since Erich von Stroheim is the star), the one for Mayerling makes an offhand reference to the French dialogue, they somehow don't seem to have reviewed Carnival in Flanders, The Baker's Wife mentions English titles by one John Erskine... so it appears for the small art house market, at least, they weren't dubbing in the 1930s.

I jump ahead to the late 40s and there's a direct reference to Silvana Mangano's voice (that certainly implies it's her real one) in Bitter Rice (1950). That I would bet played dubbed other places than New York, but still, I don't know when dubbing really became a common practice. Maybe not until you really had movies you could sell to mainstream audiences in the U.S. with dubbing... which also makes me think, maybe not until there were enough independent theaters as a result of the breakup of the studio-owned theater chains in '48?

It would be interesting to find out when dubbing was first done as a commercial practice.

I remember getting a print of a Richard Tauber film at one time made in the early 30's. It was full of silent intertitles and made the film hard to watch as one moment you would get the talking, then everything would cut out whilst you read the intertitles.

I believe that the Italians used to and maybe still do, dub all films they make. They photograph them silent and then put the talking in afterwards.

The very first dubbed picture was BROADWAY (1929).

The results were an absolute disaster that it is well documented.

When we were discussing Mayerling a while back (viewtopic.php?t=95) I did a bit of research, and found that majority non-English speaking nations established a preference for either dubbing or subtitling very early in the sound era, and their preferences have tended to remain unchanged to the present day.

In places such as Asia, where multiple languages are spoken, subtitles were preferred, whereas in Germany there are actors who are famous for being the official German voice of a particular Hollywood star.

In English speaking countries, it seems there was less uniformity - for example, The Congress Dances (1932) was released in Australia dubbed, but Mayerling (1939) had subtitles.

Are we talking about non-English films being dubbed into English, or American films being dubbed into other languages?

Jack Theakston wrote:Are we talking about non-English films being dubbed into English, or American films being dubbed into other languages?

In any case, BROADWAY was the very first dubbed film, and whenever it was exhibited audiences booed it.

An unsual dubbed version for me was RASHOMON, seen on cable TV twenty years ago (with RKO logos). It made the film almost unwatchable.

On English dubbings, I can say that a number of films from the sixties and the seventies in Argentina, despite they featured Spanish language subtitles, were shown dubbed in English. Some were even issued on video.

MARRIAGE ITALIAN STYLE is one I can remember; the guy who voiced Macello Mastroiani did a horrendous job. Yet even in Italian is a bad film... the original version from Argentina, which nobody here has seen and has no interest to watch, is far better.

The Terence Hill-Bud Spencer films were also shown in Enligsh and the soundtracks are still lousy today. The Italian soundtrack is actually no good either. In fact, they actually play far better when seen dubbed in Spanish since the Mexicans used to do a good job up until the eighties.

If you managed to watch a lot of dubbed films you could actually recognize the voices even if you never knew the names of the doubles. For instance, the voices heard as Batman and Robin in the classic TV series are exactly the same that you can hear, respectively, as Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney in BOY'S TOWN.

Jack Theakston wrote:Are we talking about non-English films being dubbed into English, or American films being dubbed into other languages?

The former but any history of dubbing I think is interesting. It's probably a neglected art form,
with many neglected sincere artists who never got any recognition beyond a paycheck. Another
great book or documentary could come from it. The potentional for humor is there, also.

radiotelefonia wrote:An unsual dubbed version for me was RASHOMON, seen on cable TV twenty years ago (with RKO logos). It made the film almost unwatchable.

It's weird to change from sub to dub (or vice versa). Once you've started with a choice (not necessarily your own choice) there's no turning back.

Re-dubbing could also be a reconstruction tool for movies with missing sound (vitaphone discs missing, or only foreign copy surviving). I wonder why they did not re-dub the pieces of Mad Mad Mad World that had no audio left. After all, they did that with the snails conversation in Spartacus and that worked well enough.

telical wrote:

Jack Theakston wrote:Are we talking about non-English films being dubbed into English, or American films being dubbed into other languages?

The former but any history of dubbing I think is interesting. It's probably a neglected art form,
with many neglected sincere artists who never got any recognition beyond a paycheck. Another
great book or documentary could come from it. The potentional for humor is there, also.

I remember reading an article from 1929 in which a studio gathered journalist to see their reaction to a dubbed film. They used "doubles" which in Spanish is dobles. From here it comes the word "doblaje", which means dubbing.

After that exhibition, the journalists adviced the studio executives not to exhibit those version and they were horrified. The very first dubbed film, as I mentioned before was BROADWAY and those exhibitions were colossal disasters, apparently in all countries in which that version was exhibited.

Normally, a big flop from a Hollywood studio would not last more than a week, but in Buenos Aires it seems that the theater (the Astral, which still exists but not exhibiting films) was unable to pull it out so soon. For this reason, they were forced to do a double feature presentation reissuing WHITE SHADOWS IN THE SOUTH SEA.

Studios would try a number of dubbed films and all of them were critical and commercial failures. In fact, a few important films were failures due to this handicap. Whenever a studio announced they were going to release dubbed films, the following day they would announce that in the main theaters in the big cities they would continue presenting their films in their original versions.

Although some films that were initially shown in dubbed form were later reissued in their original versions, studios tried throughout the forties and fifties dubbed versions with bad results. Fernando Martín Peña wrote that he preserves a number of this versions (I guess mostly from MGM) that are in a red zone: pristine prints but, since they are not in the original language, never to be exhibited. (When in his show presented a dubbed film from Egnland, he apologized explaining that there was no other version available at the time).

When TV began in Argentina, films were shown in their original language with subtitles although they didn't reporduce well in the telecines. By 1970, dubbed versions were imposed and you had to take them since there was nothing else available. By the mid eighties cable TV channels began to constantly show movies in their original versions and since then, broadcasting stations were never able to get good ratings with movies or series (they may still present them, but they go mostly on marginal time slots).

People in Spain prefer dubbed versions and in certain film forums. But they actively dislike contemporary dubbing (which I hate myself). They hate that classic dubbings were replaced by contemporary voices and in fact are always looking for the older recordings and try to reinstate those soundtracks back to the videos.

In Argentina, Disney made a few dubbings up until 1945. Those versions are actually better than their Mexican counterparts (PINOCCHIO is the only one avaialable). But for the most part, dubbings done in Argentina have been lousy. In the sixties some shows and a few series were dubbed but it was not until 1979 when a company called Video Record started in 1979 when they began dubbing some shows and documentaries from England and European films as well.

If you wanted to see those films on television, you were forced to take those versions. But frankly, they are actually unwatchable and very annoying.

If we are also talking about likes and dislikes here - I always found a lot of foreign pictures which were overdubbed into English quite strange - especially the Italian ones where all the voices appeared lack lustre and almost monotone. It usually spoiled the enjoyment of a picture.

I myself have always preferred a sub-titled version of a picture - so long as I can read them. I know the Americans don't like the idea of this.

TV hardly ever showed sub-titled pictures because they were prepared for theatrical release - so you needed a pair of field-glasses in order to see them on the TV screen. When our SBS network started here in Oz in the early 1980's, they did their own sub-titles for foreign product - and they are wonderful - because they appear in larger yellow letters.

Sometimes if I am watching a picture in German on SBS I will be conscious now and then of what is being said and then think "hey, the title is not saying that!" - I realise afterwards of course that they have had to precis down some of the words in order to fit the title space.

It's not just the dubs that get the dialogue wrong. When the Film Forum had its Frank Capra festival about twenty years ago, one of the pictures was a French print with French titles and some one was reading a transcript of the original titles. I was seeing it with an old friend from Canada and we realized the French titles were much funnier and began translating them.

Bob

Spiny Norman wrote:

radiotelefonia wrote:An unsual dubbed version for me was RASHOMON, seen on cable TV twenty years ago (with RKO logos). It made the film almost unwatchable.

It's weird to change from sub to dub (or vice versa). Once you've started with a choice (not necessarily your own choice) there's no turning back.

Re-dubbing could also be a reconstruction tool for movies with missing sound (vitaphone discs missing, or only foreign copy surviving). I wonder why they did not re-dub the pieces of Mad Mad Mad World that had no audio left. After all, they did that with the snails conversation in Spartacus and that worked well enough.

I saw a 16mm print of that dubbed RKO version of "Rashomon" - it's the alternate audio track on the Criterion release and, yes, is quite dreadful. But I did put up with it since that's the way it was probably first seen by many here in the States when it was first released.

On "Mad World", they probably didn't dub in the missing audio parts because they're so short for the most part - only a couple of seconds - and the previously missing sections are lower quality than the rest of the print. I'm not sure it would have added much to dub in the missing sections since the print has a kind of 'rag tag' quality already.

The earliest instance I recall of voice doubling, with an actor reciting lines off-camera on the same set, would be Hitchcock's "Blackmail", since the lead actress's heavy accent didn't work for sound.

I'd be curious to hear what are the earliest examples of an actor or actress being dubbed in post-production, rather than "voice doubled" on the set.

Dubbing can be really distracting at times. In Tony Richardson's "The Loved One", Robert Morse didn't get the right British accent when they were filming, so Richardson had him go back and redub all his lines in the picture in post production. In prints I've seen of the film on 16mm, laser, vhs and dvd, it's acceptable and not that noticeable. I recently saw a streaming version in HD and the sound was so improved that the dubbing was really obvious in many scenes - for example, in the house where he's talking with Milton Berle, you can hear the reverb from the walls of the room when Berle talks and Morse's lines sound like they were recorded in a "dead" studio.

I would imagine that prior to the advent of magnetic tracks dubbing an entire film using optical tracks would be an expensive and time-consuming process. I remember seeing an Italian or French film where someone stops by to speak with an actor or actress in a booth looping lines - the scene was repeated continuously until the spoken line was captured just right.

coolcatdaddy wrote:I'd be curious to hear what are the earliest examples of an actor or actress being dubbed in post-production, rather than "voice doubled" on the set.

The earliest example I can think of is Louise Brooks, who was dubbed in post-production for The Canary Murder Case (1929) because she refused to return to Paramount to finish the film. Margaret Livingston dubbed her voice, and also doubled for Brooks in a few shots, face hidden.

Here is an extremely rare dubbed version. This has to have been probably done recently by Warners, although sings like the one reading "fake" feature no translation. This is simply incredible.

A fair bit of dubbing - sort of - went on in Britain in 1929; films already in production suddenly had to become talkies without being recast, and as in Hollywood, many of the actors were continental European; the Czech Anny Ondra being dubbed live for the sound version of Blackmail, but effectively; less so were Lya De Putti and Lars Hanson in The Informer, as they were less comfortable mouthing the lines, and their vocal stand-ins being utterly wrong - posh London - for the Dubliners they are supposed to be. For both films, opt for the silent versions.......

coolcatdaddy wrote: I saw a 16mm print of that dubbed RKO version of "Rashomon" - it's the alternate audio track on the Criterion release and, yes, is quite dreadful. But I did put up with it since that's the way it was probably first seen by many here in the States when it was first released.

Now that it's been mentioned, I think I saw that dubbed print of Rashomon too. The experience was so distressing I've repressed the memory. Although I far prefer subtitling for non-English films, there are some movies where the bad dubbing is a sacred part of the experience, for instance Gamera or any other giant Japanese beastie, or all those peplum films from the 50s/60s. When I settle in to watch Hercules and the Moon Men, there darned well better be bad dubbing.

I've seen a few Bollywood films that were dubbed, but I can't tell you whether it was badly done or not.

Industry scholar Tino Balio has some interesting details on dubbing, in his "The Foreign Film Renaissance On American Screens" (2010, University Of Wisconsin Press)
I was looking for a quote by Jean Renoir, either in the original French or in translation, to the effect that if the people
who dubbed movies had been around in the Middle Ages, they would have been burned at the stake (for trying to steal
the souls of others, by taking away their real voices.)

ClayKing wrote:I would imagine that prior to the advent of magnetic tracks dubbing an entire film using optical tracks would be an expensive and time-consuming process. I remember seeing an Italian or French film where someone stops by to speak with an actor or actress in a booth looping lines - the scene was repeated continuously until the spoken line was captured just right.

Hence the term "looping," because the shot that they were dubbing was run on a loop.

coolcatdaddy wrote:The earliest instance I recall of voice doubling, with an actor reciting lines off-camera on the same set, would be Hitchcock's "Blackmail", since the lead actress's heavy accent didn't work for sound.

Didn't someone sing for Richard Barthelmess in Weary River? That was released in February, 1929.

Dubbing used to be endemic in Asian films, often for arbitrary reasons. Jackie Chan was dubbed by a voice actor well after he became a star. Frequently in the 1980s scripts wouldn't be finished when filming started. Actors would just move their mouths like they were talking, and voice actors would dub dialogue in later.

What's weird now is that actors often speak in different languages in the same movie. Hong Kong actors will use Cantonese, while mainland actors will speak in Mandarin. When Hong Kong was still a British colony, the law was movies had to have Chinese and English subtitles. The practice today is to continue to include Chinese subtitles.

One screening I treasure was North to Alaska dubbed into Dutch.

Frederica wrote:I've seen a few Bollywood films that were dubbed, but I can't tell you whether it was badly done or not.

Not sure if this will be distressing to you, but almost all of the singers in Bollywood films are dubbed by professional musicians.

coolcatdaddy wrote:On "Mad World", they probably didn't dub in the missing audio parts because they're so short for the most part - only a couple of seconds - and the previously missing sections are lower quality than the rest of the print. I'm not sure it would have added much to dub in the missing sections since the print has a kind of 'rag tag' quality already.

Whereas Disney did choose to dub in the voices when they reconstructed the original release version of Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971). I haven't seen the result, but by all accounts, it was pretty terrible and the feeling was that they should have left well enough alone. A shame, it's a nice film. I much prefer it to Mary Poppins.

My brother's an expert on Asian cinema, and according to him, 'Subs versus Dubs' is to his fan community what the Great Frame Rate Debate is to ours.

Daniel Eagan wrote:Didn't someone sing for Richard Barthelmess in Weary River? That was released in February, 1929.

Yes, and there was quite the lip-synching scandal at the time that was revealed. Laura La Plante in Showboat and Corinne Griffith in The Divine Lady also got caught up in it. I seem to recall that in the case of Barthelmess, it was someone singing and playing piano off-camera, not post-dubbing.

Daniel Eagan wrote:

Frederica wrote:I've seen a few Bollywood films that were dubbed, but I can't tell you whether it was badly done or not.

Not sure if this will be distressing to you, but almost all of the singers in Bollywood films are dubbed by professional musicians.

No, that just adds to the fun.

A couple of more recent examples of dubbing include "The Legend of the Lone Ranger" from 1981, where dubbing for the lead actor was one of the factors cited in the failure of the movie. Another curious example is "Hercules in New York" (1969), a low budget fantasy comedy that was Arnold Schwarzenegger's first starring role. Arnold's voice was dubbed in the released version and is quite funny to hear today, since we're so familiar with his unique voice - the dvd includes the dubbed version and the original soundtrack as it was shot with Arnold's original voice.

One of the better sword and sandal pictures, "Hercules in the Haunted World", (Mario Bava, 1961) was fully dubbed, just the like other Italian Hercules movies, and has another actor dubbing Christopher Lee's part. It's very disconcerting.

We must not forget "What's Up Tiger Lily?" in any discussion of dubbing, of course.

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I seem to recall at least one or two early 30's pictures that make fun of dubbing, with a male voice substituted for a female voice and vice-versa in some scenes for comedic effect. Anyone recall those?

Unlike the typical dubbed versions from Mexico, in this case Disney adopted Argentinean doubles with the accent and typical expressions included: