Anybody else bugged by Harvey's terrible American accent?
-
lewisherschell — 13 years ago(August 09, 2012 07:03 PM)
"I can't even pretend to know how exactly a Lancashire accent is supposed to sound like. I would have imagined that it would have been easier for him to pull one of those off than an American accent. I've noticed more and more that they really didn't concern themselves too much with authenticity back in the days."
ROOM AT THE TOP was groundbreaking in the sense that it was the first British fictional film in which the character spoke with a working class accent not from the South East of England (ie, not from London), which was a big deal at the time. Thus it's such a shame that Harvey's accent in the film was all over the shop. Luckily, only a year or so later Karel Reisz's SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING showed a little more 'authenticity' in its use of Northern working class accents.
For a 'real' Lancashire accent, check out Jane Horrocks in LITTLE VOICE
'What does it matter what you say about people?'
Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958). -
lewisherschell — 13 years ago(August 12, 2012 03:39 PM)
Not quite. Osbourne's got a Birmingham accent
Other Lancashire-accented public figures include the comedians Victoria Wood and Peter Kay. George Formby had a Lancashire accent too.
'What does it matter what you say about people?'
Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958). -
nightprism — 13 years ago(September 03, 2012 06:23 PM)
He's not trying to do a standard American English accent like we have them today. He's supposed to have a Mid-Atlantic Accent that was cultivated among rich Eastern Americans until the mid-20th century. Cary Grant, for instance, has a wonderful Mid-Atlantic Accent, although he came by it naturally, as his accent naturally became more Americanized when he emigrated to the USA when he was a teen.
-
MrEdnablackadder — 13 years ago(November 07, 2012 07:00 AM)
To be frank , I don't think Larry sounded any different from what he usually did . I don't think he was trying to make an American accent at all . If memory serves me right , Frankenheimer wanted him to speak in perfectly pure English to set his upper class character apart from the other , less refined soldiers . It's not like you have to sound like a Kentucky coal miner just because you're playing American . Raymond comes from a very important family : I say it's likely that he was raised to speak with impeccable pronounciation . Lansbury doesn't seem to speak with an American accent either , maybe Mrs.Iselin was British and Raymond learnt from her to talk properly . Or maybe she isn't , but that doesn't change much . An upper class Boston accent for example is not that dissimilar from a British one . I also disagree that Harvey sounded like Jeeves , considering that he wasn't even British born . He just spoke a flawless English , he never picked up any local accent .
Oh , and Joe Lampton is from Yorkshire , not from Lancashire , so any comparison with Jane Horrocks doesn't make sense . Now , I read many people complaining that his Yorkshire accent in "Room" was intermittent . I'm Italian , so I suppose I'm not really an expert on this . But since Joe has also been an amateur actor , I think it's logical that he would try to change the way he sounds , since eliminating any trace of a regional accent is the first thing you're told to do if you wish to hit the stage . Also , remember that the character is basically pretending to be something he isn't - he wants to join the elite club he doesn't belong to - so I think it's quite fitting that the accent comes and goes . And how about his co-star , Simone Signoret ? I'd say it is much stranger that a Yorkshire woman speaks with a French accent . It's something that happened quite often at the time . But it rarely spoiled my enjoyment of a movie , if well-acted .
Final thoughts :
1.I know it's very difficult for an actor to constantly do accents and never being knocked for it . Unless you're called Meryl Streep or Martin Landau , there will always be some native speakers who won't appreciate your imitation
2. . Said that , I don't trust the majority of people when it comes to judge accents . It's usually the easy way to deride an actor's efforts , but most people do not really know what a foeign accent sounds like . For example , I remember an article where Jane Lapotaire was mocked for her supposedly "phony" French accent in the mini-series "The Dark Angel" . But ..it happens that she's perfectly bilingual . The name Lapotaire could have arisen some slight suspicions . I think all of this is pretty instructive . -
Altho73 — 13 years ago(March 03, 2013 10:49 AM)
I'll add that I can't help noticing that John McGiver didn't sound particularly American either, yet no one here has criticised his accent. He was born in New York city but sounds more British than American.
MrEdnablackadder, you are quite correct when you say that certain Boston accents sound like British accents, in fact a friend of mine from Boston is an example. On one occasion at Dallas/Fort Worth airport my friend went to the information desk and in the course of his enquiry told the man behind the desk that he was from Boston, this rude jerk snapped at him, 'Not with that accent your're not, you come from England'.
To his credit my friend was too polite to respond or to complain about this idiot. -
movie_nazi — 12 years ago(July 20, 2013 05:50 PM)
MrEdnablackadder, you are quite correct when you say that certain Boston accents sound like British accents,
The reason this is detected sometimes is the lack of accentuating the 'R' sound which both Bostonians and British share. Iv'e heard many actors say that the key to mastering the typical American accent is the over accentuation of the 'r's which most other English speaking countries, including Australia, New Zealand, UK, etc. usually gloss over. A thick Boston accent for example such as "park the car" sounds more like "paak the caa" . -
Baskerville — 4 years ago(January 16, 2022 07:24 PM)
I have just watched The film again, on disc, for the first time in decades. Harvey's accent bothered me now as much as it did then. Surely a line could have been written in about his having been sent to school in England. Angela Lansbury, on the other hand, sounded mid-Atlantic to me. She could revert to Englishness when required: I saw her as Gertrude, Hamlet's mother, at the National Theatre when Albert Finney played Hamlet. Nowadays, by the way, she has three nationalities: British, American and Irish.
-
shoolaroon — 12 years ago(July 18, 2013 11:45 PM)
I don't think Harvey was attempting an American accent at all. I think he was using his normal speech. At that time (and before) many of the American upper classes, especially in the East, sounded like they were quasi-British anyway. Go look at many of the movies of the 30s and 40s that have a high society plot and you'll see those kind of quasi Brit accents. Harvey just had a real one. it also suited his personality as kind of stiff, prickly guy - not what we would call the usual American type.
Also, I love Henry Silva and I think they just casted him because he looked sinister and somehow "foreign". I think he's played just about every ethnicity out there except straight out Anglos. One of the all time great character actors with a great face. -
movie_nazi — 12 years ago(July 20, 2013 05:57 PM)
I don't think Harvey was attempting an American accent at all.
Yeah, well, I think that is bad direction. He didn't have to sound like a hick but he could have at least made the effort to make mid sound more transatlantic. Katherine Hepburn had a great transatlantic accent. She sounded neither British nor American.
Also, I love Henry Silva and I think they just casted him because he looked sinister and somehow "foreign".
I actually believe this was just Hollywood being blatantly racist. But then again it didn't seem the producers were too concerned with authenticity but it did kinda remind me of the Shakespeare days when they refused to let women act and they had men playing the parts of women. Of course here they refuse to let Asians act unless they played a cook or a laundry washer. -
stevekaczynski — 9 years ago(September 04, 2016 11:53 AM)
Raymond comes from a wealthy family and probably went to an expensive school that modelled itself on British public schools and turned out people with similar accents. In the 1950s some Americans complained about the presence of people in the State Department and the diplomatic corps with "British accents". They were not British but had often gone to elite schools. Dean Acheson was one of them.
Raymond tends to come across in both film and book as supercilious and definitely not "one of the boys", and the accent in the film plays into that quite effectively. Harvey was in fact a South African of Lithuanian Jewish extraction, and his accent was sometimes more out of place in other films, but here it is OK.
"Chicken soup - with a beep straw." -
movie_nazi — 9 years ago(September 11, 2016 06:05 AM)
Laurence Harvey was badly cast. I have no idea why he was in the movie.
He never even tried to put on an American soldier.
He was playing Laurence Harvey.
Some other posters have pointed out that perhaps the director instructed him to speak in an English accent so that he would stick out as a stuffy, upper crust guy that would be despised by his company. I don't know. I think he should have at least tried to pull off a mid-atlantic accent if that was the case.
My Vote history:
http://www.imdb.com/user/ur1914996/ratings -
Thomasina — 9 years ago(February 10, 2017 01:29 PM)
I know they hired real Asians in movies back then.
Really? Like who? What I remember from the era are casting decisions like:
Juanita Hall (an African American woman) playing a Chinese character in
Flower Drum Song
and a Tonkinese woman in
South Pacific
Marlon Brando (a white guy with Dutch, English, German, and Irish ancestry but no Asian) playing a Japanese character in
The Teahouse of the August Moon
Rita Moreno (of Puerto Rican origin) playing a Thai character in
The King and I
Alec Guinness (a white Englishman) playing a Japanese person in
A Majority of One
John Wayne played Genghis Khan, for pete's sake!
and probably the worst one ever, Mickey Rooney (a Scottish-descended American white man) playing, I guess, a Japanese person in
Breakfast at Tiffany's
.
In what movies were all these "real Asian" actors you say they were hiring back then?" -
movie_nazi — 9 years ago(February 10, 2017 02:56 PM)
HA! They never played billed roles! Are you kidding me? They played Hop Sing in
Bonanza
or they played waiters or bell boys like in
Have Gun, Will Travel
or gardeners. My point was there were indeed PLENTY of Asian actors around that they could have used for these starring roles but chose white washed actors instead. It still happens today. I saw a commercial for that Great Wall movie starring Matt Damon.
My Vote history:
http://www.imdb.com/user/ur1914996/ratings -
AnthonySocksss — 3 years ago(October 01, 2022 07:01 PM)
It’s a TRANS-ATLANTIC accent
Melton1 Wanted for Pedophilia:
https://i.ibb.co/6cnPmJVr/IMG-0830.jpg
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/Zjxk307CND0
