Watchingwell 

                                                                              

                                                             Curated classic films

VOICES

   Everyone’s (well, almost everyone) favorite movie musical Singing in the Rain (1952) is all about how the transition from silent to talking films spelled the end of many film acting careers whose voices were not good enough for the big screen. In the first decade of talkies, Hollywood studios thought the most pleasant voices were aristocratic British types. Ladies and gentlemen in evening clothes populated many dramas speaking with refined British vowels, dropping the “R” at the end of words.

Throughout the following decades, voices of American actors, particularly through the preponderance of westerns and gangster films, gradually changed to allow a more natural American sound. But since British actors were frequently working in Hollywood, audiences seemed not to be confused by hearing both Gary Cooper and Brian Aherne in a double feature. Or Clark Gable and Ray Milland. Or Robert Taylor and Robert Donat. There were still American actors who tried to affect that slightly British tone to their speech (Joan Crawford comes to mind), but for the most part, the voices one heard in the films of the Golden Age were American.

So, occasionally, I am struck by the sound of voices so elegant and mellifluous, the enunciation so exact, that it is worth recommending. The most recent experience of this was in the film Lost Horizon, from 1937, which I saw again last night. The star, Ronald Colman, had such a voice. It was a pleasure to hear him as Robert Conway, an important man of the world who finds himself out of the world in a valley in the Himalayas. Adapted from the novel by James Hilton, it had been a while since I had seen the film, and I appreciated the lure of this Utopia even more. It’s a lovely story costarring a young and pretty Jane Wyatt. She is certainly an enticement to renounce the world and fame and fortune to stay in Shangri La, but the main reason is that he has been chosen to replace the High Lama. The wonderful set design and score by Dimitri Tiomkin give credibility to the other worldly valley in which the English plane-crash survivors find themselves. Edward Everett Horton and Thomas Mitchell play two of the survivors who find new value for life in Shangri La, whereas John Howard, who plays Ronald Colman’s brother, is unable to appreciate the peace and tranquility, and essentially obligates his brother to leave with him. Admirably directed by Frank Capra.

No actor could be counted on to bring the classic figures of literature to the screen as well as Colman.  His portrayal of two characters who bear an uncanny resemblance to another character move the plots in both stories.  Colman as Sidney Carton in the 1935 adaptation of the Dickens novel, A Tale of Two Cities, directed by Jack Conway, is the voice one hears saying the novel’s famous lines, “It is a far, far better thing I do…”

In the 1937 The Prisoner of Zenda, Colman again plays lookalikes: a touring Englishman and an endangered king, who he must impersonate in order to prevent the evil Prince Michael (Raymond Massey) from taking the throne.  Along the way, he falls in love with the king’s betrothed, Princess Flavia (the lovely Madeleine Carroll) and finishes with a spectacular sword fight with Douglas Fairbanks Jr.  Directed by John Cromwell, with a great score by Alfred Newman and beautiful black and white photography by James Wong Howe.

My favorite Ronald Colman film is the one where his voice is perfectly matched by the voice of his costar, Greer Garson. In the 1942 adaptation of another James Hilton novel, Random Harvest, Colman plays a World War I amnesiac who is helped by Garson’s character until an accident separates them and restores the memory of his earlier life.  I can’t help but think of Carol Burnett’s comedy version of the amnesia plot device, because on paper it does sound ridiculous. But on the screen, the reappearance of Garson into his new life produces real suspense as to whether he will ever remember her. The two actors play well together in one of the great love stories and the elegant sound of their voices make the two hours seem like a concert. Directed by Mervyn LeRoy.

 

A different kind of precise diction is heard in the voice of James Mason. The remarkable thing about James Mason is that he pronounced every letter in the words he spoke.  This is not the norm even for the actors mentioned here, who might occasionally slur one letter into the next if that is the way they were taught.

The following films are a few highlights of Mason’s career of interesting roles. But he seemed very comfortable playing the ever-so-articulate villain, the imperfect man, or the outsider.  

In 1949, Mason starred as a successful businessman who strays from wife, Barbara Stanwyck, to hang around with Ava Gardner in the  adaptation of Marcia Davenport’s novel, East Side, West Side. He is tortured by it and repents too late.  Also starring Van Heflin and Cyd Charisse and directed by Mervyn LeRoy.

Many people will remember him as the cold-blooded nemesis of Cary Grant in North by Northwest, the 1959 Alfred Hitchcock thriller, costarring Eva Marie Saint and Martin Landau.

Mason was a strong but slightly menacing Captain Nemo in the adaptation of the Jules Verne classic, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1954) directed by Richard Fletcher. The film, costarring Kirk Douglas, Paul Lukas, and Peter Lorre, is considered a great adaptation of the Verne novel, with sets that were faithful to Verne’s descriptions with great special effects.

A completely different type of man was the character, Norman Maine, in the second (in my opinion, the best} version of A Star is Born (1954).  Directed by George Cukor, who agreed to direct because Judy Garland was in the lead role. Mason gives a poignant portrayal of an actor at the end of his career who realizes that he is a drag on his wife’s success.

One of my favorites, A Touch of Larceny from 1960, directed by Guy Hamilton, has Mason playing a British Navy Commander, who pretends to defect in order to get money to woo Vera Miles.  But the best part is that George Sanders is his other costar and Sanders rivals Mason here as the best English-speaking voice.  George Sanders, also a rival for Vera Miles in the film, doesn’t believe James Mason is a defector and works against him.  A great-sounding film!

While we’re on the subject, George Sanders appears in one of my all-time favorites, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir from 1947.  The stars are Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison, but Sanders plays the role of a charming cad, which he does rather well, as in All About Eve, from 1950 except that we are glad he’s a cad because Eve is so ruthless. Joseph L. Mankiewicz directed both films.

Sanders always sounded like a scoundrel even when he was playing a mostly good guy, as he did in the series of “Saint” films based on the Leslie Charteris books. The Saint Strikes Back from 1939, was the first, directed by John Farrow, and like the rest of the series, is entertaining because Sanders uses his cultured voice to express a humorous disregard for the lowly criminals he encounters.

 

In The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) directed by Albert Lewin, Sanders has the perfect voice for pronouncing Oscar Wilde’s witticisms in the dark fable of the young gentleman whose soul becomes decayed from a life of sin.

In 1940, Sanders tones down the disdainful attitude to be one of the good guys with costar Joel McCrea, in the excellent World War II spy thriller, Foreign Correspondent. Also starring Herbert Marshall and Larraine Day, it is directed by Alfred Hitchcock. In another Hitchcock thriller from 1940, Rebecca, Sanders is back to being a cad.

 

While we’re on the subject of Rebecca, I next turn your attention to its star, Laurence Olivier, whose voice is also quite remarkable in its elegance. But Olivier’s acting voice has a quality besides precision. He uses meter or rhythm.  He is able to convey real feeling to the lines by structuring the rhythm of the words. In the revelatory scene with costar, Joan Fontaine, the way he says “You think I loved Rebecca?  You think that? I hated her.” (oh, spoiler alert) is so memorable that I can hear it in my head.

His diction is even more pronounced in Wuthering Heights, the 1939 William Wyler version of the Emily Bronte novel. In the story, Olivier as the mistreated orphan, Heathcliffe, eventually runs away and comes back some years later as a cultured gentleman, where he has acquired a gentleman’s way of speaking, much to the resentment of the David Niven character who has married Cathy, Heathcliffe’s love.  His reaction to Cathy’s betrayal which is played out as cold revenge throughout the rest of the story, begins here in this scene where his diction is even more clipped and excessively polite.  The line “It occurs to me that I have not yet congratulated you on your marriage” has so many syllables that when he speaks it with such fluidity, we can’t help being impressed.

A special treat is the film that pairs Olivier with his wife, Vivien Leigh, who also has a lovely speaking voice. That Hamilton Woman from 1941, the story of the love affair of Lady Hamilton, an ambassador’s wife, with the married Lord Nelson, the naval hero who defeated Napoleon.  The scandalous, but doomed, affair, nevertheless is a great love story.  Directed by Alexander Korda.

 

But my favorite costar who matches Olivier’s voice in elegance is, once again, Greer Garson in the 1940 production of Pride and Prejudice . It is quite magical to hear them together reciting Jane Austen’s words. Directed by Robert Z. Leonard, there were cinematic alterations of the novel, but the overall quality of the cast and production puts this above most of the subsequent remakes.  But even Jane Austen purists will take great pleasure in listening to Olivier as Mr. Darcy and Garson as Elizabeth Bennet.