Italian Horror Flicks

[craig@rewind]

I have just watched Opera for the first time. Why is it with this and other Italian horror films (The New York Ripper, House by the Cemetery for example) that the cast are speaking in English yet is dubbed with another voice over the top of it? Also the dubbed voices normally sound English!

Cheers.

[Shingster]

I'm not sure on this, but I always presumed it was because not all the cast can speak perfect English. I know that fulchi has used Americans for the principal cast in some of his films, but the bit part players in his films are usually Italian (Gianpaolo Saccarola's appeared in a few Fulchi films), so they probably don't speak perfect English, so their voices get dubbed.
This was a very common practice in HK films until the late 90's, when they finally started to shoot in synched sound.

[pmdf]

Originally posted by craig@rewind
I have just watched Opera for the first time. Why is it with this and other Italian horror films (The New York Ripper, House by the Cemetery for example) that the cast are speaking in English yet is dubbed with another voice over the top of it? Also the dubbed voices normally sound English!

Cheers.

The Italian horror films of the 60s, 70s and 80s were aimed at both their own local cinema-going public and the US market. Directors such as Argento and Fulci commonly used multi-national casts and each actor spoke their part in whatever language they felt most comfortable with... no sound was recorded on set and both the Italian and the English language tracks would be dubbed on afterwards. If the original actor was proficient in the respective language then they would dub their own parts, if not then someone else would take over the voice acting.

Jessica Harper gives some insight into how strange it was acting in a scene with members of the cast speaking different languages on the 25th Anniversary documentary which is featured on Anchor Bay's Suspiria Limited Edition - well worth checking out if you're interested...

[craig@rewind]

Cheers pmdf.

Where can I get a copy of Suspiria from? Play do not stock it. Also is it Region 1 or Region 0? Opera was listed as Region 1 but is in fact Region 0.

Many thanks.

[neilsona]

one place not to order it from is dvdimport.I ordered suspiria from them beginning of sept and only after getting my credit company involved last week they have decided to send me a copy.They may be more expensive than some companys but amazon.com are the more professional.And congratuations if your're a new argento fan.

[pmdf]

Originally posted by craig@rewind
Cheers pmdf.

Where can I get a copy of Suspiria from? Play do not stock it. Also is it Region 1 or Region 0? Opera was listed as Region 1 but is in fact Region 0.

Many thanks.

Suspiria is Region 0 too... I got mine from ********* and I seem to remember Ringo's had copies as well. Worth getting this reasonably sharpish as Anchor Bay have announced that all available copies of the limited edition have now been shipped to suppliers so there'll be no more available when they've sold out.