As a non-native speaker of English, I find it difficult to comprehend anything spoken in old American movies (from the 60s on back to the black & white era). The same thing applies to television shows, presidential addresses, etc. The only example I can think of off the top of my head is FDR’s fireside chats, but this particular speaking style is VERY common in media of that time; even recently-made “era” movies try to mimic it. It drives me nuts and ruins a lot of perfectly good movies for me unless I can find a subtitle track.
Now… I’m not just imagining this, am I? Does anyone else notice this? If there is indeed a difference, is it because of a certain regional accent? A pan-American evolution in speech? A side effect of early audio technology?
I’ve never heard anyone with that accent in real life. But then again, I’m a Leftie. (Coast, that is. )
I’ve heard the phrase you used, but I can’t remember if it was in a film or a parody. I was actually thinking of Bugs Bunny’s accent when I posted. Or Leo Gorcey.
EDIT: Come to think of it, BB might have said ‘Toity-toid and Toid.’
If you watch Mission: Impossible, the lead actor is replaced after the first season. The original guy has the 50s/60s accent, while as the new guy has a modern California accent.
I don’t know if Steven Hill still has it, but he’s still around and acting, so you can probably check.
Velma Mulholland. She was a character on In Living Color. I tried so hard to find some video. She was a woman from the dramatic black and white movies from the 1940s. She spoke in the way that the OP seems to be describing, but I can’t imagine how he figures it ruins a movie! I love that accent so much, and I often try to duplicate it to make my husband laugh (he never does), but I have a hard time coming up with all of the witty, fast dialogue that goes so well with the accent.
It’s more than just an accent, it’s a style of speaking and accenting certain sounds and words. Listen to the Empire Day Messages of 1923 from King George V and Queen Mary. Even though they have British accents, they have the same kind of anachronistic tone and rhythm in their speech as in the FDR video.
Argent Towers: That is an unnatural enunciation and cadence adopted due to the lack of good microphones until a point well into the 20th Century. It explains part of this, but not all of it.
That’s a good example, I think, because it’s clearer (at least to me) that a large part of what we’re hearing as “odd” is the effect of someone reading slowly and clearly from a prepared script. I suspect that they may both be making an extra effort to enunciate clearly, too, for the benefit of this new-fangled wireless broadcasting technology. FDR sounds a little more relaxed and informal than George V, but I’d be surprised if he sounded quite like that when he wasn’t speaking to the nation.
There have been changes in accents over the last century, and in speech rhythms and delivery, but I think that for the purposes of the OP, it’s more relevant that in acting and public speaking, there’s been a shift towards a more naturalistic style of delivery.
It certainly seems to be true that people spoke differently in the first half of the 20th Century than the latter- a lot of actors seem to have used something that 1950s Public Safety Movie Narrator voice, even in Australia and New Zealand.
I can only surmise that it might have been part of some sort of aim on the part of the Government/Establishment to make sure that early TV and Radio was “Respectable”, so you had people who sounded very well-spoken and educated on the air, instead of Cletus The Farmer or Juan The Mexican Immigrant.
That’s certainly the term for the UK/Australian/NZ accent you hear in old news broadcasts and “respectable” movies. I’m not sure what the US equivalent is, though.
First, a lot of public figures (FDR, Julia Child) had “patrician” accents, a phenomenon that has faded somewhat in American speech.
Second, if you’re talking about a movie, acting and public speaking styles have changed. A lot of early actors were stage actors, where projection and diction were important as there were no microphones. So, a lot of those habits carried over to film. Also, a lot of actors took on that patrician/vaguely British-ish accent so as to appear “high class.” Add that to the fact that acting was a lot less naturalistic than it came to be in the 60’s/70’s and it’s a pretty significant shift.
As for Brando vs. Leigh … Leigh WAS British, you know.
I was recently in Newport, RI, where I toured The Elms, one of the old mansion ‘cottages.’ It has an audio tour, and on it, you can hear John Drexel III speak about his experiences visiting there as a young man, when the original owners still lived there. I was struck by how much Drexel sounded like the aristocrats in the background of Marx Brothers movies, with the same accent that I think you’re talking about. He wasn’t an actor, and I don’t think that he was reading from a script as he is reminiscing.
there’s also another unnatural aspect to the speaking in old Tv/ movies:
The actors always spoke one at a time.
First one speaks, and then after a pause, the next actor speaks.It just doesn’t sound natural. In real life–and in all modern movies–, conversation flows: people interrupt each other, or start speaking at the same time, or one screams louder in order to be heard over the background noise., etc
I assume the old way was due to the primitive sound systems, but it might also have been a carry-over from the days of theater with no microphones.
I don’t think it’s simply a matter of having an old-time patrician accent, since both Abbott and Costello have a similar manner of speaking (e.g., Who’s On First?), even though Abbott’s accent is more hoity-toity than Costello’s.
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