I was watching some old Monty Python movie last week and was cringing at how badly Eric Idle and some other Python members were mangling their (seriously) attempted American accents.
Out of curiousity, this question is for all the the native ENGLISH (ie British Isles) speakers out there. What is the worst attempted English accent you have seen in a movie where the American actor was trying to be taken seriously as a native Briton or alternatively for the true Hibernians out there, what is the worst Irish accent undertaken in a serious film?
FWIW IIRC I remember that many British people said that the actor (I forget his name) on the old TV Detective show “MAGNUM” (small stature with mustache and played ex- British military officer) did the best British accent they had ever hard from an American actor and many British were absolutely convinced he was “one of them”.
Can’t answer about Americans doing British accents badly, but the BBC productions that use British actors doing American accents are all laughable. They have this nasal twang that is somewhere between a South Carolina and a Boston accent, that no American would accept as anything recognizable.
Dick Van Dyke’s “cockney” in Mary Poppins has to be the most-cringe-making accent I have ever heard. My British friends fall all over themselves laughing when they hear it.
I think the hands-down winner has got to be Kevin Costner in his Robin Hood movie. His accent comes and goes (mostly goes) and sucks even when he’s remembering to do it.
I must disagree about K C in Robin Hood. I don’t think I EVER heard him speak with any kind of accent, he’s not skilled enough to. He needs to stick to baseball and golfing movies.
Worst accent has to be John Travolta in Urban Cowboy. Nothing like a Texan with a New Yawk Twang.
I recall almost suffocating a table of Irishmen by saying, “hey, you guys all speak just like Mickey Rourke in A Prayer For the Dying!” It took a while to convince them I was joking.
Hmmmmm… bad SDMB form! Moi?!(shocked expression coupled with cry of anguish) I’m mortified… worse I’m SDified. I thought this was the very model of modern general question
ie…
“What is the worst attempted English accent you have seen in a movie where the American actor was trying to be taken seriously as a native Briton or alternatively for the true Hibernians out there, what is the worst Irish accent undertaken in a serious film?”
I’m still not clear where I erred… will re-read board message question categories.
I must agree with Eve (big surprise, eh?). Dick Van Dyke’s “cockney” is mortifyingly painful. I’m in the camp that says that Costner didn’t even try to do a dialect. Besides, Xian Slater is so much worse in that film that Costner’s flaws almost go away. Frankly, my British friends and I agree that the guy in Magnum is over-rated.
Bridget Fonda in “Scandal” is pretty horrible.
Anyone on “Love Boat” doing any accent or dialect is amazingly awful.
BTW, I don’t think that the Pythons were doing “serious” attempts at sounding American.
Generally, if you are seeking opinions, IMHO is the place to go, even if the opinions are likely to be nearly unanimous. A question such as this could only be answered with opinions, unless there is a Bad British Accents Working Group of which I am unaware.
