I have to disagree that Vivian Leigh did such a terrible job with the accent. Her accent suits a different South than where we live today, and of course since that day and time our accents have changed. It would be hard to judge in this day and time.
Forrest Grump, I think that it wasn’t so much that his accent was bad as the fact that the character he played was ‘mentally slow’ thus his speech was different from anyone’s.
I will agree that Cage was pretty bad in Con Air. Julia Roberts, I must admit I didn’t pay that much attention to her accent even though I have the movie.
I dislike the accents used in Designing Women. Every one of the girls had a different accent.
Well yeah, ultress, but they all sound authentic. And in fact, aren’t the cast members of DW all native Southerners?
Besides, the show is set in Atlanta, and we do get all kinds of Southern accents congregating here.
I can’t go along with you on Vivian Leigh. I’ve never heard an accent like hers in my life outside a movie theater.
I think that Annie Potts was the worst one and I don’t think she was southern, then Jane Smart…if you’ve heard her IRL she’s lost her southern accent.
On Vivian Leigh, the whole point in the movie was for her to exaggerate her accent. When comparing her to the other females in the movie, it was clear that she exaggerated her accent to impress her suitors. I guess it’s a matter of what you prefer as far as accents go.
Being from the south, accents vary from county to county, not to mention from state to state. It would be hard to impress on someone that they have the wrong accent according to the county they are from. 
Well now, ultress, far be it from me to come across as a smarty-pants know-it-all ('cause we know that nobody on this board fits that description ;)), but it looks like Annie Potts is a native southerner, hailing from Kentucky.
Of course we can quibble about whether Kentuckians really get to call themselves southerners, being as how they got all weak-kneed when the bugles were blowing, but you have to admit that there are some pretty thick southern accents to be heard there.
I think many people outside the South simply have no idea what real Southern accents actually sound like, which is why there are such horrible fake accents in the movies. It’s partially so the huge portion of the audience that doesn’t know any better will understand that the character is supposed to be Southern, and partially because many actors don’t know any better themselves.
I spent my entire childhood in the South, but my family moved to the Midwest before I started high school. My sisters and I do not have very strong accents, but they were enough to identify us as being from someplace other than the Midwest. People often tried to guess where we were from, but they never got the correct region and almost never even guessed the South. In fact, when we explained that we were Southern people would often protest that our accents didn’t sound Southern at all! The most common assumption seemed to be that we were British, or the children of British immigrants. My mother, who is from Texas, is frequently mistaken for an Australian.
I am back in the South for college, and as I often tell people, “In the North they don’t know you’re Southern unless you sound like you’re from ‘Hee Haw’”.
I’ll tenth or fifteenth (or whatever its up to now) Nicholas Cage’s atrocious southern accent in Con Air.
Although he didn’t use it for the entire movie, and may have been overdoing it on purpose since his character was undercover, John Travolta’s southern accent in the opening sequences of The General’s Daughter is pretty damn bad.
Worst I’ve ever heard? Lindsay Wagner in The Bionic Woman playing a dual role as a southern look-alike for the Jamie Summers character. Beyond bad.
Sir
Um, everybody in the cast of ‘In the heat of the night’. I don’t know if it counts because it is television…
And as for Keanu Reeves, he’s a doll, just gorgeous, but he can barely do emotions, much less an accent.
As far as Nicolas Cage, I don’t know why he is ever in any movie. I guess he can act, but he is butt-ugly, and as has been seconded and thirded and fourteenthed here, he cannot do a Southern accent.
Also, accents vary by region of the South, but there are also differences betweeen ‘southern’ and ‘country’ accents.
Also, I believe it is ‘Vivien’ Leigh, not ‘Vivian’.
sorry, haven’t got time to read the whole thread but i’m guessing nobody has mentioned john travolta in ‘the generals daughter’. he actually isn’t from the south in the film, he ‘puts the accent on’ to fool people, but i’ve a suspicion this was an excuse added by the director on hearing his vile attempt - and isn’t he from the south anyway?
i’ve read that stephen king was planning to go and see this film the day he was knocked down and nearly killed. swings and roundabouts…
Yeah, but her accent in ‘Ready to Wear’ was nothing short of caricature. Grossly exaggerated, and difficult to withstand, as was the rest of the film.
All right. This has gotten under my nerves for the last time. Cage’s character did not say “Put the bunny down.”. He said, “Put…the bunny…back…in…the box.”.
I’m not discussing how he said it. But he said, “Put the bunny back in the box.”
Odd, my text didn’t show up. Ah well, here goes again.
When I saw the thread title, the first thing that popped into my mind was: “Con Air.” Glad to see I’m not alone.
I can’t believe that nobody mentioned Adam Sandler’s “cajun” accent from The Waterboy.
-LabRat
A ringing endorsement for kawliga’s nominations of Michael Caine in Hurry Sundown and Sir Larry in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
Okay, maybe Sir Larry’s effort seemed lame in comparison to his usual excellence.
And I really like Michael Caine. He’s been in a lot of real gobblers, but he’s a very workmanlike actor. That’s a tactful way of saying he takes a lot of roles that seem strange.
But the strangest had to be Hurry Sundown. It’s pretty obscure (deservedly) but basically it was a Southern Gothic potboiler @ early 70’s, I think. A swamp-and-magnolias drawl overlaid on a Cockney accent just didn’t work.
IIRC, Jane Fonda was in it, too–and sucked. Actually the whole movie pretty much shed toxic waste over the screen.
Veb
One that bugged me was the way a Confederate soldier said “We’re fightin’ for our rats” in Gettysburg." In the book, it was described that the Union soldier didn’t understand and that he eventually grasped that “rats” was “rights”. But in the movie it just didn’t work.
Bob DeNiro in Cape Fear. Liked the movie, love DeNiro, but the accent bit it.
Maybe it was supposed to be a South Jersey accent. Yeah, that’s it.
Yew tawkin tuh me? I oun’t see nobuddy ailse round here.
TVeblen writes:
> It’s pretty obscure (deservedly) but basically it was a
> Southern Gothic potboiler @ early 70’s, I think.
It came out in 1967 actually.
Jodie Foster in Silence of the Lambs…<shudder>
I thought Jodie Foster did an outstanding job with the accent. Sounded like near-perfect Southern/Appalachian to me.
I was going to vote for Keanu Reeves in Devil’s Advocate but I’ll hold out til I see Con Air based on y’alls input.