ononno

Many mediaset soaps and films can be seen in original language, by setting your menu' choice to 'English'. That gives you the aopprpriate soundtrack in English, Spanish, Geman, or whatever, until you specify 'Italian'.
E.G. just had to adjust to Italian for 'a nonna to watch Tempesta d'Amore on 4, otherwise it's in German of course. Handy if you live in BZ.

Pulaski

Bizarrely there used to be (maybe there still is ) quite an industry in Italy making soaps, cheap TV dramas, and poor quality films, in English. They would then dub them into Italian and other languages, because most countries are used to watching dubbed shows and films, but offer them undubbed to English speaking countries, because we see very little dubbed material, and most media buyers won't touch foreign language material dubbed into English.

Tweedpipe

Just looked in from the French forum, and finding this thread very interesting.
Regarding the dubbing of English speaking films into French, the same happens here regarding French actors who dub/do voice-overs and become very popular when associated with the real-life personality.
And this makes me smile. Years ago when visiting UK with my French OH 'to be', we were watching some John Wayne film in English on TV when she said, "The film's ok but it would be better if the voice sounded more like the real John Wayne." I answered, but that is the real John Wayne, and his own voice!" Needless to say she took some convincing, as prior to that she'd only ever heard 'John Wayne' speaking with a familiar French accent - being dubbed of course.
I've never let her live that one down.

sunnysider

Incredible ononno.
Do you mean that subtitles were illegal or that dubbed copies had to be made available?

Also, what was the thinking behind this bizarre law?

modicasa

Bizarre law - to show that Italian is the best obviously, and to stop foreign influence and toconvince the Italians that all these stars were really Italian. The dubbers are great, even in HD they are excellent at lip syncing, so imagine howconvincing it would have been in grainy juddery film. And I agree with Tweedpipe I have Italian friends who cannot see a programme is dubbed - and think that Marilyn Monroe talked like she does in Italian, an infinitely more 'educated' voice. On the other hand, iN italian i can understand Sylvester Stalone and Keanu Reeves iss really rather good.

Back on the original thread, all my current loathing is reserved for RTL 208 - a radio programme which has bought a job lot of old Capital radio jingles and decided to make them 'worthy'. So we now have a 2 minute blurb on the hour which ends up with the utterly pointless, stupid and eye poppingly crapulous 'Sempre piu very, sempre piu normal sempre piu people. What in the name of ......... ? Somebody teach them a lesson with forks, please.

sunnysider

And Cary Grant?

modicasa

The subtlety of Cary GRant speaking a American/Cockney is hopelessly lost - he speak a good Italian, though the woman who dubbed Katharine Hepburn managed to get a bit of that vibrato..

sunnysider

I remember watching a british war film on italian tv one afternoon. Very bizarre. Unless i'd had too much wine with lunch the dubbing combination i seem to remember had the brits speaking italian and when the nazis made a brief appearance they spoke english. No wonder some italians have an odd view of modern history.

Back to pointless english topic ....

37100

My favourite was John Wayne. He has a deep sexy voice in Italian, not so in real life. Different actors often had the same dubber which often, but not always, ruined the film because I could 'see' the other actor.

MarkRD

...and what about poor old Laurel & Hardy!? (or Stanlio e Ollio I should say...)

Tweedpipe

I used to love watching the the Stanlio & Ollio cartoni and feature films. Our young lad - who was five at that time - used to turn on his Stanlio & Ollio accents just to see my reaction. Wonderful memories!

Garbatellamike

My Italian friends tell me I sound a lot like Ollio when speaking Italian .........

I'm thinking this is not a compliment

Tweedpipe

On the video sharing websites there are even a few clips of 'allo 'allo completely dubbed into Italian - and also French! (I kid you not).
Listening to Renè speaking French with a 'French accent' is a revelation.....
Even the Monty Python team couldn't dream that up.

Tweedpipe

I was occasionally told the same when working with Aermacchi in Varese, whilst in actual fact my accent was 50% Olio, 50% Adge Cutler. Not exactly the most complimentary of almagams......

ononno

This was not a bizarre law at all. It was very clever Mussolini thinking legislation. We are talking 30's/40's. Large swathes of the Italian population were illiterate, or semi-literate. Mothers sent their sons to school simply so that they could hopefully write home whilst doing national service. Subtitles would have been completely lost on them. On the other hand, he recognised the importance of cinema as a propoganda tool. Ergo, everything was either in spoken Italian, or dubbed. Yes, subtitles were illegal.
bye bye dicette l'inglese