Anyone know of a site that sells SW films with the original language and with sub-titles? Most recent example would be the DVD of “Django” - the Italian language version is so much better then the American overdubbed version, it makes want to see all of them in the original cuts. I’ll exclude the Eastwood films - happen to catch some of the italian cut of GBU in Italy once - too weird with other voices coming from the three American actors. Which raises another point - I’ve heard so many different voices coming out of Kinski’s mouth (as everyone has) it makes me yearn for his original dubs.
Some of the German Koch ones have Italian soundtracks on them which you can watch with English subtitles.
If the film has American stars, its probably better to stick to english, if the stars are Italian than the Italian version might be better. It kinda depends. Interesting though!
Yes, for most sw’s there’s not real “original language” as actors spoke their own language making it mix of italian, english, spanish etc. For me it’s about quality of dubbing and I also prefer to hear the original voice of certain actors like Bronson, Van Cleef, Telly Savalas, James Coburn to name few.
You’re right, and I agree about the original voices…quality of dubbing is key for sure, and after seeing the Italian “Django” vs. the American cut, it makes me wish for a “Quality Dubbing SW Site” or something like that (I’m dreaming, I know)…hearing Franco Nero’s real voice vs. the American dub was a revelation of sorts…
Actually in Django it also wasn’t his real voice but also a dubbed one. One of the strange mysteries of Italian cinema.
While the English version of The Mercenary has Nero’s real voice the Italian version again uses a dubbed voice. For the Mercenary I clearly prefer the sound of the Italian version.
In this context, the quality of dubbing is far more important than the original voices, that were not used very frequently: in “Django”, for example, Franco Nero is dubbed (very well) by Nando Gazzolo.
We must keep in mind that even an excellent actor if used to live acting can find it difficult to dub himself, so often the use of a voice actor guaranteed the best result (which is why good looking starlets unprepared on the recitative plane were systematically dubbed).
The main issue is that the vast majority of these films were written in Italian, and often the translations and/or adaptations of the dialogues were not very good. But in a few cases the opposite may be true, so there is no general rule.
Actually, according to the Blue Underground Blu-Ray DVD I have, it says “includes the original Italian audio featuring Franco Nero’s own voice”.
That was what I was referring to - I should have pointed that out - I really found this Italian version much more preferable than the American one…