Overdubed Dialogue

It is obvious in the interior sets as well. Barry Fitzgerald speaks so softly maybe it recorded poorly and the sound editors had to overdub his dialogue in post production.

The only part of the movie I didn't like I were the voice-overs/dubs of the people on the streets/sidewalks/subways. Very corny and obvious: The NYC accents and banal conversations of the average "everyman" ( or woman ) were over done in my opinion. I'm from the area and while people from the NYC area definitely have a distinctive accent ( there's actually several variations ) the film maker made them so exaggerated they sounded more like caricatures made by a non NYC-er than anything else.

They did a great job showing all the grittyness of 1948 New York, and the on location aspect worked really great. They didn't have to insult our intelligence by forcing in fake over wrought accents just to make sure we know it was filmed in NYC.

The noise level of New York City would have obscured any spoken dialogue uttered by the actors.

Also - sometimes the filming equipment itself can be too noisy. That may be why they dubbed even the inside scenes (this is the case with Zefferelli's "Romeo & Juliet" in 1968 - the camera made so much noise they were forced to dub the entire movie).

"Don't call me 'honey', mac."
"Don't call me 'mac'... HONEY!"