when Sup. Newhouse brings in Anne Lake to speak with here alone (approx 28 mins in) the first sentence is louder, with no background noise. Then her next sentence has different timing, with background noise, and seems to fit her mouth movements better. appears they dubbed something there...
If you listen closely, Carol Lynley's voice is looped about half the time (rather poorly,too--especially for a big budget movie like this one). You can often hear her voice shifting from the flat, studio-bound re-dub to the more open live sound. I've often wondered why. The most obvious reason I can think of that so much of Lynley's dialog was replaced is the equally obvious fact that, though she was indeed a looker, Lynley was a horribly stiff and unconvincing actress (at least she was at this point in her career)
Has anyone else read of another reason?
I noticed a similar thing early in the film, when Lynley was first at the school. The cafeteria lady was talking, and went into the next room, which was a bit echo-y. But part of that conversation was extremely echo-y, then went back to normal.
cheezfri
<< I noticed a similar thing early in the film, when Lynley was first at the school. The cafeteria lady was talking, and went into the next room, which was a bit echo-y. But part of that conversation was extremely echo-y, then went back to normal. >>
Yes, I noticed this (glaring) difference, too....when they move from the kitchen into the room at the back. I was thinking, "Wow....they really did things differently then!"
Yes, this is extremely odd and out of place. The vocal expression is distinctly different.
This is called "rerecording" and happens if the original dialog is unsuitable. The actors go back to the recording studio and do a retake. Most often it goes completely unnoticed because the sound recorders and editors take great pains to match it to the original.
Notice the same thing at 34 minutes in when Newhouse's voice echos, but Steve and Ann's do not.
All through this film the sound quality is inconsistent.
It used to be worse, as far as I recall.
I've seen and loved this flick for years. Ever since I was a kid...which was a long time ago.
Yes, it's extremely obvious when the dialogue is 'looped'. And I agree that it had mostly to do with the performances (especially Lynley, who I like in general).
But I remember catching this movie on TV occasionally when I was a kid. When the sound was 'live', you could also hear a very distinct whirring of the camera. Loudly.
That appears to have been cleared up, which might explain how obvious the differences in sound are now.
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I just watched this film for the first time (Lovefilm.com) and although I enjoyed it I did find the dubbed lines distracting. The locations looked authentic and I wondered if there was the occasional background noise. Some of the scenes were in cramped corridors with lots of movement - which added to the movie's feel but maybe led to sound recording hassles. In some movies when an actor's lines don't seem to match their lip movements you wonder if changes are made to help with the edit/story line. It's a shame they weren't able to match things up better for this great film.
I thought the sound (im)balance in the pub scene was hysterical. It seemed the main reason to be there was to make sure we got to hear the Zombies playing on the telly.
Great thread. I had forgotten about the band on the television...didn't realize they were the original Zombies.
Overall a very, very good film. I've always felt Keir Dullea had an 'appealing' voice...his dialogue sequences with Olivier were very enjoyable. My feeling is that Ms. Lynley simply didn't nail her lines and had to go back and tidy up afterwards. Shame they couldn't have smoothed out things a bit better on the technical side.
And BTW...Carol Lynley deserves a much better picture than the current one in use on IMDb. She was wicked cute back in the day. Cheers.
"What's wrong with a little good, clean violence?"
I believe there was another dubbing at about 3 minutes and 40 seconds when Steven supposedly said “thank you” to the movers. However his mouth wasn't moving.
shareAnother place obvious dubbing occurred was at the end on the swings when Ann and Stevie were saying "Higher!...Higher!...Higher and higher!" Neither of the characters' mouths were moving during that scene. I blame the director and sound recorders, after all, continuity is a major part of their jobs. Also, I've seen a number of British movies from the early to mid-'60s that had bad sound recording (including the unintentional echo effect), dubbed dialogue and looping and fake-sounding sound effects.
If the line readings were not what Preminger wanted, why didn't he just shoot another take rather than try to match up dubbed dialogue?