h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Felonius,

post 14 from me, (yeah, i know it was a bit long, sorry, )

>>
Who played the wicked Prince John in that film? British voiced villain extraordinaire Claude Rains.

(quoting from IMDB) "He earned four Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor: as the corrupt Senator in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), the delightfully dapper, amoral police captain in Casablanca (1942), the faithful stockbroker husband of Bette Davis in Mr. Skeffington (1944, actually a costarring part), and Ingrid Bergman's self-centered husband and Nazi spy in Notorious (1946, directed by Alfred Hitchcock)."
<<

hi Lucinda,

same post from me:

>>
On the subject of the accent itself; remember this? - A657560. A rather over-pseudo-academic description of RP (by yours truly) intended for your Eng Lang project. non-edited, but possibly adaptable to your needs.
<<

Actually, i wrote that before re-reading it and have decided i was a bit harsh on it. I'm gonna drop it into PR tonight.

">>
On the subject of the accent itself; remember this? - A657560. A rather over-pseudo-academic description of RP (by yours truly) intended for your Eng Lang project. non-edited, but possibly adaptable to your needs.
<<

Actually, i wrote that before re-reading it and have decided i was a bit harsh on it. I'm gonna drop it into PR tonight.
"

Good Idea, Spiff.
It would have taken to long in the EL project and I'd really like to link this entry to it. Let's fix it so yours gets picked and edited first, shall we?

RP - 'Received Pronunciation'.

Claude Rains is a rather splendid villain in Hitchcock's Notorious - though for the perfect screen villain, you can't do much better than James Mason - North by Northwest and Salem's Lot are both very chilling villainous performances.

Definitely: James Mason in 'The Verdict' somehow manages to project more menace in a business suit than does Darth Vader in his black armour. And North by Northwest is one of my favourite films of all time, thanks mainly to him (and Eve Marie Saint...yummm!).

I've updated the entry, incorporating some of your comments.

-Pending a really convincing example, I've removed the "quintessential" part.

-Added some comments on the perception of the British accent.

-Expanded the list at the end to include the actors.

Re: the list at the end.

I'll need some help with films I haven't seen, so if you see a blank spot and you know the actor, post it here please.

Robert Carlyle has played a few baddies (The world is not enough & Ravenous(where he eats people) spring to mind. Although his accent *can* range from all over the country its always british.

Oh and Mr Hand in Dark City is played by Richard O Brian...also played Riff Raff in Rocky Horror.

What accent did the child catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang have (apart from chilling)

"I agree that accents in Great Britain vary widely. I used the term British in the entry because I wanted to include them all. I'm not a linguistic expert..."

Well I am, and I'm . Linguistically there is no such thing as a &#8216;British accent&#8217; and I must most strenuously object to it. There are British accents, English, Scottish, Welsh and, depending on your politics, Northern Irish, but there is not a single British accent. They&#8217;re far too diverse for that. Lumping them together is the equivalent of saying &#8216;North American accent&#8217; to include US, Canadian and West Indian accents.

Most of the time you are using British to mean English &#8211; you should say English when you mean that. As Spiff put it:

&#8220;we're really talking *English* accents here, and a specific accent at that.&#8221;

In nearly all of the films mentioned, the actor speaks in an RP accent, which is English, not British I tell you!

OK, rant over. Finally I think you should definitely mention and look into the camp aspect this kind of English accent.

B****r. Knew I should've checked it first. Bloody MS Word. Now I'm even er

Not really

I still think this whole idea is silly. It feeds the idea that Americans are clueless, and it encourages British or English members of the Guide to feel presecuted by Hollywood.

English accents are actually considered appealing in America.

The quote in Robin Hood Men in Tights was funny on both sides of the Atlantic. In fact, that line was used in the commercial. While I find the joke funny, the idea is a little bizzare. The English of the time would have been very hard for any of us to understand, and a conversation between a noble turned bandit and a bandit would probably have been in French.

I would speculate that the villians in Star Wars had English accents because the scenes with the imprial officers were filmed in England. If you're trying to make a movie on a mere $10 million it would be easiest to get your second teir actors from there. If it was important, they might have left David Prowse's voice on the track instead dubing James Earl Jones over it.

Anthony Hopkins has also played several roles as good guys.

Unfortunately for Anthony Hopkins, the most famous role he is known for isn't exactly a nice guy....

On Dave Prowse. I know he was angry that they never used his face in Jedi but have you ever heard him speak! He owns/owned a gym in SE London and he has the softest West of England accent. He is the ultimate gentle giant.

Two Bit,
Much as I respect your practical, down to earth opinions, I think you are mystifying the issue. By that I mean you're saying that there really isn't an issue, or at least none that can't be explained by the location of the filming or other such circumstantial matters (or inspired artistic decisions, like overdubbing James Earl Jones), and so there's no point in even discussing it. But if you look at the very incomplete list at the bottom you will see that the films are too many and too diverse to say that this accent phenomenon doesn't exist.
That said, I want to say that I am American too. There are things that I love and hate about our country, just as there are things that I love and hate about all the countries I know anything about. However, this has nothing to do with this entry. I wrote it to be impartial. I don't mean to say that Americans are clueless, but it is a fact that most of them don't have a Jack Naples-esque understanding of accents. And audiences worldwide crave explosions and gratuitous sex scenes and easily recognizable characters. If you feel the article is biased, tell me where and I'll try to fix it.
I won't argue that it is silly. I quite agree.

Jack Naples,
Is Welsh a British or American accent? How about RP? What would I call a group of things that are usually RP but sometimies Londoner or Welsh or Scottish? Do you see my point. I use the term British only do distinguish the style of speaking from American. Both countries use the English language, so I can't call it that. The generally accepted way to refer to differences in the language(at least in teaching circles) is to call them British English and American English. I make the same distinciton between the respective accents. I DON'T mean to say that everyone in Great Britain speaks the same way.

From the Evil Overlord List:

184. I will hire a drama coach. The hero will think it must be a case of mistaken identity when confronted by my Minnesota accent (if everyone sounds American) or my Cornwall accent (if everyone sounds British).

This is a good entry, but it needs a bit of tidying before it's ready. You have many lines in the list which just say "in " without the name of the actor. This will need to be filled in.

I would object to the following in your list:

Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs - He didn't have an English accent in that film, he had an American accent. I thought it was quite a good American accent. Even if it sounded English to the American listeners, it was not intended to, so it is out of place in this entry.

X in Snow White - there was nobody in Disney's Snow White with an English accent. One of the nice things about this film was that all the characters were American, even the evil Queen.

I thought the bad guy in Last Action Hero was Alan Rickman. Perhaps there were two bad guys.

Have you forgotten John Lithgow in Shrek?

And you can't leave the title as it stands. It has to be "English Accent", not "British Accent". For example, in Shrek, both the good guy (Shrek) and the bad guy (Lord Farquar) have British Accents, one being Scottish and the other English. We immediately know Shrek is the good guy because of his accent - it is British but it is not English.

What you really mean is English. In fact the evil genius is always "RP" (Received Pronunciation), but this term is not widely known, so it should only be mentioned in passing.

Perhaps I'm shooting too broad.

Would It be better if the article said villains have English accents, explain a bit of RP, and let the odd Anthony Hopkins or Sean Connery stand as exceptions?

Perhaps I'm shooting too broad.

Would It be better if the article said villains have English accents, explain a bit of RP, and let the odd Anthony Hopkins or Sean Connery stand as exceptions?

Hi Two Bit,

“It feeds the idea that Americans are clueless”

When it comes to accents, I am afraid they are. When I was in Los Angeles I was constantly being taken as an Australian, although I speak with a Merseyside accent.

The reason for this I assume was that although I spoke English as my first language the accent wasn’t Oxford English, Queens English or RP, call it what you will. Therefore I had to be something other than British. It obviously wasn’t Canadian as that would be familiar to most Americans, so the next English speaking country it had to be was Australia.

Stuart