After watching this superb movie, I noticed that Claudette Colbert has one of the best screams in the history of film. Film historians frequently talk about how well Fay Wray and Evelyn Ankers screamed, but surprisingly, I haven't heard anyone praise Colbert's screams. She's a great actress with a positively bloodcurdling scream- probably the best scream of any A-list actress.
shareAs far as screams go yeah right up there. I wouldn't call it praise-worthy, more someone please kill that character. That was the one thing that unfortunately stood out much in her terrible performance.
shareIf you think that her screams compare with the best of them, why wouldn't you call them praise-worthy? I presume you aren't a big fan of screaming and find it annoying. I'm the exact opposite. lol Especially as a horror fan, I love to hear outstanding screams. They add to the realism of the movie, effectively conveying the character's abject terror.
shareAnnoying especially combined with her hyper-hysterical reactions to Indians and such. Seemed a bit over the top even conveying her character's abject terror. The Indian she first "reacted" to could have had a heart attack...
shareWell, I've always thought that terror should be extreme. The more extreme and bloodcurdling the screams sound, the more exciting they are. I think that the exaggerated terror was how the writers wanted to characterize Lana at the beginning of the film. She was a city girl being thrust into frontier life and just didn't know what to do with herself, which explains her seemingly magnified reactions.
shareMy theory is that Claudette had a screamer stand-in, a professional howler. I don't know for sure but I would imagine the studios would want to save their stars precious voices. if you are not trained for screaming your vocal chords can be shot for days. So have someone else's screams dubbed in. If she was a good screamer then that's a plus but I tend to doubt it. She was hired to do other work. Just an opinion, I have no fact to back it up.
shareWell, there are many actresses who are also great screamers. Being hired to act does not preclude you from screaming well. I don't know if anyone has actually had "training" for screaming. There are actresses such as Phyllis Coates, Fay Wray, and Evelyn Ankers who were outstanding screamers and did their own screams. I see no reason why Colbert couldn't also be a first-rate screamer.
shareThis is a movie I watch everytime it is on (and have it on DVD).
After many viewings, I have gotten to wonder if that is really Claudette screaming, or a "double."
She is always a favorite of mine, so doesn't matter either way, just odd that only on the last couple of viewings it crossed my mind.
I don't know about today's movies, but in those days they had professional screamers for certain actress's, and that goes for King Kong Wray. Also, many actress's couldn't sing for s..t, like Rita Hayworth, Deborah Kerr, and many others..Just recently I was watching "Samson & Delilah" and Hedy Lamarr had a wonderful scream when they are confronted with the lion...and certainly wasn't her vocal chords.
shareWhat is also interesting to me, is that she has allowed herself to be filmed in right profile a few times in the film. She was notorious for insisting on only allowing her profile to be viewed from the left in films--which caused a lot of hassle.
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