<<You can't compare accents in dramas with accents in comedies, since often comedy accents are off or exaggerated on purpose. I'm specifically talking about Peter Sellers here.>> DD-931
I thought of that, and agree that Sellers could work up a comically exaggerated accent with the best of them, as Squeeth notes here. But in "The Bobo" and "Murder By Death", you notice the holes more than the comedy in his attempts at doing Spanish and Chinese accents, respectively. He seems lost in the former case, talking rapid-fire in a way that gives away his weak attempts at affecting a Castillian lisp, and kind of Borsht Belt fortune cookie in the latter. Sellers by 1976 seemed to be slipping a bit from his '60s apogee, I noticed his Clouseau in the same year's "Pink Panther Strikes Again" has some affected Chinese when he gets excited, carry-over from his previous part. ("I said mur-DUR! You said mur-DUR! I said MUR-DUR!")
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DD-931
15 years ago
Sellers isn't doing a Chinese accent in "Murder by Death". He is doing a parody of old-style Hollywood stereotypes of a Chinese accent, such as in the Charlie Chan movies, which is the specific character he is satirizing. And by the 70s his Inspector Clouseau performances are clearly purposely exaggerated essays of French accents for purposeful comedy, such as the example Squeeth mentioned.
Again, it's comedy. Bad accents are sometimes specifically done to cause laughter. It may not have connected with your particular sense of humor, but it still is irrelevant to arguments about "accurate" accents.
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slokes
15 years ago
I didn't say Sellers' performance in "Murder By Death" isn't funny, just that the accent is below par. You say it's intentional, and you may be right. But it's still a bad accent.
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Phillip Marlowe
11 years ago
I find it hard to believe that the OP did not grasp, and then reluctantly ceded the possibility, that Peter Sellers' Closeau accent was not intentionally bad for comic effect. But jeeze, Chico Marx? Does the OP poster realy think that Chico tried and failed for a realistic Italian accent in those otherwise realistic and documentary-like Marx Brothers movies?
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slokes
11 years ago
I don't get you. Is it that I not grasp this, or that I reluctantly ceded the possibility of it? Which is it? Don't leave me in suspense.
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