Does anyone else think of Clark Gable when they hear the genie's voice? For some reason when I hear him all I can think of is Gable. I even think his face is somewhat similar.
When there are two, one betrays-Jean-Pierre Melville
I have to admit that the thought did cross my mind the first time I saw this movie...To be honest, the scenes with the Genie aren't my favourites. The weird chicago(or is it brooklyn? Sorry, not good with accents) accent is just too jarring in the middle of a film set hundreds of years ago in the mIddle East.
~I used to be schizophrenic, but we're OK now~
Rex Ingram was born in Cairo, Illinois so I suppose Chicago is closer than Brooklyn
The Djinn had been in that bottle for a long time. He probably talked to himself in lots of different accents.
Odd, I've seen the film many times but I never thought of him as having a particularly American accent
Steve
The accent is probably just more noticable for me because I'm from Britain. And I don't suppose having a genie from Illinois is such a big deal when Jaffar sounds like he just walked out of Berlin lol
~I used to be schizophrenic, but we're OK now~
Check the email address in my profile, I'm British as well
Steve
That's not really surprising. Clark Gable at that time was the king of Hollywood stars, and there were a number of look alikes in the business because of Clark's overwhelming popularity. The actor John Carrol was one of them. Gable's style was imitated a lot.
I don't know that Rex Ingraham, who played the genie in the 1940 version of "the Thief of Bagdad", consciously patterned his voice after Clark's. I think it just happened to sound that way. He sounds the same in all of his other movies also. But it was probably a plus for the movie that he sounded so much like Gable.
Both Clark Gable and Rex Ingram came to Hollywood at about the same time, (both doing bit roles in silent movies) and Ingram actually preceded Gable by just a couple of years, so I doubt he was trying to pattern his voice after Gable. That's just the way Ingram spoke.
Truthfully, it never even entered my mind that Ingram was a sound-a-like to Gable (or vice-versa), until I read this thread! Yes, I could hear some similarities now!
in my humble opinion he does not sound like the overrated sexist and homophobic Gable.
shareIngram's voice in this one reminded me more of Paul Frees. He's been in a lot of films, but he's most remembered for his roles in animated films like Santa Claus is Comin' to Town, where he played the Burgomeister, and Rocky & Bullwinkle, where he was the voice of Boris Badenov.
It never occurred to me before that Rex Ingram's voice sounded anything like Clark Gable's. I suppose Ingram had some of the same forceful, staccato speech rhythms that Gable had, but his voice was higher-pitched and quite different from Gable's.
And if Ingram was born in Illinois, I wonder where he got that pronunciation ("for the foist t'ousand years . . . Insect! Beetle! Woim that you are!") which is heard in both the Brooklyn and Mississippi Delta accents.
Well, how he talked doesn't really matter. Rex Ingram made a great genie, with those Spock ears and running around naked except for what looks like a red diaper.
All the universe . . . or nothingness. Which shall it be, Passworthy? Which shall it be?
Ingram was a wonderful actor, loved him in Sahara, but I wonder if his accent wasn't a poor attempt to effect an English accent?
shareWell, I don't know of any British dialects where they say "foist" and "woim"!
All the universe . . . or nothingness. Which shall it be, Passworthy? Which shall it be?