MovieChat Forums > Ivanhoe (1953) Discussion > voice of narrator

voice of narrator

posted 10 years ago by momurr43
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Can anyone identify the British male narrator who speaks briefly over the opening scenes? I'm familiar with the voices of hundreds of British actors from this period - the 1950s - but I can't place this one. I think it may have been Roderick Lovell, who played the part of Sir Ralph de Vipont. He appears in several sequences - the Tournament sequence, the Trial sequence, the Single Combat sequence - but has no lines to speak. The narrator's voice is that of a young man, like Lovell.

[–] DavidW1947 9 years ago

It was Emlyn Williams, the Welsh actor who played Wamba in the film.

[–] momurr43 9 years ago

Thanks, DavidW1947, for your information. Only one of my speculations about the voice was halfway right. Emlyn Williams (b 26 November 1905) was not exactly 'a young man' when he worked on this film in mid-1951, but he was a youthful 45. He obviously spoke the brief narration in his own 'straight' voice, but he spoke the role of Wamba in a 'character' voice, which makes it difficult to connect the two - and that was probably intentional. However, I wouldn't have been able to identify the voice as that of Emlyn Williams. Although he made many films in the course of his long career, I've only been fortunate enough to see a few of those.