Why did they use her real voice in the flashback scene with Harry James and then dub her with someone elese's voice in the very next scene when she's siniging at the annniversary party. The dub sounds nothing like her real voice. Bizarre.
shareI keep trying to watch this film all the way through because of the great Helen Rose costumes, but day-um, I hate those musical numbers!
shareIt's one of the weirdest vocal doublings in film, I totally agree! A couple of others also occur in MGM musicals, Joan Crawford singing a duet with her vocal doubler in "Torch Song", and the high "E-flat" tacked on the the end of Kathryn Grayson's vocal on "There's Beauty Everywhere" in "Zeigfeld Follies of 1946".
Also notice "Just You Wait" in "My Fair Lady", and the screentest version of "You're Gonna Hear From Me" in "Inside Daisy Clover"!
Well, if you're going to talk about the famously tone-deaf Natalie Wood (Inside Daisy Clover), don't forget her unforgettable performance in Gypsy. Not that her singing wasn't appropriate. Miss Lee herself admitted she couldn't sing worth a hoot, which was why she began taking her clothes off. "She Never Claimed To Have A Voice," reads the copy on the back of her autobiography.
But, yeah, that'd be why movie-musical voiceover vet Marni Nixon was Ms. Wood's stunt singer in West Side Story. And Audrey Hepburn's in My Fair Lady, as it happens, as well as a lot of other people. Take a look at her entry.
I totally agree with you. Louise had NO talent as Rose repeats constantly throughout the picture. So it made perfect sense for Natalie to do her own singing in that role, after all, it would have been ridiculous to have Louise come out with a fantastic voice! It also added to making Natalie's performance even more poignant.
shareAnother odd bit of dubbing occurred in Singing in the Rain in which Debbie Reynolds is dubbed when her character is dubbing Jean Hagen's character. Reynolds is a singer and sings all her own songs except for that one song and I long thought it was intended as a inside joke. I later found out it was intentional...studio heads didn't care for her singing of that one song!
shareI suspect Jo Ann Greer dubbed June after the fact. June was never that great at ballads (though admittedly if they didn't care for her vocal, they should have cut it, as anyone could tell it's not her voice). Be that as it may, Jo Ann was one of the great ghost singers. She dubbed Rita Hayworth in "Pal Joey" and "Miss Sadie Thompson." I saw her perform at the Cinegrill in Hollywood with two other ghost singers of the 40s and 50s including India Adams, who dubbed Joan Crawford in "Torch Song". Jo Ann fondly recalled how nice Rita was to her. "She walked all the way across the soundstage to greet me and said 'We're going to have such fun together.'" I'm only sorry she never became a recording star on her own. At the Cinegrill, though she looked like a prim librarian, her voice was still lithe and sexy, perhaps because she continued to perform well into her sixties with Les Brown and his orchestra.
shareWow, that's a concert I would have LOVED to see! Who was the other singer besides Greer, and Adams?
shareThat is one of the weirdest things I have ever seen in a movie and I can only presume June's froggy voice while ok for comic or sassy numbers just could not have credibly sung the romantic song and it was perhaps a post-filming decision to dub her for that particular number.
shareIt's pretty hilarious because June's actual voice was just dreadful! And then this gorgeous voice comes out of her in the next scene!
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