Robert Rietty dubbed Shaw for Avalanche Express, not Rich Little. For someone who did so much work in the industry, it's appalling that he's almost unknown. Rietty can be heard doing several voice parts in Patrick McGoohan's "The Prisoner". For example, he voices the 'generic Number 2' in the opening titles of four or five episodes - usually, the person playing 2 would do the lines, but for a handful it's Rietty. He also did numerous vocal parts in the show proper - for instance, a relentless "brainwashing voice" in the slightly overrated episode 'The Chimes Of Big Ben' - and many of the 'Village Voice' loudspeaker announcements are done by Mr R. He was interviewed for the superb Prisoner documentary 'Don't Knock Yourself Out' a few years ago, and I believe he may have died since then. Rietty's voice can be heard on hundreds of British and American movies and TV shows.
Shaw being dubbed in Avalanche Express was a result of Shaw not being round to loop bis dialogue when this stunningly terrible film was finished...owing to him, well, being dead. The guy brought in to finish the picture when the *director* died six weeks after Shaw passed away(!) decided to have Shaw's character and the Russians at the start speak IN subtitled Russian rather than the original as-shot plan, which was for the characters to speak in accented English. Talk about creating a rod for your back...because that part was dubbed (by Rietty), every scene where Shaw speaks for the reat of the flick had to be dubbed as well. A stupid, pointless idea which just caused post production hassles on what was already a massively poor film and an insult to Colin Forbes' novel. And even THAT was nothing great.
reply
share