Old-School American Accent

it's called "mid Atlantic"

TONS of research on this

FDR is the fountainhead of this accent in the US

That's brilliant, thank you! I had no idea it was taught specially.

I've heard some 30s - 40s actors pronounce the word 'through' as 'thuh-doo'.

I thought most of Dark Shadows was lost? How many episodes are available?

R6 - I'm on episode 188, and there's at least another hundred to go. Wiki says there are 1,225 episodes, but there's not that many on Prime U.K. Some episodes have dodgy sound or the scene flickers a bit, but otherwise the quality of what's available is fine.

Wow, I had no idea. I don't have Prime but I checked out their page (US) and it looks like they don't have Season 1.

A wonderful example of that old-time accent is found in this old GE commercial, starring Bette Davis and Ruth Donnelly. Both actresses were American.

The studios trained actors to speak in upper-crusty accents in the 1930s-40s, especially women.

R6 Only one episode is considered lost. Some episodes are on black and white kinescope copies (some of which are better quality than others). But even for the one lost episode, there is still a complete audio recording for it which I guess one of the fans did from home during the original broadcast. They use pictures of the characters to substitute for the video. Lara Parker does little segments in between to explain what's going on. It's kind of annoying but luckily it's just one episode.

But at least on the US streaming services, the beginning episodes are considered a different show (I think because the DVDs were released that way) so if you want the real first episode you have to search for "Dark Shadows: The Beginning." If not, collection 1 starts with Barnabas's first appearance.

Elder gay here, I used to come home from school and watch it every day, If you go on youtube and type in Dark Shadows flubs, there are a bunch of videos of actors forgetting their lines, etc. I guess the budget was extremely limited and they couldn't do retakes. David Selby was a hottie,

The transition from silent movies to talkies was really traumatic. The studios and actors weren’t prepared for how audiences would judge negatively judge the accents of performers.

Aside from mandatory elocution lessons, Hollywood producers went to Broadway, where actors had to have great voices to begin with. From the mid thirties lots of movie stars were plucked from NYC legit theaters.

Louis Edmonds MUST have been a theatre performer - his voice is absolutely booming on the show.

Katherine Hepburn was the epitome of the Standard English accent.

Hepburn was taught the mid-Atlantic accent and used an exaggerated form of it while filming- it was not her real accent.

Watching an Amelia Earhart documentary last night, it was surprising to hear her say 'tom-ah-doh' (juice) rather than the usual American 'tom-ay-doh'. This would've been in the 1930s.

[quote] The transition from silent movies to talkies was really traumatic. The studios and actors weren’t prepared for how audiences would judge negatively judge the accents of performers.

Which accents? This was before the studios insisted on the trans-Atlantic accent?

What I can't figure out is how Joan Bennett comes across as a bit wooden on Dark Shadows, but she was fantastic and quite hilarious in Father of the Bride and its sequel.

Many of the classics stars were either expats or first generation european immigrants.

R19, she probably had time to rehearse in the big budget Father of the Bride franchise, Dark Shadows probably not so much...hence the poor performance.

Round tones.

Moses supposes his toes are roses but Moses supposes erroneously.

I think this accent might be one of those things that keeps young people from getting into older movies. It immediately tells them that this is a phony story and these actors are ACTING! While it takes a while to adjust your expectations, I've always found them fun to watch and many of the scripts are far better than some of the junk we get these days.

The best male exemplar was William Powell.

Now, like, we all talk, like? Neera Tanden? or, like, Chris Hayes?

Don’t be hatin’ on my Neera, R25.

Also, the Bennetts were an old, old acting family so the Bennett girls grew up in New Jersey with the full stage-version of Mid-Atlantic. And Louis Edmonds was a stage actor, gay and loved devouring the scenery.

Louis told a story that one of his younger AMC cast mates asked him where he was from, because of his distinct accent. He responded that his accent is not regional, but affected.

I quite like Joan Bennett's stiff performance on Dark Shadows; I think it suits the tightly wound character of Elizabeth Stoddard. I find Louis Edmonds' take on Roger Collins a bit overbearing on occasion, but he certainly has screen presence. Joel Crothers has screen presence for a totally different reason: he's so handsome!

There were some really excellent stage actors on that show. Thayee David and Humbert Allen Astredo were excellent, for example. David Ford was a great actor but he was always forgetting his lines.

TV star Lucy spoke with a General American accent, while Tallulah of the theatuh spoke Mid-Atlantic.

I always think this sounds so classy. Shame it went out of style.

[Quote]If you go on youtube and type in Dark Shadows flubs, there are a bunch of videos of actors forgetting their lines, etc.

R12 Here's one of them.

While I was visiting NYC in spring 1990, my friend dragged me to a viewing of a student film he and several others were in to be held at one of the other actor's apartments. We arrived, met the host and rest and it wasn't till I was about to sit on the couch I noticed the Barnabas portrait, cane and ring displayed on the living room wall. I spent the next two hours talking with Mr. Frid about anything but DS except to tell him how big a fan my brother was.

Came downstairs to find my friend's bike stolen while mine was still locked up.

Only in New York.

Was this the late great Jessye Norman's accent?

R18, see Singin' in the Rain. Sophisticated silent star Lina Lamont’s downfall as talkies begin is a major plot point. Lots of careers ended when the talkies arrived because audiences didn’t buy their favorite stars underwhelming voices.

The link here shows many of the early 30s actors imported from Broadway because they had voices and stronger acting skills. I realized when looking at the list that lots of them have General American accents in their movies. I guess studios realized that their ‘natural’ voices were part of their appeal so they didn’t mess with them.

Were Frid and Edmonds gay? They gave off a slight vibe, but who knows. Crothers wasn't gay. There was a recent thread about him being engaged to Veleka Gray at the time of his death.

Joan Bennett was among the final four who tested in Technicolor for Scarlett O'Hara in GWTW. The others were Paulette Godard, Jean Arthur and some unknown from England who showed up at the last minute.

She had previously been a blonde but dyed her hair brunette for the tests. She liked the look on her so much she kept it for the rest of her career.

Even the kids spoke differently than today. I loved how the word "way" became "whyie"

R19 - that was kind of the character. Elizabeth Collins was an upper-class matriarch with all these fucked up people in her home.

Hark! I hear the cannons roar! Is that the king approaching?

Yonda lies da castle of muh fodder.

Oh R37, I LOVE your sense of humor.

Well I nevah!

When you watch The Sound of Music all of the kids speak with mid Atlantic accents - “Fah -tha”

I've noticed it in a lot of Disney movies and in a lot of movies and TV shows from the 60s and 70s.

Along the Hudson Valley there are still pockets of that accent from the FDR era (or at least there were when I was growing up).

What a stupid thread.

It wasn't an "old school American accent" it was the performance style of the time.

Frankly, I prefer it to the mumblers we have today.

Also: Dark Shadows wasn't shot with the "Kinoscope" process; it was shot on tape.

And, most of the male cast was gay and ESPECIALLY Joel Crothers despite his fantasy engagement.

[quote] Along the Hudson Valley there are still pockets of that accent from the FDR era (or at least there were when I was growing up).

Was this during his third or fourth term?

Oh, Pierre: you shouldn't have come!

Would that it were so simple!

There are pockets of Appalachia and the Tidewater regions of NC, VA and Maryland that still speak with the remnants of an Elizabethan accent. Disappearing though.

When I was a kid, Jane Wyatt did a commercial for Pledge, a spray polish. She didn't say fingerprints, she said fingermarks. Only she pronounced it "fingermahks". It used to crack me up whenever I saw/heard it.

Here's Jessye giving her own wonderful rendition.

Grayson Hall ended up being the queen of Dark Shadows camp. Could you imagine her and Selma Diamond and Florence Stanley starring in "Three Sisters"?

The Mid-Atlantic accent was adopted by the American elite of the northeast, to differentiate themselves from the masses. (Not much has changed, it seems. This elitist attitude, I mean, toward so-called flyovers and others living far from NYC) Later, some stage actors, broadcasters, and film actors adopted it, as well. But not all. Judy Garland, James Steward, Carole Lombard, James Cagney, Barbara Stanwyck, and Clark Gable, to list a few classic Hollywood stars, did not speak in this phony way.

It all began because the British altered their speech in the early 1800s to a Received Pronunciation (aka King's/Queen's English). Prior to that, during colonial times, the English that the British and American colonists spoke sounded similar to the modern standard American accent, which is why many Brits sound American when they sing; it's the default accent. So the British changed it to differentiate themselves from Americans, for the same reason that Americans altered/simplified British spelling.

Like Gretchen in The Ramen Girl. She's at the 3 min mark.

I was always surprised by Jonathan Frid’s choice not to use a full on English accent.

Barnabas was portraying himself as someone that had just arrived from Cadogan Square and yet he sounded no more English than the citizens of Collins Port.

I never understood why DS had a rep as having all gay male actors. Who besides Frid, Crothers, Edmonds, and Anthony George were gay? Most of the other major male actors were straight...David Selby, Roger Davis, Mitch Ryan, David Ford, Dennis Patrick, John Karlen, Jim Storm, Chris Pennock, Thayer David, Robert Rodan, Don Briscoe, Jerry Lacy.

Carrie Fisher was sporting a transatlantic accent in Star Wars.

[quote] David Ford was a great actor but he was always forgetting his lines.

I don't know what it was, but I couldn't stand Ford's version of Sam Evans. I found it unbearably annoying. I did like the original Sam better but apparently there was drama backstage (the unwanted touchy-feely kind) and he was fired.

I also never ever understood how sexy Nancy Barrett actually wound up married to that old fart. Were they bearding for each other?

[quote] So, where does it come from? Is this a style choice to make the Collins family seem posher than the rest of the characters? Or is it an accent from a specific location I'm unaware of?

I think it's both, OP. The show is set in southern Maine (50 miles from Bangor), and New Englanders do have a distinct accent -- especially a small town back then. Also, the Collins were aristocrats for the last 200 years so they were likely educated abroad and taught to speak like that at Boarding schools. Notice that neither Carolyn nor David speak that say so much -- they were educated stateside and are a younger generation. Someone like Mrs. Johnson or the Evanses are more working class and have the odd New England accent but not the arch British tones of Elizabeth, Roger, or Barnabas. The one accent that always bewildered me was that of Victoria Winters. She was supposed to be a poor orphan raised in NYC but clearly had a stilted, crisp, vaguely European accent going on (which I imagine was how the actress spoke in real life). It always sounded like English was not Vicky's first language.

R9- Who cares about Bette Davis's Mid Atlantic accent. I'm much more fascinated by that very modern looking coffee percolator and mixer. I didn't know they even had automatic dishwashers in 1933.

R61, she lost it immediately after that scene.

I had to respect Evan Peters for adopting it for his (and the pencil mustcache) on AHS Hotel:

Louis Edmonds' accent was 100% affectation. He was from Baton Rouge, La. for god's sake.

Louis Edmonds, homo you know.

I thought Don Briscoe was sexually tormented? One of the hottest asses going! Just as Barnabas abused Willie, Dr. Laing was "abusing" Jeff.

My grandmother, from Upper Montclair, NJ, spoke that way. When we came out of watching Mary Louise Wilson as Diana Vreeland in Full Gallop, my ex turned to me in astonishment: "She never moved her jaw the entire time!"

The I Ching stuff was a true nod to the times. Barnabas sounded British enough to me, but he was born a British subject! Jerry Lacy was gross as Trask, but as a butler in modern times he was hot!

[quote] Louis Edmonds, homo you know.

What gave it away? That he pronounced Louis like Louie? He was a lot of fun on the show, being snarky and catty. He was the Paul Lynde of Collinsport without the self-amusement. I also found it amusing that while he was flaming on set he would go on and on about how desperately he was in love with Laura and Cassandra, and that he fathered David. Everybody knows David is really Burke's son.

I always thought it was called the “Trans-Atlantic” accent because it was taught and never really spoken in any particular region of the United States.

[quote] Wow, I had no idea. I don't have Prime but I checked out their page (US) and it looks like they don't have Season 1.

The series is pretty dull until they introduce the first real supernatural storyline, about Laura Collins (David's mother), aka The Phoenix. That's not until over a hundred episodes in. Before then you're just not missing much.

And even then, though that storyline is quite good, the show only REALLY gets going after more than 200 episodes when they get to the introduction of Barnabas.

No one did the Mid-Atlantic Received Theatrical Pronunciation more fruitily than Louis Edmonds as Roger (or as my brother used to say, "Rrrrrroger"). He would say his niece Carolyn's name with the most hilarious rolled "r" sound I have ever heard.

[quote] Were Frid and Edmonds gay? They gave off a slight vibe, but who knows.

They were both gayer than Christmas trees in a department store window display.

Edmonds brought Frid with him to his place on Fire Island to sample the pretty boys there.

I have found that imitating FDR's vocal patterns when I'm confronted by a crazed fascist sympathizer drives them away like sunlight on a vampire.

The transition from silent movies to talkies is illustrated brilliantly in 'Singin' In the Rain' Lina Lamotte says, "I can't stand him." Debbie Reynolds overdubs her whole script for the movie. The actress who played Lina did it with such comic force. "Whaddya think I am? DUMB OR SUMTHIN?" She couldn't affect that smooth accent for her life, so her lines had to be read by another actress.

Edmonds & Frid very likely enjoyed diddling with each other on many occasions.