Wednesday, December 8, 2010

DVD Chided for NOT Doing an Accent

Poor guy gets criticized for doing a bad cockney accent even when he isn't doing one.

The Daily Journal (New Jersey), December 8, 2010, "'Disney's A Christmas Carol' now out on DVD" by Joanne Thornborough.

Perhaps the worst musical ever committed to celluloid, "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" (now on Blu-ray; previously available on DVD) is an abomination in so many ways the only question to be asked is what drug was the studio exec on who greenlit this.

The basic plot -- if you can call it that -- has a widowed eccentric inventor (Dick Van Dyke, who avoids an English accent, but introduces a few unaddressed questions in the process) raising his two kids with an assist from his equally eccentric father (Lionel Jeffries) all while slowly developing a romantic attachment to the daughter (Sally Ann Howes) of a mildly cantankerous confectioner.

Monday, December 6, 2010

"They Just Tease Me to Death"

I didn't want this blog to turn into a fan page for Dick Van Dyke, but I can't help it. He knows the accent was crap. He laughs along with anyone who teases him about it. How could you not love this guy?

Los Angeles Times, December 6, 2010, "A step in time with Dick Van Dyke" by Susan King.

But Van Dyke is quick to point out that the "British people have never left me off the hook" about his less-than-picture-perfect Cockney accent. "They just tease me to death," he says, laughing.

"Somebody sent me a British magazine listing the 20 worst dialects ever done in movies. I was No. 2, with the worst Cockney accent ever done. No. 1 was Sean Connery, because he uses his Scottish brogue no matter what he's playing."

Sunday, December 5, 2010

An Appalling Matriarch

I know his accent slid around a lot, but apparently now he sounds like an appalling English matriarch.

The Independent on Sunday, December 5, 2010, "Audio books for Christmas: I've heard so much about you -- Old (and new) favourites excel in their aural exam" by Sue Gaisford.

Like them, the Litvinoffs have Jewish roots and have risen high in left-leaning American society. If every Berglund demands individual liberty, all of the Litvinoffs, known in ZoĆ« Heller's novel as The Believers (Whole Story, unabridged, £24.99), have passionately held principles which, inevitably, clash ferociously. It is funny, polemical and fairly well read by Tara Ward – though the appalling English matriarch's accent owes more to Dick Van Dyke than Deptford.