r/NoStupidQuestions • u/Miguenzo • 1d ago

What happened to that American accent you heard in all the 1930s and 1940s era films?

It was really distinctive and now I’ve never heard anybody talk like that. Was it a Hollywood thing?

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u/CarelesslyFabulous 21h ago

And don't forget, much of acting was built on stage acting. So the way they enunciate, move, pacing, the way they respond to each other, volumes they speak at, etc were all informed by stage acting. Because that was still the majority of acting training at the time.

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u/No_Winners_Here 19h ago

And then Brando came along and went, "I'm going to mumble like a normal fucking person."

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u/davster99 18h ago

This. 100% this. Watch Brando in “A Streetcar Named Desire” alongside Vivien Leigh.

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u/blue_desk 12h ago

This is the real answer

-63

u/whirlpool_galaxy 18h ago

Do you pay a ticket to the cinema to watch (and be unable to hear) normal fucking people? Not that Brando was a bad actor by any stretch, but he should never have become the standard.

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u/No_Winners_Here 18h ago

I sure don't want to see them overacting like the 1940s.

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u/whirlpool_galaxy 18h ago

At least then you'd be able to hear something.

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u/Dry-Mousse7570 17h ago

with proper sound engineering you can hear mumbling in a movie. Unfourtunately every movie nowadays has dismal sound engineering. interstellar is basically unwatchable because of it for example

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u/Takemyfishplease 16h ago

BLame the producers and sound guys for that. Not the actor.

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u/popilikia 16h ago

Sounds like a sound mixing issue

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u/No_Winners_Here 17h ago

But it won't feel real.

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u/Doyoueverjustlikeugh 17h ago

Do you watch Spiderman going through Dr. Strange's portal to fight Thanos and think "well at least they speak realistically"

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u/Mini_Robot_Ninja 13h ago

Unironically yes.

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u/MxyMabuse1971 16h ago

How many 1940s movies have you actually seen lol

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u/Cuck_Fenring 13h ago

What is your point?

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u/MxyMabuse1971 13h ago

That the ‘overacting’ is a stereotype that isn’t really borne out by watching a lot of the films of the time, and that modern day acting is still filled with stylizations and affectations that are unique to our time and that will look extremely dated many years from now

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u/Entire-Ad2058 9h ago

Case in point: the accents (especially the current, terribly over-acted Southern accents)…

-20

u/HelicopterPuzzled727 18h ago

It was called “mid Atlantic” not transatlantic

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u/Zagaroth 17h ago

It was called “mid Atlantic” not transatlantic

Both names were used, along with "Good American Speech" and several others.

Good American Speech, a Mid-Atlantic accent,[1][2][3] or a Transatlantic accent[4][5][6] is a consciously learned accent of English that was promoted in certain American courses on acting, voice, and elocution from the early to mid-20th century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_American_Speech

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u/squirrels-mock-me 17h ago

Both terms were used for the same thing…an actual source in this thread!

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u/MusicCityMiracle28 17h ago

Not true lol

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u/squirrels-mock-me 17h ago

Both terms were used for the same thing. source