Maybe That Guy

This week, the sound of actors making livings.  Not exactly "before they were famous"; today's post looks at a few examples of work that might be by voices we know and love.  

Mel Blanc: 

The General in Gamera sounds a lot like a voice he did in Duck Dodgers (the original, not the 100 or so spinoffs they've done).  Mel was also working with Fibber McGee and Molly at the beginning of the 1940s- his Hiccuping Floorwalker is singularly adept- and doing commercials on that show, usually recognizable.  This one, not so much.  I'm not even sure it is Mel.  It's not a voice he used later.  I've listened to it carefully, and I still don't know- it's close enough for a qualified Maybe.

 

 Paul Frees: 

This clip was originally included in the Paul Frees anthology I broadcast 25 years ago.  It's the scene in Visconti's The Damned where Charlotte Rampling confronts an anonymous bureaucrat regarding her, shall we say, proposed emigration from the Reich.  The character's face isn't shown; Mr Frees did a lot of uncredited clean-up work on films, and his distinctively tinny baritone is frequently detectable.  

I thought that was the case here.  I made the call partly on the way he says "murder", which sounds pure Chicago (a frequent overtone with him).  But 25 years later, I'm not so sure.  The man was a chameleon.

For example, on a subsequent podcast I identified this clip from The Battle of Britain (1969) as a voice over by him, of a character played by Sir Laurence Olivier.  I've since concluded it probably really is Olivier.  I think.  Now, anyway. 

 

Jon Hamm: 

Oh yeah, that's our old buddy Draper.  (I cut out the sponsor's name.  This ain't Madison Avenue.)

It's an interesting topic.  Some well-known voices have dabbled in anonymity, plying their trade in the daily hurley-burley of show biz.  Probably a theme we'll come back to.