Press Release Criterion Press Release: The Damned (1969) (Blu-ray) (1 Viewer)

[Will Krupp]

Isn't the DVD English only? The Criterion Channel's version is in the original Italian. Most people were dubbed anyway.

Can the Italian language version really be considered original or any more authentic than the English language version? As others mentioned, most Italian movies were recorded without sound and then post dubbed into whatever language was necessary, with most of the dialogue on-set spoken in English.

THE DAMNED is a rarity in that there actually IS on-set sound recorded when they're outside of Cinecitta for a good portion of it. Whatever house was being used as the replacement for Visconti's preferred location at the Krupp family's Villa Hugel (the company was denied permission to shoot there, someone must have read the script) was obviously soundproofed (or remote enough) and most everything shot inside the house (with the exception of heavily accented performances like Italian Umberto Orsini as Herbert or German Reinhard Kolldhoff as Konstantin) has organic sound. Even most of the non native English speaking actors are speaking English throughout the movie. To me, it seems silly to prefer it to be dubbed into Italian by voice actors and then have subtitles added to it so it feels more authentically foreign. Only a fraction of the actors (I think Orsini, the actress playing the governess, and the young actresses playing the children) was even Italian.

Didn't I read somewhere that Visconti's preference for this one was the English language version? Am I making that up?

Seeing that Visconti rather obviously used the Von Essenbecks as stand-ins for the Krupp Family, you can imagine that this has long been a favorite of mine. Yes, it's operatic and WAY over the top but I can't help but love it.

 

[ahollis]

“Seeing that Visconti rather obviously used the Von Essenbecks as stand-ins for the Krupp Family, you can imagine that this has long been a favorite of mine. Yes, it's operatic and WAY over the top but I can't help but love it.”

 

[Will Krupp]

I mean, How MANY people can say their family name is mentioned in MEIN KAMPF?? **



** Full disclosure, it's NOT actually my original family name. One of my ancestors (or a nearsighted bureaucrat) changed the spelling from KROPP (which is English, not German) to KRUPP when they came here. We use the short "u" pronunciation and the famous Krupps used the long "u."

 

[Ronald Epstein]

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[Matt Hough]

I'm hoping the bonus material on the disc is revelatory. There seems a good bit of uncertainty attached to the film.

 

[david hare]

By and large the English language version is completely "legit". The English speaking voices of Helmut, Ingrid Thulin, Dirk Bogarde , Rampling and even Helmut Griem and several others are all the actors' own. For the rest the German language scenes (the Night of the Long Knives underwear party) are left in German language for "authenticity". This was a period when Italian-German-French etc tax shelter co-productions were often made in more than one dub. Fellini's Satyricon was made in parallel Italian and English language versions both of which are "legit. Fellini of course cast the two English boys in Satyricon because, as he said he couldn't find any homosexuals in Italy. (I love Fellini and this is his great gay movie of course.) On that note both this and the Visconti which were made within a few months of each other (in different locations altogether, the Fellini was all made entirely in CInecitta soundstages) both feature very brief medium or wide shot male frontal nudity which was a first for mainstream feature movies until Larry Kramer and Ken Russell made Women in Love in 1970 which includes the famous fireside nude wrestling match with Allan Bates and Ollie Reed. ("Fireside No- Pajama Party")