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American accents in 1930s

Sat, 22 Oct 2005, 03:20 pm
Walter Plinge3 posts in thread
hi I take drama in high school and one of my asignments at the moment is to create a soap opera performance for theatre. My 5 friends and I have decided to do something different so we are having our play set in 1939 during the war between america and Japan. Rather than it being about the men at war it is about the women's lives and how they are affected by the men being away and dying, at this time they are working in a munitions factory (making weapons and bombs).

Our characters are all different but we all speak american in the 1930 to 1940s style (i have also heard there were a lot of immigrants living in america mainly from ireland and england, would this affect the accent of our characters?). Does anyone know how to do these accents? how and does anyone know any films that are on video/dvd that show the accents? HELP! I have no idea how to do these accents.

Re: American accents in 1930s

Fri, 2 Dec 2005, 10:15 pm
Walter Plinge
Hi Joanna,

First off the American accent you hear in most films today is not all that far off from the accent it was in the '30's. If you wanted to add a few characters with a bit of a twang in either the English or Irish accents I would suggest the following films:

Pearl Harbour (since it's set in the time period and has American accent)
Far and Away (Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise, set near the '30's with Irish accents)

any other film made in perhaps the '40's, try Dark Passage, Key Largo, or any of those type of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall movies.

Does that help?

Thread (3 posts)

American accents in 1930sWalter Plinge22 Oct 2005
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