BrainStuff explains that the plummy, upper-crust accent is reminiscent of British aristocracy and was actually the style of speaking taught to students in New England boarding schools. The style includes enunciated T's -- in words like water or writer -- and dropped R's -- in words like winner or clear.
The simple explanation: The Transatlantic accent, as this accent is called, was often taught in upper-class boarding schools in New England. But it was also hard to place geographically -- a great thing for geographically ambiguous talkies!
If you're from New England, you've probably heard the accent from older speakers who grew up around this time. As for performers from this era, since this was the prevailing accent of upper-class societies, it was also the one most commonly taught to actors.
The Trans-Atlantic Accent (or the Mid-Atlantic Accent) was a style of speech taught in affluent schools along the East Coast and in Hollywood Film Studios from the late nineteen tens until the mid-forties.
Fewer people had attended high school or college in the 1950s, fewer people had the influence of “tv standard “ speech, and more people were working class.
The Mid-Atlantic accent, or Transatlantic accent, is a consciously learned accent of English, fashionably used by the late 19th-century and early 20th-century American upper class and entertainment industry, which blended together features regarded as the most prestigious from both American and British English ( ...
The first is isolation; early colonists had only sporadic contact with the mother country. The second is exposure to other languages, and the colonists came into contact with Native American languages, mariners' Indian English pidgin and other settlers, who spoke Dutch, Swedish, French and Spanish.
Throughout the Golden Age of Hollywood, stars including Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Bette Davis, and Orson Welles employed what's known as a “Mid-Atlantic accent,” a sort of American-British hybrid of speaking that relies on tricks like dropping “R” sounds and softening vowels, in order to convey wealth and ...
Actually, although film making is a lot more expensive these days, celluloid in those days was insanely pricey. Actors had to talk fast in order to maximise value. That's why scenes with cars driving in olden films appear to be sped up - they're not, the stunt drivers just drove really fast to save money.
The Transatlantic accent is sometimes thought of as that “old-timey” way of speaking in 1930s and 1940s films; but its usage and impact extends far beyond American cinema. Sometimes referred to as a Mid-Atlantic accent, it is a carefully crafted dialect meant to imitate the upper-crust elite.
Economics dictated shooting closer to the threshold of the illusion, and most silent films were filmed around 16-18 frames per second (fps), then projected closer to 20-24 fps. This is why motion in those old silent films is so comical, the film is sped up: Charlie Chaplin.
The Jazz Singer, American musical film, released in 1927, that was the first feature-length movie with synchronized dialogue. It marked the ascendancy of “talkies” and the end of the silent-film era.
The Motion Picture Production Code was the set of industry moral guidelines that was applied to most movies released by major U.S. studios from 1930 to 1968. One of the Code's prohibitions was against excessive or lustful kissing, particularly when one character or the other is a "heavy" (villain).
Bruce Willis halts acting career after diagnosis with cognitive disorder. In his aphasia battle, Willis is not alone. Several entertainers have previously spoken about their experiences with the disorder, which is commonly seen in stroke victims.
Mid-Atlantic English was the dominant dialect among the Northeastern American upper class through the first half of the 20th century. As such, it was popular in the theatre and other forms of elite culture in that region…. With the evolution of talkies in the late 1920s, voice was first heard in motion pictures.
Those who failed to make the transition to sound included Vilma Banky, Mae Murray and Norma Talmadge. Comic legend Charlie Chaplin had yet to talk on film. Roles for Rudolph Valentino's romantic rival John Gilbert dried up, Douglas Fairbanks became disillusioned and audiences avoided director D.W. Griffith's talkies.
Many actors picture the position of their lines on the page. This helps them figure out what comes next. By the time the show has been running for a while, that visual memory usually fades. Other actors find that typing out their lines helps to imprint them on the memory.
They also are a reminder of the past and life at the time. For many people, old movies are a beautiful reminder of a time when things were simpler. These movies don't rely as much on technology to wow and shock the viewer, the story lines are clear and straighter forward, their plots simpler.
After the children rapidly turn into teenagers and Agnes suddenly dies, the families conclude that the beach is aging them, with the occupants undergoing the equivalent of one year of aging every 30 minutes.
Hepburn had been in declining health for several years, suffering from tremors similar to Parkinson's disease and from the effects of hip replacement surgery. With Hepburn's death, America's connection to the great era of the "talkies" and her great voice is over.
The tremors can affect the hands, face, head, forearms, and other parts of the body, including the larynx (your voice box). Katherine Hepburn suffered from essential tremor, which affected her head and larynx and was the reason for the distinct sound and nature of her voice.
Does anyone still speak with a Mid-Atlantic accent?
But, by the end of World War II, American elites and even Hollywood stars stopped speaking the swanky Mid-Atlantic English. Yet, some people, like the American author William F. Buckley and the Hollywood leading lady Katharine Hepburn, still used the consciously learned accent to emphasize their way of speaking.
According to a linguist at the Smithsonian, Americans began putting their own spin on English pronunciations just one generation after the colonists started arriving in the New World. An entire ocean away from their former homeland, they became increasingly isolated from “England English” speakers.
Considering all of this and his farmer upbringing, it is safe to speculate that Washington's natural accent was, as Morse portrays it, predominantly American with a detectable English influence.
