13 English dubs that are impossible to find

One of the really wonderful things about the DVD and Blu-ray era is the sheer number of films has been released – many of which are rare and largely forgotten European films that have been given new life after years of complete obscurity. As an enthusiast of the English dubbing scene in Rome, though, I am highly concerned with rescuing not only the films themselves from obscurity, but also the English dub tracks.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen as there’s quite a lot of dubbing snobbery going on, with several companies choosing to not include the English dub tracks on their releases. One of the worst offenders is definitely Kino Lorber, who, for example, omitted the English dubs of all the films in their Lina Wertmüller Collection, as well as leaving out the excellent English dub track on their release of Francesco Rosi’s Illustrious Corpses (1976). In the case of the latter, however, the totally wretched, overly dark and badly color-timed transfer makes it a definite no-buy in either case.

On the other end of the spectrum, we are fortunate to have the likes of Severin Films, Vinegar Syndrome and Arrow Films, who have both proven themselves as true champions when it comes to unearthing English dubs which have never before been available anywhere on tape or disc. Thanks to the efforts of Severin we now finally have the fabled English dubs of Libido (1965) and An Angel for Satan (1966), Vinegar Syndrome have rescued the English versions of Madeleine, Anatomy of a Nightmare (1974) and Nine Guests for a Crime (1977) from oblivion, and Arrow have made the English dubs of The Possessed (1965) and The Third Eye (1966) available at long last. All of which are great and invaluable finds!

Alas, for every available English dub out there, there are probably twice as many that are extremely difficult to find, to say nothing of the ones that are simply not available anywhere, having either been lost to the sands of time or just never picked up for release anywhere. Some of them we know about, and others we don’t. For this post, I’m going to spotlight 13 interesting films that are known to have been dubbed into English, but for which the English dubs are currently impossible to find. Hopefully, they are going to be unearthed in the years to come…

 

1. The Night of the Damned / La notte dei dannati (1971)

This gothic erotic horror film directed by Filippo Walter Ratti stars Pierre Brice and Patrizia Viotti as a married couple invited to a crumbling old castle where they become embroiled in a macabre plot of black magic, witchery and gruesome rituals. A flawed but atmospheric and stylish little horror flick, The Night of the Damned did little business in Italy, but managed to get picked up for theatrical distribution in the UK, where it was cut by the BBFC in order to achieve an X rating and then paired on a double bill with another Italian horror film, Mario Colucci’s Something Creeping in the Dark (1970). The English dub was apparently written and directed by Ted Rusoff, who is given a credit for “additional dialogue” on the BFI’s listing for the film.

 

UK poster on a double bill with Something Creeping in the Dark.

 

Unfortunately, the English version has since faded into obscurity. VHS releases of the film have been issued in both Italy and France, but no VHS release of the English dub is known to exist. Worse yet, the film’s rights holder, Movietime, only lists an Italian-language version as being available in their online catalogue – indicating that the elements for the English dub may have been lost. The film did, however, get an 8mm release in the UK, so the English version should be out there somewhere...

 

 

2. The Rage Within / Delitto al circolo del tennis (1969)

 

Based on the novel “Crime at the Tennis Club” by the esteemed Alberto Moravia (“The Conformist”, “Two Women”, “A Time of Indifference” etc), this Italian/Yugoslavian production is often labelled as a giallo, but it’s really more of an erotic drama, telling the story of a handsome university professor (Chris Avram) who is having an affair with one of his students (Anna Gaël) and ends up blackmailed with compromising photos by his own daughter (Angela McDonald) and her boyfriend (Roberto Bisacco).

This film, too, managed to secure a theatrical run in the UK, where it was released with an X rating in 1970, but subsequently it befell the same unfortunate fate as The Night of the Damned by falling into complete obscurity.

UK poster from 1970.

It’s not only the English-dubbed version that disappeared, though, as the film has long been elusive in Italian as well, with only viewing option being dupes of an old Spanish VHS release. Interestingly, this release, although dubbed in Spanish, contains the English credits.

 

English credits from the Spanish VHS release.

 

3. A Rather Complicated Girl / Una ragazza piuttosto complicata (1969)

Just like The Rage Within, this twisty but slow burning erotic thriller full of psychedelic visual flourishes is based on the writings of Alberto Moravia, although in this case we’re talking about a very loose adaptation of his short story “La marcia indietro”. Directed by the great Damiano Damiani, A Rather Complicated Girl has a top-notch cast headlined by Jean Sorel, Catherine Spaak and Florinda Bolkan, but it does not appear to have done much business outside of Italy.

The Italian language version has circulated with English fansubs for years, but no English dub has ever surfaced anywhere. It does exist, however, with rights holder Movietime offering the film for sale in both Italian, Spanish, German and English in their online catalogue.

A rare trade ad printed in Variety.

 

 

4. Interrabang (1969)

Here we have yet another of the twisty, psychological pre-Argento gialli from the time before the genre’s conventions had fully established themselves. Featuring a small cast of five, the film stars Umberto Orsini as a hip fashion photographer who sails to a secluded island with three attractive women (Haydée Politoff, Beba Loncar and Shoshana Cohen) for a photo shoot, but things turn complicated when a vacationing writer (Corrado Pani), who may or may not be an escaped convict, starts seducing the women one by one…

Visually gorgeous, but perhaps a tad on the artsy side for a thriller/mystery – right down to the title which refers to the interrobang (‽), a punctuation mark that combines a question mark and an exclamation mark, and which is featured on a necklace worn by Haydée Politoff’s character throughout the film – and that may also account for the film’s relative obscurity.

Haydée Politoff with the bizarre interrobang necklace.

No English dub has ever been made available, but one does exist and is being offered for sale by rights holder Variety Distribution under the title Interpoint.

 

 

5. Killer 77, Alive or Dead / Sicario 77, vivo o morto (1966)

This fun and colorful Eurospy adventure stars American actor and frequent dubber Rodd Dana as a secret agent who is after a dollar bill carrying a secret formula, and also features Alicia Brandet, Monica Randall and the great character actor and busy voice dubber John Stacy. It was one of five Italian films that Rodd Dana starred in during the mid to late 1960s, and is the only one of the five to not be available anywhere in English. An English dub does exist, though, and is offered for sale by rights holder Movietime on their website. 

According to Dana himself, both he and John Stacy dubbed themselves for the English version. “We did an English dubbed track for it that no one has ever been able to find. Sad. It was terribly dubbed in the Italian and Spanish versions, but Gene Luotto and us did a superb job,” he recalled when I asked him about the film.

John Stacy and Rodd Dana both dubbed themselves for the elusive English dub.

 

 

6. The Gold of London / L’oro di Londra (1968)

Don’t let the poster image fool you. This isn’t at all the kind of hard-hitting and violent crime film that the above imagery suggests. It’s more of low-key and humorous heist film about a robbery of the Bank of England’s weekly gold shipment by a criminal gang led by the great character actor and frequent dubber John Karlsen in his only leading role.

John Karlsen stars as the criminal mastermind behind the daring heist.

This one has been a staple on German television for years, and excellent quality TV-rips can be found of the German dub. The Italian version is much rarer, to say nothing of the English dub, which doesn’t appear to have been picked up for release anywhere. Movietime has it available for sale in their online catalogue, though.

 

7. Death Will Have Your Eyes / La moglie giovane (1974)

The lovely Marisa Mell stars in this Italian/Spanish crime melodrama as an attractive woman who comes to Rome to make a living for herself, but who instead ends up falling into prostitution and getting involved with blackmail, murder and all sorts of shady characters played by the likes of Francisco Rabal and Farley Granger.

Marisa Mell is the star of Death Will Have Your Eyes.

Mya Communications released this on DVD in the US in 2011, but it was a subpar release and only included the Italian dub with English subtitles. The English dub doesn’t appear to have been released anywhere, but an English trailer has been doing the rounds on YouTube for years. Unlike the original Italian title, which translates simply as The Young Wife, the trailer uses the decidedly more giallo-esque title of Death Will Have Your Eyes, which suggests a type of film that this really isn’t. Nevertheless, the trailer makes for a fascinating watch, and as it contains a fair amount of dialogue, it at least gives us a small impression of what the English dub might be like:

The big surprise here is that Marisa Mell can actually be heard dubbing her own voice. Mell was dubbed in the large majority of her films, but did in fact speak excellent English, albeit it with a slight and rather sexy German accent. She can also be heard dubbing herself in films like Seven Blood-Stained Orchids (1972) and Diary of an Erotic Murderess (1975). Unlike Mell, a slumming Farley Granger did not stay around to dub himself, and can instead be heard speaking with the unmistakably masculine tones of busy leading man dubber Michael Forest, whereas Francisco Rabal’s sleazy performance is dubbed by the great Edward Mannix, probably the busiest dubbing actor in Rome during the 1970s. Helga Liné also pops up long enough in the trailer to speak one line, which is dubbed by the ever-present Carolyn de Fonseca, and it certainly sounds as if it’s Fonseca’s husband, Ted Rusoff, dubbing the voice of Riccardo Salvino, but it’s hard to be 100% certain given that his only piece of dialogue in the trailer is uttering the name Luisa.

 

 

8. Ciak si muore (1974)

This little-known giallo starring Giorgio Ardisson, Annabella Incontrera and Ivano Staccioli is centered around a film crew making a horror movie and whose leading actresses are being targeted by a mysterious killer. Visibly made on a poverty-row budget, Ciak si muore received very limited distribution and is currently only available through rips of an old and battered-looking Italian VHS, which has been fansubbed and circulated among collectors under the literal English title of Clap, You’re Dead.

Giorgio Ardisson in Ciak si muore.

No English dub has ever surfaced anywhere, but it’s worth noting that while the currently circulating VHS-rip has the opening titles in Italian, the end titles are actually in English – a clear indication that they are sourced from an English print and that there must have been an English dub prepared at some point (presumably under a more sellable title than Clap, You’re Dead).

English end titles from the Italian VHS release.

 

9. Excuse Me, My Name is… Rocco Papaleo / Permette? Rocco Papaleo (1971)

This quirky drama-comedy directed by the renowned Ettore Scola stars Marcello Mastroianni as Rocco Papaleo, a former boxer and Sicilian immigrant working as a miner in a small Alaskan town. During a trip to Chicago with his mining friends, he has a chance meeting with Jenny (Lauren Hutton), a young model who convinces him to stay. But Rocco is soon disillusioned in the face of the big city’s hostility, and finds himself changing from a kind and happy optimist into a desperate, frustrated pessimist.

In spite of its negative view of Chicago, Rocco Papaleo was shown at the Chicago International Film Festival in 1973, but otherwise had only limited theatrical play in the US in the late 1970s under the title Rocco in Chicago.

US poster under the Rocco in Chicago title.

 

The film has since been released on DVD in both Italy and Spain, but none of these releases have included the elusive English dub track. Rights holder Film Export Group has the film available in English, though, and even have the rare English language trailer streaming on their website:

From the trailer we can hear that Mastroianni was dubbed by Marc Smith, who dubbed many of the most famous European stars, and who would go on to dub Mastroianni again in several of his 1970s films. Interestingly, Lauren Hutton’s voice is also dubbed – by Linda Gary, one of the most in-demand voice actresses in Rome during the early 1970s before she eventually returned to the US and became one of the really big names in animation dubbing.

 

10. Bed Crazy / Lettomania (1976)

Harry Reems has gone down in history as a legendary porno superstud thanks to his performances in such XXX classics as Deep Throat (1972) and The Devil in Miss Jones (1973), but in the mid-1970s, he broke away from porn and attempted to establish a more mainstream career for himself. It didn’t quite work out and Reems eventually drifted back into the porn industry in the early 1980s. He made quite a few interesting little films during his mainstream period, however, including two Italian films. One was the Renato Pozzetto comedy Honeymoon in Three (1976) in which Reems played a supporting part, and the other was a starring role in this rather obscure softcore drama.

Set in and shot on location in London, Bed Crazy features Reems as a photographer living together with his good friend (Alberto Squillante). The pair of them are in the habit of picking up women and sharing them amongst themselves, but things become complicated with the arrival of a woman (Carmen Villani) that both of them develop strong feelings for.

Harry Reems in a scene from Bed Crazy.

Bed Crazy serves as yet another unfortunate example of a film for which the English dub does not appear to have gone anywhere, yet it does exist and is listed in the online catalogue of rights holder Variety Distribution under the title Bed Mania. Hopefully, it’ll be released at some point as I’m curious to see who they got to dub Reems. My guess would be Michael Forest.

A rare sales brochure.

 

 

11. Oh! Those Most Secret Agents / 002 agenti segretissimi (1964)

You wouldn’t think that many of the films starring the comedic duo of Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia would have been given English dubs as their distinctly Italian form of comedy and wordplay tends to not translate particularly well into English. Nevertheless, surprisingly many Franco and Ciccio films were given English dubs, and some of them even managing to secure US distribution. That was the case with Oh! Those Most Secret Agents, a parody of the James Bond films, that somehow managed to get picked up by Allied Artists.

Poster from the film's US release.

 

The film is easily available in Italian, but the English dub has sadly disappeared, though it is available to be licensed through rights holder Movietime.

 

 

12. Seven in the Sun / Gli avventurieri dei Tropici (1960)

This Italian adventure film set in South America stars American actor and frequent dubber Frank Latimore alongside the great peplum diva Gianna Maria Canale in a rare non-peplum appearance, and was directed by Sergio Bergonzelli, who would subsequently move on to far wilder and sleazier adventures with films like In the Folds of the Flesh (1970) and Blood Delirium (1988).

It was picked up for US release by Joseph E. Levine, who distributed it through his Embassy Pictures as Seven in the Sun in 1964. The film had a few TV airings in the US in the 1970s, but has since completely disappeared, and there are currently no available prints in either English nor Italian.

Publicity photo from the film's US release in 1964.

Dubbing actress Nina Rootes, who was working in Rome during the late 1950s and early 1960s under the name Nina Golding, was involved in the dubbing of the film, and talks briefly about it in her book Adventures in the Movie Biz (2013): “It was an adventure story set in an unnamed South American country. ELDA [English Language Dubbers Association] was given the job of dubbing it into English, as it has been made in Italian. I had a gorgeous part as an Indian girl of whatever country it was supposed to be. I struggled to find an accent and ended up with something half-way between Spanish and Indian.”

 

 

13. Six Cases for Father Brown / Sei delitti per Padre Brown (1988) (TV mini-series)

Father Brown, the Roman Catholic priest and amateur detective featured in the short stories of English author G.K. Chesterton has been the subject of numerous adaptations for television, film and radio, both in the UK and the rest of Europe. The first Italian adaptation was a six-part television series called I racconti di Padre Brown (i.e. The Tales of Father Brown) starring Renato Rascel in the title role and which was broadcast on RAI during 1970-71 to great success.

This second Italian version, which was co-produced with France, was a much more expensive and ambitious project aimed towards the international market. Cast in the role of Father Brown was the esteemed Welsh Shakespearean actor Emrys James, while the various guest stars were made up of an impressive roster of famous European actors including Francisco Rabal, Stefania Sandrelli, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Catherine Spaak, Fabio Testi, Gianni Garko, Ana Obregon, Peter Chatel and Christiane Jean, as well as some British and American actors based in Italy such as Mimsy Farmer, Edmund Purdom and David Brandon.

Emrys James as Father Brown.

An article about the production of the series in the Italian newspaper La Stampa reveals that it was shot in 1985, but it didn’t premiere on Italian television until in January 1988. It has been re-run a few times, but for the most part, the series is almost entirely forgotten, and only sixth episode can be found online – in a pretty grotty-looking YouTube upload of an old Italian TV broadcast.

Sadly, the English dubbed version has fared even worse and seems to have completely disappeared into the ether. Video footage of Emrys James dubbing his own performance into English under the direction of dubbing writer/director Gene Luotto in 1986 does exist, however, and the series did eventually make its way to Australia, where it was shown on SBS in 1990. SBS also re-ran the series in 1992, but there’s no further trace of the English dub after that.

Gene Luotto and Emrys James dubbing the series into English in 1986.

 

Australian TV listing from 1990.

Obviously, these are just a very few examples of the countless buried and forgotten English dubs out there. I’ll probably cover others in future posts.

© 2023 Johan Melle