That’s What She Said
The master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, and his leading lady, Polish born, Czech actress Anny Ondra, perform a sound check for his feature film Blackmail in 1929 which was released in both a silent and “all-talkie” version. What begins as an innocent little back and forth is quickly turned into crude double entendre with a simple “said the actress to the bishop” or in this case “as the girl said to the soldier.” BFIfilms, in their YouTube description, notes that one outcome from this test was that Ondra’s lines would later be dubbed live off-screen by Joan Barry, who sounded decidedly more British.
A bit of bonus trivia: production of Blackmail had already begun when producer John Maxwell decided that, based on the success of films like The Jazz Singer, it should also contain parts with sound. He authorized Hitchcock to film only a portion of the film in sound but, Hitchcock being Hitchcock, he decided to surreptitiously record the entire film in sound. Also, Anny Ondra wasn’t the only actor who experienced changes in the final product. In the longer, silent version, the role of the Chief Inspector was played by Sam Livesey whereas the sound version featured Harvey Braban.
via reddit : The Daily What
June 10th, 2010 at 9:26 am
AHAHAH! I love him.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:56 am
Ah, Hitchcock.
June 11th, 2010 at 10:40 am
Haha, someone really needs to do a biopic on him with little gems like this peppered throughout.
June 12th, 2010 at 11:10 pm
NO FUCKING WAY…are you guys reading my mind? I’ve been trying to bring back “that’s what the actress said to the bishop” for at least 3 weeks now.
O_O