Voices of the Euro-western ~ “The Great Silence”

As we know most of the Euro-westerns were co-productions from Italy, Spain, Germany and France which incorporated British and American actors to gain a worldwide audience. The films were shot silent and then dubbed into the various languages where they were sold for distribution. That means Italian, Spanish, German, French and English voice actors were hired to dub the films. Even actors from the countries where the film was to be shown were often dubbed by voice actors for various reasons such as the actors were already busy making another film, they wanted to paid additional salaries for dubbing their voices, the actor’s voice didn’t fit the character they were playing, accidents to the actors and in some cases even death before the film could be dubbed.

I’ll list a Euro-western and the (I) Italian, (S) Spanish, (G) German and (F) French, (E) English voices that I can find and once in a while a bio on a specific voice actor as in Europe these actors are as well-known as the actors they voiced.

Today we’ll cover “The Great Silence”

[(I) Italian, (S) Spanish, (G) German (F) French, (E) English]

Jean-Louis Trintignant

Klaus Kinski (I) Giancarlo Maestri, (G) Gerd Martienzen, (S) David Rocha, (E) ?

Frank Wolff (I) Michele Malaspina, (G) Martin Hirthe, (S) Rafael Torres, (E) ?

Vonetta McGee (I) Gabriella Genta, (G) Traudel Haas, (S) ?, (E) ?

Luigi Pistilli (I) Luciano Melani, (G) Friedrich W. Bauschulte, (S) ?, (E) ?

Mario Brega (I) ?, (G) Klaus Sonnenschein, (S) ?, (E) ?

Gerhard ‘Gerd’ Martienzen (1918-1988)

Gerd Martienzen was the son of a German father and a Belgian mother. He was born in Ostend, Belgium on March 24, 1918. At the age of three, Martienzen, who until then had only spoken French, came to Berlin, home to his father. There he attended the drama school of the Prussian State Theater and performed after the war at the Hebbel Theater and the Free People's Stage.

In the 1950s, he played supporting roles in several films, mostly because of his language skills as a Frenchman, as well as in “Es kommt ein Tag” (1950) with Dieter Borsche and Maria Schell.

At the same time, Gerd also began to work as a voice actor. His very distinctive and extremely dynamic voice he lent to several times, including Frank Sinatra (“Assault on a Queen”), Sammy Davis Jr. (Ocean’s Eleven), Groucho Marx (“Duck Soup”) and very often dubbed Louis de Funès. Overall, Gerd Martienzen dubbed about 400 film and countless TV series roles, including Don Adams as the clumsy secret agent Maxwell Smart, Ken Curtis skydiver Jim Buckley in the hugely popular adventure TV series “Ripcord”, Stephen Strimpell as Superman Blend Stanley Beamish in the TV series “Mr. Terrific” and Fred Astaire in his appearance, “It Takes a Thief”. He also dubbed Klaus Kinski quite often, even in German productions. He was also the German voice of the famous cartoon character Mister Magoo.

Blindness led to Gerd Martienzen retiring from his profession in 1977. His children Wolf and Marion (also known as Marion Marlon ) also became actors. Gerd died in Grafrath, Bavaria, Germany on April 28, 1988.