Voices of the Spaghetti Western ~ “The Shadow of Zorro”

 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 be 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 Shadow of Zorro”

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

 

 

Don José de la Torre/Zorro – Frank Latimore (S) Ángel María Baltanás, (G) Helmo Kindermann

María – María Luz Galicia (S) María Luz Galicia, (G)

Dan – Paul Piaget (S) Vicente Bañó, (G) Michael Chevalier

Billy – Robert Hundar (S) Simón Hernández (G) Rainer Brandt

Governor - José Marco Davó (S) José Marco Davó, (G) Wimm Schroers

 

Wimm Schroers

Sometimes also written as Wim, no further details on the life of this theater actor can be found. In the 1950s he was a member of the ensemble of the Contra Kreis Theater in Bonn. He hardly appeared in front of the camera, but in 1961 he took part in the notorious short film "The Wrong Horse", which was commissioned by Adenauer as an anti-SPD election campaign film. As a speaker, Schroers was heard almost exclusively at the IFU in Remagen, where he mostly performed important supporting roles. Since his name only appeared in a few official cast lists and some of these films have only been available for a short time, the name of the voice was a mystery to dubbing connoisseurs for a long time.