Voices of the Spaghetti Western – “The Ruthless Four”

 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 Ruthless Four”

The film grossed 195,136 lire during its initial release

 

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

Sam Cooper – Van Heflin (E) Van Heflin, (I) Corrado Gaipa, (S) Arsenio Corsellas,

(G) Wolfgang Lukschy, (F) Henry Djanik

Mason – Gilbert Roland (E) Gilbert Roland, (I) Renato Turi, (S) Alfonso Santigosa,

(G) Friedrich Schoenfelder, (F) Jean-Claude Michel

Manolo Sanchez – George Hilton (E) ?, (I) Gino La Monica, (S) Manuel Cano, (G) Eskart Dux, (F) Bernard Tiphaine

Brent – Klaus Kinski (E) ?, (I) Sergio Graziani, (S) Joaquin Diaz, (G) Wolfgang Draeger,

(F) Jacques Thébault

 

Corrado Gaipa

Corrado Gaipa was born on March 13, 1925 in Palermo, Sicily, Italy. Gaipa was a well-known actor of Italian cinema as well as dubbing voices. However, he was widely known for his role as Don Tommasino in “The Godfather” He dubbed many prominent actors, including Orson Welles, Lionel Stander, Lee J. Cobb, Ernest Borgnine, and Edward G. Robinson. He was the voice of Burt Lancaster in The Leopard (1963) and the Italian voice of Alec Guinness (Obi-Wan "Ben" Kenobi) in the "Star Wars" Trilogy. He co-founded the dubbing company Cine Video Doppiatori, which handled the Italian versions of the original "Star Wars" trilogy, the "Lord of the Rings" series, and several of the "Harry Potter" films.

Corrado Gaipa died on September 21, 1989 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. At the time of his death, he had just signed to reprise the role of Don Tommasino in The Godfather Part III. The role was instead passed on to Vittorio Duse.