Voices of the Spaghetti Western – “Gunfighters of Casa Grande”

 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 “Gunfighters of Casa Grande”

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

Joe Daylight – Alex Nicol (S) Félix Acaso, (G) Siegmar Schneider

Traveler – Jorge Mistral (S) Claudio Rodríguez, (G) Hans Wiegner

Doc – Dick Bentley (S) Antonio García Quijada, (G) Klaus W. Krause

Kid – Steve Rowland (S) Juan Logar, (G) Harry Wüstenhagen

Henri – Phil Posner (S) José Martínez Blanco, (G) Gerd Martienzen

Dona Maria de Castellar – Mercedes Alonso (S) Merceres Alonso, (G) Anneliese Priefert

Gitana – Diana Lorys (S) Mercedes Mireya, (G) Beate Hasenau

Siegmar Schneider  (1916 – 1995)

Siegmar Schneider was born on December 10, 1916 in Berlin, Germany. He began his acting career on stage in theaters in Vienna, Salzburg, Hamburg and made his film debut in 1936 but he was extensively active as a voice actor between 1949 and 1992 and lent his voice almost regularly to James Stewart (“The Courtyard Window”, “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”, “Vertigo”, “Winchester '73”). He also voiced Lex Barker (“Thundering Hoofs”), Peter Cushing (“Dracula's Witch Hunt”), Errol Flynn (“Montana”), Henry Fonda (“War and Peace”), John Gielgud (“Diamonds and Cockroaches”), Alec Guinness (“Nobility”), Jack Hawkins (“Ben Hur”), John Mills (“Your Chance Was Zero”), Laurence Olivier (“The Power and the Glory”), Michael Redgrave ("Heavy Water"), Peter Sellers (“Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Love the Bomb”) and Terry-Thomas (Charlie Brown of all people).

Siegmar Schneider died in 1995 in Munich, Germany. He was buried next to his wife, the Berlin dance teacher Gertrud Wienecke [1908–1990], in their adopted home of Stuttgart-Sillenbuch.