Voices of the Spaghetti Western – “A Bullet for the General”

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 “A Bullet for the General”

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

El Chuncho Muños - Gian Maria Volontè (I) Gian Maria Volontè, (S) Víctor Bouzas, (G)          Klaus Höhne, (F) Bernard Noël)

Bill 'Niño' Tate – Lou Castel (I) Massimo Turci, (S) José Antonio Sarda, (G) Michael Hinz, (F) Michel Cogoni

El Santo – Klaus Kinski (I) Sergio Graziani, (S) Roberto Reboiro, (G) Klaus Kindler, (F) René Bériard

Adelita – Martine Beswick (I) Rita Savagnone, (S) Cristina Aldrey, (G) Charlotte Kerr, (F) Françoise Fechter

General Elías - Jaime Fernandez (I) Giuseppe Rinaldi, (S) Roberto Reboiro, (G) Wolf Ackva, (F) Albert Augier

Klaus Höhne  (1927 – 2006)

Klaus Höhne was born in Hamburg, German on June 13, 1927. After acting lessons with Joseph Offenbach in his hometown, he began extensive stage work in the character department. He was seen in dozens of roles in front of the camera, mostly on television. For ARD he was the Hessian investigator Konrad in eight ‘Tatort’ episodes. He gained a foothold in the dubbing field in the 1950s; he was first heard in Hamburg and later mainly in his adopted home of Munich. As a rule, he played character roles of various kinds, often for well-known actors such as Pierre Mondy, Kirk Douglas or Donald Pleasence. He was particularly fond of cunning, superiority combined with goodness and that also made up the roles with which his voice was particularly familiar to the audience: as master detective Charlie Chan ("Thank you very much!"), David Suchet's Hercule Poirot and as Albus Dumbledore In the first Harry Potter films he left an inimitable mark on the characters and will forever be remembered.

Klaus Höhne died on August 21, 2006, in Murnau am Staffelsee, Bavaria, Germany at the age of 79.