Tuesday, December 10, 2024

Voices of the Spaghetti Western - “Ballad of a Gunman”

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 “Ballad of a Gunman”

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

Rocco/Blackie/Kud - Anthony Ghidra (I) Emilio Cigoli, (G) Kurt Mühlhardt

Hud - Angelo Infanti (I) Angelo Infanti, (G) Claus Jurichs

El Bedoja - Alfio Caltabiano (I) Giancarlo Maestri, (G) Edgar Ott

Explosion – Dante Maggio (I) Enzo Tarascio, (G) Alexander Welbat

Chiuchi- Anthony Freeman (I) Luciano Melani, (G) Gerd Martienzen

Maruja's Mother – Ellen Schweirs (I) Adriana de Roberto, (G) Ellen Schweirs









Kurt Mühlhardt  (1903 – 1980)

Kurt Mühlhardt was born in Berlin, Germany on September 11, 1903. After receiving relevant training, he worked there from the 1920s as an actor, cabaret artist and singer.

After successful appearances in the short sound films Cabaret Program No.2 and Cabaret Program No.4 directed by Kurt Gerron in 1931, he was also engaged in feature films, such as the 1932 Harry Piel film “The Secret Agent” (also “A Man Falls from Heaven”), where he plays a singer. After that, he received more roles in feature films. He also worked as a narrator in cultural and industrial films.

After the Second World War, he continued to get roles in film at DEFA in the GDR and later on television. He appeared in two DEFA opera adaptations, both directed by Gottfried Kolditz, and also appeared in two episodes of the satirical short film series “Das Stacheltier”, in 1957 in “Immer Kavalier” with Gisela May and in 1958 in “Mutters Geburtstag”.

After the Berlin Wall was built, he moved to West Berlin in 1961. There he continued to work as an actor in radio and television. He remained connected to feature films as an actor and as a narrator in the dubbing studio.

He was just as successful in Berlin in the 1920s as a singer in the field of operetta tenor, which brought him together with many well-known colleagues. But he is best known as a chorus singer for various orchestras on records. Without being named on the label, he also sang choruses on many cheap, department store and small records that used matrices of the "Kristall".

After WWII Mühlhardt also worked as a chorus singer, now for bands such as "Amiga", a brand of VEB Deutsche Schallplatten Berlin.

Kurt Mühlhardt died in Eckernförde, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany on June 20, 1980 at the age of 76.


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