Free Post: Old-Fashioned Voices, Part Two

In my previous post, I talked about the different kinds of old fashioned voices. Now I'm going to try to figure out when those kinds of voices died out.

I used clips from the movies 'Casablanca' and 'The Lady Eve' as examples of old-fashioned voices. Both of these movies were made in the early 40's, a time when old-fashioned voices were still going strong. The government video with the voice of Edward R. Murrow was made in 1951-- but Murrow was older then, and is more famous for his radio broadcasts in the 40's. So we don't know if old-fashioned voices were still used among younger people in the 50's. However, I think it is safe to say that they were, because people were still using them well into the 60's, as can be seen from this clip of the 1964 black comedy film 'Dr. Strangelove':



The accents continued on even into the 70's, as shown by this movie trailer for the 1977 'Star Wars: A New Hope' :



But by the time the 'Star Wars' saga reached 'The Phantom Menace,' old-fashioned voices were almost gone:



When I watched this clip, I was expecting no traces of any old-time accents. But to my surprise, Chancellor Palpatine (played by Ian McDiarmid) has an old-fashioned voice. However, McDiarmid was born in 1944, when old-fashioned voices were the only way people spoke. He was 55 at the time the film was made, and was probably one of the last people to have that accent. Younger people at that time did not have the accent, as can be seen from the younger characters in the movie.

I want to find out when younger people lost the old-fashioned voices. 'Phantom Menace' was made in 1999, so somewhere between then and the 70's, old-fashioned voices all but died out.

'Back to the Future' was made in 1985, and it stars mostly younger actors. This clip shows that by that time, old-fashioned voices are gone. Neither character in this clip-- even Doc, who seems old enough to have an old-fashioned voice-- has an accent:



So now we know that sometime between 1977 and 1985, people stopped being born with old-fashioned voices.

The 1980 Oscar-winning movie 'Apocalypse Now' narrows down the time frame even further. In the famous 'I love the smell of napalm in the morning' scene, there are no old-fashioned voices present:



So at some undetermined point between 1977 and 1980, old-fashioned voices died out. I doubt that anyone speaks with that kind of accent today. Yes, the voices of the past lasted longer than the technology. We heard the accents long after black-and-white film was replaced with color and record machines with tape players and later with CDs. But like everything else from that time, the voices eventually faded away, along with the people.