“Didn’t You Once Sing to Me in German?” – Tracking the Dubbing and Subtitling of Film Musicals for the German-language Market
The Hollywood musical had always had a difficult time finding an audience in Continental Europe. In Germany and Austria, part of the problem has been the way the films were cut, dubbed or subtitled for their initial release in those markets, so if film historians wish to understand the muted reception the Hollywood musical has been given, they need to study those early German-language versions.
Yet while a handful of them – like the 1950 dubbing of Top Hat (1935) – have survived, today most original adaptations have been lost and with them any chance of gauging their quality and impact or exploring what they may reveal about the socio-cultural climate in which they were produced.
DVDs or Blu-rays regularly only include the latest German version, making it impossible for instance to compare the two different translations Disney commissioned for Lady and the Tramp (1955). Also irretrievable nowadays is the original German dubbing of the songs in West Side Story (1961). Other films such as Flower Drum Song (1962) have not been seen at all since their initial German release. But the cliché-laden German title for the latter - Almond Eyes and Lotus Blossoms – already hints at the sort of insight one might gain into the depiction of Asians as “the Other” prevalent in the early 1960s if one could study a copy of the German release print.
The paper will explore the problems and possibilities musical theatre scholars have of learning about and of preserving those early translations.