[youtalkfunny]

Watched 12 Angry Men again tonight. Many great performances in this one, of course. But Lee J Cobb's "Juror #3" prompted me to start a thread I've been thinking about for a long time: actors who use their voices in an musical manner to speak their dialogue. Roles where cadence and rhythm define the part.

--The simplest example I can think of is Lee Ermey's drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket. If you try to mimic these lines out loud, you'll feel like you're singing:

"Do you feel dizzy? Do you feel faint? Jesus Christ! I think you've got a [censored]!"

"...and the way I see it, ladies, YOU owe ME for ONE jelly DOUGHNUT. Nowgetonyourfaces!"

"Get up there Pyle--oh, that's good, Private Pyle! Don't make any [censored] effort to get to the top of the [censored] obstacle! If God had wanted you up there, he would have miracled your ass up there by now, wouldn't he?"

"Get the [censored] off of my obstacle! Get the [censored] down off of my obstacle! I'm going to rip your balls off, so you cannot contaminate the human race! I will motivate you Private Pyle, (really, REALLY sing these last nine words) if it short-dicks every cannibal on the Congo!"

I can't remember the exact dialog from his final scene (where he confronts the armed Private Pyle), but I can picture the melody--the loud cacophony of profanity at first, then the low, still-menacing sound of trying to calm down (and failing miserably, going back up in pitch until he gets killed).

--Cobb did the same thing in 12 Angry Men. He sang, in a booming voice, every time he got excited.

"What do you MEAN you've changed your mind??? What are you TALKING about? You can throw OUT all the other evidence!"

He's speaking, not singing; but the changes in volume, tone, pitch, and rhythm are unmistakably musical.

--Ian McShane's patter on Deadwood sometimes starts to sound melodic. But I imagine that's more a function of the writing, than a deliberate choice by the actor.

--One last one to throw out: Werner Klemperer as Col Klink in Hogan's Heroes. As Kurt Fuller (who played Klemperer in the Bob Crane bio-pic Auto Focus) said, "Klemperer basically SANG that role."

(BTW, if you didn't already know, every title in this post that appears in italics is something you should watch--even Auto Focus, which features no one "singing" their part.)