The Sound of Chesterton, Belloc, and Lewis

My blogger buddy Keith Rickert commented that Basil Rathbone sounds the way he wishes G. K. Chesterton or Hilaire Belloc or C. S. Lewis sounded. I had heard recordings of Chesterton before. Here he is, in rather dim sound, delivering a BBC lecture on architecture. And I had heard some of Lewis's war-time broadcasts that eventually became Mere Christianity. Here's one. (Scroll down almost all the way, to the "Beyond Personality" clip.)

But I had never heard the sound of Belloc's voice and wasn't really sure what I imagined it might sound like. Keith was kind enough to steer me towards some examples. Here is the great (and odd) man sounding great (and odd):



You can follow the text of the first song, if you like.

What we have here, I believe, are three good reasons why people think speaking with a British accent makes you sound more intelligent.

Basil Rathbone

If I could write English prose like anyone in the world, it would be Ronald Knox.

If I could paint like anyone in the world, it would be Raphael.

If I could play baseball like anyone in the world, it would be Joe DiMaggio.

If I could sing like anyone in the world, it would be Enrico Caruso.

And if I could talk like anyone in the world, it would be Basil Rathbone.

Maybe I was the only little boy in the world who ever thought that Rathbone should have won at least one of those swordfights with Errol Flynn or Tyrone Power or Leslie Howard just because he sounded so good.

I mean, really now. Isn't this the human voice and the English language at their very best?



Today Turner Classic Movies was having a Basil Rathbone day, and I missed most of it. But I have many of his films on DVD, including one of my favorite Rathbone performances, as an intriguingly sympathetic Pontius Pilate in the 1935 Last Days of Pompeii. TCM also showed a Basil Rathbone movie I've never seen--The Bishop Murder Case (1930), based on a Philo Vance mystery. I'm sorry I missed it.