Media set in Mid-Atlantic nowhereland

[George White]

Reminded of this by coverage on Sex Education, people moaning about how it's set in an English high school where they wear letterman jackets, play American football, and act and dress like Americans.

But this isn't new.
Both adaptations of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the Burton film going for a world that looked like America to British kids and Britain to American kids.
Hellraiser - obviously, intended as British-set, then they redub it with US accents.
Various Aussie horror films of the 70s/80s  - notably Harlequin and the Survivor with Robert Powell deliberately set in a generic nowhereland, where you have American-style politics, American and British leads with an Aussie supporting cast all either trying to sound British or American, or both at the same time, and where Test Card F is on the telly...
A lot of Italian horror films too.

Any favourites of this phenomena?

[Sin Agog]

Most of Ernst Lubitsch's filmograpy has a slightly queazy Man in the High Castle vibe as if it's set in some fantasy miscegenated Amerope.

[Shit Good Nose]

Films forum is over there.

[George White]

I meant to put films, Tv, books, media in general.

[Mr Banlon]

Eagle In A Cage

[beanheadmcginty]

David "Kid" Jensen
Loyd Grossman

[Bently Sheds]

Those Netflix adaptations of Harlan Corben's books where the source material is obviously American, but the shows are inexplicably set in a bizarre Americanised version of the UK.

There was one with Dexter in it, where he seemed to have adopted Mick Jagger's accent from Stella Street.

[paruses]

The Harlan Coben adaptations that Netix makes are all set here. I find it unsettling because I couldn't say exactly why it's wrong.
See Bentley Sheds post.

I get a similar thing coming in cold to a Canadian drama thinking "that's not America". Am better at the accents now though but still get the same feeling; things like Workin' Moms.

[Paul Calf]

High Fidelity. Hornby coming-of-middle-age yarn transplanted to the US with surpising success.

[The Dog]

Titanic

[Dex Sawash]

Not really on topic but just watched Snowpiercer (series) and it has Martha from The Americans (Alison Wright) doing a really bad   british accent. Turns out she is british.

[The Dog]

Lot of people don't realise that Boris Johnson has a thick New York accent when he's talking normally. I saw him and his cowboy friend nearly get run over by a taxi and he started banging on the taxi and shouting at the driver and he was so mad he forgot to do his 'British' accent.

[George White]

Eagle In A Cage

What, the 1972 film with Moses Gunn as a Napoleonic general...

[George White]

The Harlan Coben adaptations that Netix makes are all set here. I find it unsettling because I couldn't say exactly why it's wrong.
See Bentley Sheds post.

I get a similar thing coming in cold to a Canadian drama thinking "that's not America". Am better at the accents now though but still get the same feeling; things like Workin' Moms.

There's a few Canadian dramas that try to be semi-British.
The Great Detective (1979), Dieppe (1993 - set in an almost-right but not quite there WW2 England, with Victor Garber as Mountbatten)...
I was watching the 1961 horror the Mask, which is Canadian and set there, but almost passes as a kind of Merton Park-type cheapie, and has a lot of British/Britoid-sounding actors.

[idunnosomename]

Hellraiser - obviously, intended as British-set, then they redub it with US accents.

YOUR SUFFERING WILL BE LEGENDARY!

EVEN IN HULL!!

[Buelligan]

John Malkovich doing Poirot.

I want this bloody man stopped.

Précisément.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

I like the way that it could be perceived in Hellraiser that Julia is exclusively targeting British men to bring home for Frank to feast upon, cos they're tastier than Americans. Like she's picking them up at an ex pat bar or something.

[Bently Sheds]

The Harlan Coben adaptations that Netix makes are all set here. I find it unsettling because I couldn't say exactly why it's wrong.

Some Weird Transatlantic Things in Jeremy Corbyn's The Stranger on Netflix:

How there didn't seem to be basic plod doing police work, just Detectives.

The car chase sequence where the inevitable "bad guy narrowly avoids a Garbage Truck at an Intersection and the chasing good guy gets slightly held up by it and shouts "GOD-DAMMIT!!!" whilst punching the steering wheel" happens - whereas in Britain the dustbin lorry would have given way to the approaching car chase at the junction.

The parents who turn up to their kid's every soccer practice en-masse and all stand at the sidelines whooping whenever the kid touches the ball.

The main handsome hero guy who was best buds with the guy across the street and they always hang out and shoot the shit with bottles of beer and watch the game together in a really un-British way.

It's kind of like Deep Fakes, there's that uncanny valley feeling where you just can't put your finger on why it feels "off", but these were things that stood out like a sore thumb as I was watching at the time.

[Icehaven]

Some Weird Transatlantic Things in Jeremy Corbyn's The Stranger on Netflix:

How there didn't seem to be basic plod doing police work, just Detectives.

The car chase sequence where the inevitable "bad guy narrowly avoids a Garbage Truck at an Intersection and the chasing good guy gets slightly held up by it and shouts "GOD-DAMMIT!!!" whilst punching the steering wheel" happens - whereas in Britain the dustbin lorry would have given way to the approaching car chase at the junction.

The parents who turn up to their kid's every soccer practice en-masse and all stand at the sidelines whooping whenever the kid touches the ball.

The main handsome hero guy who was best buds with the guy across the street and they always hang out and shoot the shit with bottles of beer and watch the game together in a really un-British way.

It's kind of like Deep Fakes, there's that uncanny valley feeling where you just can't put your finger on why it feels "off", but these were things that stood out like a sore thumb as I was watching at the time.

Yeah I even thought some of the homes were quite American looking, what I can remember of them anyway.

[dissolute ocelot]

Not really on topic but just watched Snowpiercer (series) and it has Martha from The Americans (Alison Wright) doing a really bad   british accent. Turns out she is british.

There are a few British actors who seem to have real trouble with most versions of a British accent. Charlie Hunnam is another one, despite or indeed because of being a Geordie.

[Mister Six]

How there didn't seem to be basic plod doing police work, just Detectives.

Reminds me of how the rozzers in Torchwood were all Detective This and Detective That rather than Detective Constable This and Detective Sergeant That, although that's more to do with Chris Chibnall being really fucking clueless than anything else.

Kind of want to watch one of these Harlem Coben things now. Are the books set in America but the stories adapted for the UK (by, presumably, an American or American-heavy company), or are they UK-set but written by an American?

[Bronzy]

Titanic

[Fambo Number Mive]

Reminds me of how the rozzers in Torchwood were all Detective This and Detective That rather than Detective Constable This and Detective Sergeant That, although that's more to do with Chris Chibnall being really fucking clueless than anything else.

This seems to happen in a lot of productions, and annoys me much more than it should.

Is the choice of a Mid-Atlantic nowhereland setting to ensure that they don't have to ensure they recreate any particular location too closely? Maybe also to try and make it stand out from other dramas.

[Attila]

Poseiden Adventure (at least in the book, as they're on their way back to Lisbon from a tour of various South American ports -- can't remember if it's made clear where the ship is in the film).

Roddy McDowell's accent is all over the shop -- Irish, English, Welsh lilt. Although, to be fair, his character is a combo of like 3 or 4 people in the book.

The book has a mix of British and American characters, including at least one character who's a playboy trying more or less to pass himself off as British, at least with his manner of speaking.

[Attila]

. ffs -- meant to modify not quote

[Pranet]

The 1933 film of the Invisible Man is set in some weird Hollywood backlot England where the police have American uniforms and the cars are American, as are some of the accents.

[George White]

Poseiden Adventure (at least in the book, as they're on their way back to Lisbon from a tour of various South American ports -- can't remember if it's made clear where the ship is in the film).

Roddy McDowell's accent is all over the shop -- Irish, English, Welsh lilt. Although, to be fair, his character is a combo of like 3 or 4 people in the book.

The book has a mix of British and American characters, including at least one character who's a playboy trying more or less to pass himself off as British, at least with his manner of speaking.

Yes, there's Miss Kinsale, Tony the Beamer Bates, Nonnie is a would-be Julie Andrews type who's been through variety clubs and so on...
They're in the Med somewhere in the film.
The 2005 TV movie has a few British actors though Sylvia Syms does Belle Rosen as American IIRC. But it's set between South Africa and Australia.

[George White]

The 1933 film of the Invisible Man is set in some weird Hollywood backlot England where the police have American uniforms and the cars are American, as are some of the accents.

All 30/40s/50s (to some extent) films set in Britain made in the US are like that.
Mrs. Miniver... Plus no one notices that Walter Pidgeon is Canadian

The faux-bus crops up lots of places. In Midnight Lace

Man from Uncle - Eastsnout

[Bently Sheds]

Kind of want to watch one of these Harlem Coben things now. Are the books set in America but the stories adapted for the UK (by, presumably, an American or American-heavy company), or are they UK-set but written by an American?

If The Stranger is anything to go by:

At their sons' lacrosse all-star team draft, Tripp Evans says to Adam Price: "We're living the dream." Indeed, Adam Price seem to live the American dream. He is married to a beautiful woman; he and his wife have good jobs and two wonderful sons. Adam is a public defender. Corinne teaches at a school. They live in a big house in a community where social standing is very important and where people are willing to go very far in order to maintain the appearance of their status.

So written by an American and set in America, then transposed to UK. The Stranger is shit. If it weren't 8 episodes I would recommend watching it for a laugh, but it's not worth wasting 8 hours of your life on.

[Mr Banlon]

What, the 1972 film with Moses Gunn as a Napoleonic general...

It's set in St Helena