----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Jeremy - I leave it to your discretion whether or not to post. Thanks. The Italians probably dub films better than anyone else. I'm not sure where to direct you to find out more about it, but from what I know dubbing Hollywood films for Italian-speaking viewers is a huge industry in Rome. There are dubbing *stars* -- a specific guy who always dub the voice of Harrison Ford, for example, and women who always get to do Meg Ryan or Julia Roberts. Italian movie-goers know the names of these people as they are written about in popular film magazines. My Italian is only so-so, but on my annual vacation I get to see four or five movies (mostly last year's Hollywood blockbusters) dubbed into Italian. On the occassions I've seen the Italian-language versions after already having seen the English-language films, I've been impressed by how accurately the little in-jokes and idioms have been translated. In addition to the translation aspect, the lip-synching is truly amazing. One year, some Parisian friends came along with my family to the "Cinema Sotto Le Stelle" (cinema under the stars) in our little vacation village and were looking dismal at the prospect of of watching an Italian-dubbed version of some American Hollywood drama. Besides being jaded by living in a city where most of the 300 some-odd movie theatres show films V.O. (version originale), as filmmakers they suspected they would be distracted by out of synch dialogue dubbing. I don't think it took them more than two minutes to forget their fears.