Le Professeur

Thelma Todd brings burlesque to a script replete with gags, some of them funny, as when Keaton carries her folded up looking like a filled bag. Pre-Code license pervades and Todd takes this to new realms. The Broadway show as conceived is quite brilliant with snow flakes, costumes, sets, dancers, music, balloons and genuine art, for a few moments, before Keaton tears it all apart. The Producers, Night at the Opera, owe somewhat. You don't get such a steady stream of sight gags and stunts, as with the trains, unless it's Keaton. Not many big laughs, but surprising in its disregard for conventions of good taste audiences might expect to see lived up at an MGM movie. Hedda Hopper does a great job as the tasteful Mrs. Peets.

While it is true that SPEAK EASILY doesn't hold a candle to the genius of Keaton's best films, neither is it worthless as some have suggested. Outside pressures (namely MGM and his deteriorating family life) held Keaton back from performing at the inspired level he might have. SPEAK EASILY's main weakness lies in MGM forcing an uninspired pairing of Keaton with a vaudeville comic like Durante. The tension between Buster's physical comedy (which is never allowed to ignite as it once had) and Durante's verbal punning is something that never really works. Keaton's characters in all of the MGM talkies seem, for lack of a better word, dense. The inherent cleverness that Buster showed in his silent work was totally abandoned. Never again would Buster show the bravado, daring and quickness he was famous for. Instead, he would be shoe-horned by MGM into a series of roles as loser, victim and sap. For all those inherent problems, SPEAK EASILY still contains at least two slapstick sequences that prove Keaton could be just as funny in his talkies as he was in his silent work. The 'drunken seduction' with Thelma Todd's gold-digger is very funny. Miss Todd proves herself not only a fine comedienne, but shows excellent chemistry with Keaton. Also, Buster's utter, and totally inadvertent, destruction of the Broadway play during it's opening night performance is hysterical and features some fine stunt gags. Those looking for the sublime genius of THE GENERAL or SHERLOCK JR. will invariably be disappointed. That 'Buster' was long gone by this point in his career. SPEAK EASILY should be viewed as an enjoyable programmer that kept Buster working, if not at his peak, still as a capable gag man and entertainer. Admiring fans with an open mind will find much to enjoy here

I watched 'Speak Easily' one night and thought it was o.k., but missing something. Maybe Buster Keaton strangely speaking threw me off, or the labored line delivery of a leading lady. The next day I kept thinking about the movie, though. I couldn't get Durante's song out of my head, I kept trying to better remember Thelma Todd's first scene, I considered that maybe Keaton did do some funny falls and physical comedy. The next night I watched a scene with Thelma Todd as a conniving chorus girl trying to impress Buster and Jimmy with her sex appeal. A very funny scene, the actors excellent, their faces, their eyes, their silly expressions. So I watched another scene, their show is opening on Broadway. Buster in his blissful innocence botches every act. Again, I was laughing out loud, appreciating Keaton's clowning and tumbling. So the next night I watched the whole movie again, and this time I see it for the first time: It's Stupendous! It's Sensational! It's Sublime! Three great comedians! Todd dances! Durante sings! Keaton speaks! Sure it ain't poifect...but there's a lot of laughs in this picture.

Not laugh out loud funny, by still mildly amusing and lighthearted tale of an introverted professor whose supposedly inherited a fortune and decides to bankroll an inept broadway play until his fortune attracts the attention of a tenacious gold-digger (Todd).

Keaton's antics are subdued here appearing as the straight man to Durante's comic antics, whilst there's ample support from future 'Charlie Chan' Toler as the besieged stage director, and vivacious Thelma Todd as the would-be wife who sees an opportunity to secure acting fame and fortune via the cashed-up Keaton. Their drunken apartment liaison is probably the film's highlight, elsewhere proceedings sometimes become tedious and trivial despite a straightforward plot.

Mild romantic comedy doesn't become too ambitious, playing the formula sufficiently well to entertain despite some occasional pacing problems, 6/10.

Despite what other users have said about this movie, I found it delightful and very funny. Buster Keaton plays a college professor who thinks he has become a rich man. He decides to invest money in a bad show because he likes one of the girls in the show, and he takes the show to Broadway. Buster Keaton has a very nice speaking voice, and this is the first "talkie" of his that I have seen. Of note also in the film is Thelma Todd. She plays a golddigger, but her performance is very funny and holds up today just as well as it did then. The scene where she and Keaton get drunk I found hysterical.