"Speak Easily" actually isn't as bad as I'd been given beforehand to expect. True, Jimmy Durante, playing a stand-up (or in his case, sit-down) comic called 'Jimmy', is basically playing himself, but in this context it is at least appropriate. True, adorning Buster Keaton with a fussy pair of pince-nez throughout the entire film deprives him of his principal means of expression -- his eyes -- but on the other hand, it establishes the character and does actually suit him: Keaton in his thirties had always borne a resemblance to a sculpted bronze bust, and as he administers a professorial stare through his perched glasses, his features appear more strongly modelled than ever. True, Keaton is clearly struggling with the 'refined' vocabulary and accents required for the part -- possibly his most extended piece of vocal acting -- but in the context of comedy his strained and somewhat artificial delivery is not out of place...
This is a perfectly decent little 'smalltown act makes it big on Broadway' story, nothing special but nothing worse than a dozen others in the genre. It's reasonably entertaining, although it has its share of lines that simply fall flat. And I can forgive a great deal for the sake of Keaton's wickedly accurate take-off of Napoleon Bonaparte in the opening scene; as proved so memorably in his 'ape act' on-screen back in "The Playhouse" (1921), given the opportunity the man was a truly gifted mimic.
Having said all this, however, it has to be owned that the one thing that really isn't necessary to this story is the presence of Buster Keaton. Which is unfortunate, because realistically speaking the only reason why anyone is likely to revive it these days is because of his name on the title screen! There's just one laugh that depends on Keaton's persona, and that's when Jimmy Durante attempts to demonstrate the effectiveness of his stage patter on this passer-by, whom of course the audience know to be incapable of cracking a smile. As so often with MGM's chosen vehicles for their unwilling star, one ends up wondering why they wanted him in it -- wouldn't any actor have done as well? In the case of this material, at least, there were almost certainly actors who might have done better...
Increasingly, all that the studio required of Keaton was the ability to take a fall and/or look bewildered, and that's about all he does here; the grand finale consists chiefly of swinging him round and round on a loop of rope, the humour of which does tend to wear off after a bit. The entire final sequence is based on what I had found to be the least successful section of "Spite Marriage" -- made by MGM only three years before -- in which Keaton's character blunders through the performance of a play, including the blatant re-use of a title-card gag from the silent feature in which the harassed stage manager hisses "Shoot him, they'll think it's part of the act!" Sooner or later, as Keaton's name lost its old shine, the penny was inevitably going to drop. MGM *didn't* need Buster Keaton for this sort of stuff, not when they had comics who could both fall over and talk. And with the once-meticulous performer reduced by the experience to an increasingly unreliable shell, his net worth to the studio was rapidly decreasing.
"Speak Easily" is not a bad film; it can still raise a few laughs. (It's not an especially outstanding one either, but that's another issue.) What it is not is in any sense a film representative of Keaton's strengths; given the disintegration of his personal and professional life at this stage, and the resultant number of days lost during filming to the fact that he had drunk himself into a condition unfit to work, it is perhaps surprising that he gives a performance as collected as this ultimately appears, but there's little trace left of his own distinctive style. He does a job that anyone else could have done, and does it more or less as well as can be expected.
This is a perfectly decent little 'smalltown act makes it big on Broadway' story, nothing special but nothing worse than a dozen others in the genre. It's reasonably entertaining, although it has its share of lines that simply fall flat. And I can forgive a great deal for the sake of Keaton's wickedly accurate take-off of Napoleon Bonaparte in the opening scene; as proved so memorably in his 'ape act' on-screen back in "The Playhouse" (1921), given the opportunity the man was a truly gifted mimic.
Having said all this, however, it has to be owned that the one thing that really isn't necessary to this story is the presence of Buster Keaton. Which is unfortunate, because realistically speaking the only reason why anyone is likely to revive it these days is because of his name on the title screen! There's just one laugh that depends on Keaton's persona, and that's when Jimmy Durante attempts to demonstrate the effectiveness of his stage patter on this passer-by, whom of course the audience know to be incapable of cracking a smile. As so often with MGM's chosen vehicles for their unwilling star, one ends up wondering why they wanted him in it -- wouldn't any actor have done as well? In the case of this material, at least, there were almost certainly actors who might have done better...
Increasingly, all that the studio required of Keaton was the ability to take a fall and/or look bewildered, and that's about all he does here; the grand finale consists chiefly of swinging him round and round on a loop of rope, the humour of which does tend to wear off after a bit. The entire final sequence is based on what I had found to be the least successful section of "Spite Marriage" -- made by MGM only three years before -- in which Keaton's character blunders through the performance of a play, including the blatant re-use of a title-card gag from the silent feature in which the harassed stage manager hisses "Shoot him, they'll think it's part of the act!" Sooner or later, as Keaton's name lost its old shine, the penny was inevitably going to drop. MGM *didn't* need Buster Keaton for this sort of stuff, not when they had comics who could both fall over and talk. And with the once-meticulous performer reduced by the experience to an increasingly unreliable shell, his net worth to the studio was rapidly decreasing.
"Speak Easily" is not a bad film; it can still raise a few laughs. (It's not an especially outstanding one either, but that's another issue.) What it is not is in any sense a film representative of Keaton's strengths; given the disintegration of his personal and professional life at this stage, and the resultant number of days lost during filming to the fact that he had drunk himself into a condition unfit to work, it is perhaps surprising that he gives a performance as collected as this ultimately appears, but there's little trace left of his own distinctive style. He does a job that anyone else could have done, and does it more or less as well as can be expected.