Good Comedy Mostly Fine for the Family

In the 1932 American pre-code comedy film Speak Easily, Buster Keaton plays Timoleon Zanders Post, a rather mild-mannered professor at Potts College. His assistant Jenkins, played by Sidney Bracey, feels he needs to get out and experience life, basically live a little. Professor Post is extremely excited to receive a letter stating he has inherited $750,000.00 and rushes off on an adventure.

On a train, Professor Post meets Pansy Peets, played by Ruth Selwyn, an actress in a small time dancing troupe playing backwater towns. He catches a performance and is enraptured, not seeing its amateurish aspects. He tells the troupe’s manager, James, played by Jimmy Durante, that he has all this money and will back the show on Broadway where it is sure to be a smash success, and they all travel to New York.

Meanwhile, Jenkins confesses to a superior at the college that he wrote the letter to encourage Professor Post to enjoy life. The other man does not feel a conservative man like Post can get into real trouble. In New York, a conceited actress, Eleanor Espere, played by Thelma Todd, puts the moves on the innocent and unsuspecting Post. A night of heavy drinking ensues, although that was still illegal under Prohibition, which didn’t end until over a year after Speak Easily was released. The Hays Code was not strictly enforced until after Prohibition ended.

A man sent to collect bills the acting company accumulated while putting on the show threatens to slap an attachment on everything and keep the show from opening. James sends Post to New Jersey, but he returns, and in his clumsy attempts to make the show run smoothly, turns it into a comedy success. Buster Keaton performs many stunts and ridiculous pratfalls throughout, and as usual is great in the role of an underdog who emerges to win the day. With the possible exception of the drunk scene this is fine for all ages, in fact, let kids see the drunk scene as a precaution against excess.