In the Good Old Summertime

In the Good Old Summertime

MGM
July 29, 1949

Musical, Historical Comedy

DVD
C-

Well, at least it's better than You've Got Mail.  Robert Z. Leonard directed.

Speak Easily

Speak Easily
MGM
August 13, 1932
Comedy
DVD
C+

While this is never as funny as it promises to be, it's an amiable enough movie, both as pre-Code saucy as Thelma Todd (cast to type as someone with "sex appeal") and as bumblingly innocent as Buster Keaton playing an unworldly professor.  Jimmy Durante tells a lot of deliberately bad jokes, and the film meanders, but it's a pleasant 80 minutes or so.  (And a time capsule of course, with "drag" used in the "Varsity Drag" sense.)  Edward Sedgwick directed.

The General (1926)

The General (1926)
United Artists
January 2, 1927
Historical Comedy
DVD
C

While this started out promisingly, with a sly, whimsical sense of humor, about a poor schnook whose girlfriend pressures him to enlist in the Civil War, my attention wandered by the half-hour mark, when he was trying to keep the train going.  Keaton stars, co-directed (with Clyde Bruckman), and co-wrote, based on the William Pittenger book The Great Locomotive Chase.