Ever since the 1920s moviemakers have been able to marry sound with visuals.

Yet it astounds me that the best part of a century later, some directors are still treating scripts as an afterthought to their visuals and serving up creaking dialogue which sparks the immediate thought among bemused audiences — "Is that the best they could do?"

While it might be forgivable in big-budget blockbusters where the viewer is carried away by the onscreen pyrotechnics, it is unacceptable in comedy where the words are paramount.

The latest annoying case in point is 'Military Intelligence and You!' which marries up vintage film clips from US Army training films with a supposedly satirical plot line featuring modern actors.

Certainly director Dale Kutzera deserves full credit for seamlessly weaving the two together. While it seems an obvious idea, I can't recall too many others coming up with the same format.

And thus we meet Major Nick Reed, a military analyst determined to find a hidden Nazi fighter base. In the operations room he comes across old flame Lt. Monica Tasty (Elizabeth Bennett) who is, you guessed it, quite tasty.

But she disapproves of his ruthless methods as he tries to find out where the Ghost Squadron are based before they wreak more havoc on Allied offensives.

But our Nick has a nose for where the bad guys are hiding.

Meanwhile, as we switch to the vintage footage, we see plucky captured American soldiers being duped into giving out seemingly innocuous bits of information which put their comrades in jeopardy.

The thing is held together with a voiceover with authentic sounding 1940s speech patterns who delivers the bulk of the leaden jokes — most of which are a satire on American military aggression since 9/11.

Thus when the General demands proof of where the enemy are thought to be lurking, Major Reed replies: "I am sorry I could not manufacture any for you."

Through it all the threat level moves from orange to tangerine and then back to butterscotch. And so on.

During 78 minutes I think I registered a grand total of three half-hearted titters. The whole thing suffers from a failure to change pace and has the feel of a self-satisfied and sub-standard episode of Police Squad but without the visual gags.

Attempts at bad taste humour fail because Kutzera pulls back.

None of the actors are charismatic enough to keep you gripped and more than once I found myself looking at my watch to see how long was left.

Strangely I found myself enjoying the 1940s footage as it did at least prove mildly educational. Never thought I would prefer propaganda to comedy.